“Not yet time for coffee?” He came in from his afternoon nap, yawning repeatedly, and called out: “Three o’clock already and coffee not ready yet?…“ It was only then that she laid down the ‘Social Welfare’ newspaper in her hand,…
“Two people in one person”, said Charu to her husband Jayan. In the few days of his acquaintance with his wife, Jayan recognised this for the start of a long harangue. But he did not express his confusion. Jayan was…
Her voice was like the scrape of rusted steel. A dark purple vein on her withered neck stood out as if to brandish a war cry. The old lady adjusted her glasses and with no particular introduction, asked: Do you…
He had only removed the bolt on the huge iron gates. It parted in two with a strange noise – much like the tortured sob of an assaulted woman, he thought. In the large front yard laid in concrete were…
As in the novel The Legends of Khasak, the youth addressed the old man as ‘the father of the artist’. Okay, let that be the title of this story. The old man was resting in the canvas chair with his…
Brought in from the ambulance into the house on a softly padded stretcher, it was Seethalakshmi herself who saw the dolls. They sat swinging their legs on the branches of the mango tree. One of them looked at her and…
I have no doubt in my mind as regards the beginning. About whom should I begin describing? All except those who had begotten me are dear to me. Yet the one who will live forever in the light of my…
‘Two people in one person,’ Charu was telling her husband Jayan. From his meagre acquaintance with her for a few days, Jayan knew it to be the beginning of yet another yarn. However, he did not express his inner perplexity.…
Drives you crazy, this pest of a Soul! Sarala Head Mistress falls asleep—and hey—this Other-female, this sly Soul, wakes up. Out of Mistress’s ageing body—all of forty years—it emerges, stretching vigorously like a hunter waking in his river-side tent, throwing…
It was with the quip ‘Hari Shankar seems to be away,’ that Ram Prasad came that sultry, hot noon. I tried hard to conceal the buds of pleased surprise that sprung to life in me and assumed the politeness reserved…
Sheherban saw off her son. He was to get her some horse-urine. The Kawadiar palace had horses; it was quite nearby. But the urine of those horses was not within the reach of the poor! So she sent him off…
She woke at four o’clock on hearing the alarm. At once she jumped out of bed and headed for the kitchen. She washed her face and lighted the stove. She put the tava on the fire to fry papads. Umma…
