Snow When the snow first started falling, no one knew that it wouldn’t stop. The people were grateful because they had never seen snow. Now theirs would be a snow town for a while. Articles were written because it was a miracle. Then, the first houses started caving in. There was snow inside the toilet […]

He had been running every night for almost five years now. Some days he ran towards something, some days he ran away. Mostly, he just ran to reassure himself that he could still move. He would imagine hurtling through time and space, his body an arrow, his will a sharp blade cutting away at lassitude […]

I will write. And if the words don’t come to me, I will write about the not coming of words. The flow of an unused tap, the water rusty and excruciating in its slowness. Because it comes down to this. I have to write. Or I will be driven mad by the drip drip of […]

It was the end of winter when he came, to the town which was just about a town, a kasba. The festival season was over and there was a listlessness in the air of the main road. It would continue till Holi. People were looking for something to break the monotony. The business in shops […]

Subhadra In the old house, there was a tree at its porch, and in that tree was a Vairavar. One Vairavar, different from all the others, in temples and in other trees. I never thought they were the same, the one at our temple and the one in our tree, although when I was a […]

There it is. The jacket. Hanging on the side of the chair, glowing in the morning light. Iridescent blue, with a tinge of green; its color vibrates like a deep bass string. Saraswati picks up the tray too fast. Coffee sloshes over the side of the cup, pooling in the saucer, as her feet negotiate […]

‘Ram, you made it home before I did. How fantastic.’ Jeeja turned the ceiling fan on setting up a fierce breeze. Her sari, which she took off and tossed on the bed, made a translucent, grey-green pyramid that rose and fell with an urgent vibration. ‘Oh you can’t believe what today was like – that […]

Once upon a time, I was in love with a donkey. I did not know he was a donkey right away, of course. He had read so many books and he told me so many new things. Actually, he didn’t so much tell me new things as made me see old things in new ways. […]

This is going to be a lark, Ravi thought, as he ascended the ancient grime-smeared wooden stairs, slightly out of breath. He wiped his glasses and brushed aside the stray hair sweat-glued to his forehead, glad to be at last out of the searing noon glare. A silent sarcastic glee rippled across his face as […]

Madhaba, seven years of age, a pupil of Class One in A.K. Satpathy Municipal School, Baramunda, Bhubaneswar, had been sent out by his mother to buy some rock salt and a bottle of oil. Madhaba had been reluctant to go. On a shelf in their one-room hovel, above the figure of his mother bent over […]