A tattered station, a lonely platform lined with banyan, neem & jasmine trees, a single train, a vendor serving meals – a gentleman is stationed there. Other stations had a station master but this one had a master. A master of stations. Static like the station. The station was built over an old crumbling crematorium.…

It was a clear sky that day. There wasn’t any faint hope of rain. Suddenly, it started raining with a petrichor effect. The day was October the second. A national holiday for some, a day of restriction for others. For Sandeep, it was a day to remember an unknown fatherly figure; quite like his deceased…

Sparrows twittering beside the bedside window. Young lads in their teens, playing with kites. A god riding his elephant, overlooking the work in progress. The work was to curve out a creature, a human. Faint music from a sarod, setting the stage for a maestro. Is there a story, my dear? Will the writer put…

She opened the diary. Re-read the pages. It seemed like whimsical writings of an adolescent. January 12, 2001- the lady graduated from college; easy, fun-loving, skeptical, cynical and childishly prudent. Eagerly waiting to embark on a journey to know the outside world. October 21, 2004- the lady has finished her academic career; uneasy, restless, uncertain,…

12 years have passed since she visited her school. She has herself become a teacher now. Yes, a teacher; but not quite the way she had expected. Her “gurudakshina” have turned into a sin. The principles she stood for all her life, she has defied one of them. Albeit this isn’t a first. The second…

Its been almost a year since she had put pen to paper. After a dull breakfast of cereals, she sat wondering. Suddenly, last evening’s conversation dawned on her. Her father was speaking of her cousin who is preparing for an US study endeavour. Unmindful, she heard the whole information series. Scarcely did she listen. The…

It’s been 25 years she is out of business. as she penned the last line she remembered her first customer. she met him 5 decades ago. she was 11, he was 24. she just onto her adolescent days, he just out of university. she was naive and raw while he was full of excitement and…

cloud covered sky. silence in the air. 2 sparrows communicating with each other. one sitting on a coconut tree. the other one on a barren tree. between them stood a lifeless wooden pole waiting to support the string which hangs washed clothes. the house has a deserted look today. her residents gone to another shore.…