You might have seen her regularly. She comes at about eight or nine in the morning. She comes with her hesitant and slow pace. She carries a basket or a tin box under her arm. That basket or tin…
A man returning home at night from a simple cremation, having thanked everyone: we could simply call him Achhan. Because, only three children in the city know his value. They call him Achha. Sitting in the bus among strangers, he…
It was a night she would remember all the days of her life. It was the night before the day when the fate of the baby in her womb would be decided. As though it also sensed the turmoil in…
I was wandering about in my timeless world of happiness in heaven when angel Gabriel approached me. She gave me a task, the same task that I had performed back when I was in my living state, on earth. She…
The experience of love that I’m going to describe is the strangest. So here’s an advance warning: chaste wives (in the satisavitri mould) and strictly monogamous men (in the maryaadaapurushottam mould) are advised against reading this account. I will not…
Our love overflowed with romance, burned intense and youthful. Just the way Grand’ad Basheer, the master storyteller1, imagined it to be. However, the story wasn’t without a few amendments. I wasn’t Kesavan Nair. Neither was she Saramma. Instead, she was…
I have never seen him. I’m not going to either. He was my brother’s friend. All I know of him is from what I have been told by Rajettan. Early teens are an age when girls hero-worship their elder brothers.…
She had expected the manager to be alone in his room. Flanking the table and facing each other, sat two other men. ‘Take your seat, please.’ She sat facing the manager. ‘I had meant to come as soon as I…
‘Someone wants to meet you, Sir. He’s been waiting for sometime now, ‘ Raman Nair said, while sorting out the day’s mail and placing it before me. ‘Tell him I can’t.’ ‘I did. I told him he ought to have…
All that I had striven to build through the years lay shattered around me. My pride would not let me bend and pick up the bits and pieces. Pride-what a meaningless word! My sandcastle, which I myself fashioned and set…
Ever since I could remember, he had looked the same. Dark, tall, spare bodied. Long limbs and taut muscles. Just like a statue chiseled out of rosewood. No one could say for sure how old he was. They say he…
‘Ramsaran, who is that girl?’ ‘She must be the priest’s daughter. He lives nearby.’ ‘Bhargavacharya’s?’ ‘Yes, my Lord.’ ‘Surprising! A rose on a blade of darbha grass.’ ‘I have heard that the maiden’s mother was extremely beautiful.’ ‘Is she no…
