By Kishori Charan Das
Mr Rangarao had died. How did the Indian community in Washington DC react?
THE weatherman had announced that we were likely to have snowfall towards evening. It was the midday news; one John Douglas had conveyed the news to us along with a recipe for New Frontier nail-polish. It was his usual […]

The narrator relates an experience aboard a train.

The narrator finally returned to Tejo. How would he find her?

By Irene Dhar Malik
Her friends thought Sharmishtha had the perfect life… or did she?
THE Borivili-bound fast local was speeding past stations and I stood in the comer I had been pushed to, and thereby allotted, when I had boarded the train at Mumbai Central. As usual, I was peeping across shoulders trying to read […]

This Hans Christian Anderson Christmas time classic is a lesson in appreciating what you have.

Love conquers the hatred and mistrust of a son towards his father’s mistress.

By Sheela Jaywant
MATHUR-ABAI CROSSED my dispensary daily at lunchtime, sweltering under a thick cotton scarf wrapped around her skull and neck. Her nylon sari-padar stuck out behind her like a tail beneath a sleeveless sweater of the some rough material. The vermillion kunku that smeared her forehead melted and trickled with the sweat down a […]

By Sheela Jaywant
Even as a liftman, Rampal had an opportunity to save a life.
THE MEMORY of army life seemed like it was someone else’s. He couldn’t believe he’d lived with a sten beside him for fourteen years, day and night, in tents, on mountain peaks, in trucks, fields, everywhere, every moment. Amongst men, only […]

By Sheela Jaywant
Rampal, the liftman, reminisced about his days in the army.
BETWEEN THE fourth and fifth storeys, he was alone in the lift. Just as the door closed, he placed his cap on the stool, aimed his palms to the floor, flipped his body over them into a handstand; his eyes watched the red […]

By Dhoomketu
Two souls melting in the darkness of the night. One lame and another blind.
Come December, and Mithila’s afternoons are mild, wonderfully languorous and soporific. Anhara hadn’t eaten all day. After the Janaki Express left, he moved to the western edge of the platform and sat down under the peepal tree there. Groping in […]