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Browsing All Posts filed under »Fiction«
Readers Write In #135: Reconnect
(by Iniya, the 14-year-old daughter of Aravindan R, a regular reader of this blog) PROLOGUE – FORTNIGHT Me That’s it. My life’s over. What will everyone say? Nah! Who cares what they say. Like I’m going to tell them. They’ll probably laugh at me. None of it matters now, without her. She was the only joy in […]
Readers Write In #113: Why Babies Cry?
November 13, 2019
(by Amit Joki) When I saw the first light of my life, I was bewildered. There were so many unknown people who were poking me, disturbing my cheeks, pulling my fingers and toes. It seemed to me these people had no jobs but to have a go at me. I was powerless. My tiny little […]
Readers Write In #103: The Turk
October 8, 2019
(by Sanjay NM) So, we moved on to the next round, like in a boxing bout. Some would say it was boxing but I prefer to call it “healthy exchanges”. In the good old days, we would sit around and have these exchanges over that lousy liquid. Arguments that were as eclectic as anything. Topics from […]
Readers Write In #15: The Forbidden Kiss
April 29, 2017
It was still dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of the Delhi airport. The early morning February air was pleasantly cold. I was travelling to Bengaluru to attend a college friend’s wedding. It had been four years since we graduated from the same college. This wedding was […]
Out in newsstands now…
April 5, 2016
The new issue of The Indian Quarterly is out, and I have a story in it. (As in, fiction.) Do check it out. PS: A big shout-out to everyone who read early drafts and made suggestions. PPS: It’s not online yet.
Day two
June 21, 2015
The second day of laryngitis is the worst. The first day, you’re just coughing, and the doctor feels your throat and nods, as if you’re supposed to be well-versed in the language of doctorly nods. Pursed lips means: It’s bad. Raised eyebrows mean: Well, I never. That sort of thing. I am not a nod […]
In verse
April 18, 2015
April, I hear, is National Poetry Month. Only in the United States, technically, but we can, we should appropriate it for the global village too. And so here I am, wondering how to celebrate NPM this morning While at my desk, waiting for my phone to charge And the laundry cycle to finish. Maybe I’ll […]
A month without Mary
April 2, 2012
About thirty days ago, I said goodbye to Mary. We were expecting a call, and when the call came we ran to the hospital, to the ICU, past the sweetly round-faced woman at the door who betrayed her Bengali provenance through air-heavy admonitions, and as the others waited outside, I went in and stood by […]
The Girl Who Smelled of Rum
June 9, 2009
SHE ASKED ME WHAT MY FAVOURITE SWEET WAS and I said groundnut balls and she wouldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. She’d sober up, her moonface reflecting the resolve to leave my feelings unhurt, then she’d make the anatomical connection and begin to laugh again. I told her she didn’t speak my language and that’s […]
To My Left, On My Bed
June 8, 2007
IN THE CENTRE OF HER BACK, between two knobby outgrowths of spine, there’s a mole. It rises slightly from the skin, a tiny hillock of dull red, shaped like a strawberry with its top chewed off. It’s not a mole, she concluded one afternoon, when I told her about my discovery. She tried to feel […]
January 22, 2020
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