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Hold My Batter While Things Change Around Me
Many years later, as he faced a supermarket refrigerator stacked with ready-to-eat/cook, this writer was to remember that distant afternoon when his mother took him to buy a wet grinder for the household. My apologies to Colonel Aurelanio Beundia and his creator, but that was exactly what happened. I must have been around six or… Continue reading
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Jesus at the Window
Contains colloquial words spoken by dakhni people of south Tamil Nadu. “Abbu! Don’t hit her Abbu! Usko maro nako… Abbuuu!” Thwack. That disgusting sound was all I could hear. But Nur didn’t cry. She kept looking at the ceiling, or maybe at the slow whirling fan. I couldn’t understand. She had been sitting there all… Continue reading
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The Family Reunion
It was a lazy mid-morning. We were sitting in the verandah, sipping cups of tea, the newspapers well into their second life as bits of entertainment sections. The brother-in-law tried to keep us interested in the local church gossip; my sister talked fashion and cuisines with her sisters-in-law. The kids were playing somewhere in the… Continue reading
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Bus Rides in South India
I usually do some warming-up before I write for work. This is one such, a bit of trip down memory lane. I don’t know if you have ever travelled in mofussil Tamil Nadu towns. I did a lot as a child. Nagercoil, Tirunelveli, Madurai and several districts were places where my parents would drag us… Continue reading
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An Astronaut in a Mumbai Local and other AI-generated Images
A selection of artwork generated by DALL-E Continue reading
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Tryst With Destiny
Seventy-five years of Indian independence. On an occasion that calls for a solemn observation of a hard-fought freedom and a violent birth, we are in the midst of cacophonic and vacuous celebrations, bereft of any honest stock-taking or introspection. Surely, the nation has achieved much, but for some of us, her achievements are overshadowed by… Continue reading
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The Beginning of the End
The story so far: the scene is 2023. The Covid-19 lockdown has continued for three years. It ends abruptly. Read the first part here: http://bij.li/fiction/the-end-of-the-lockdown Dhak dhak dhak dhak dhak. We were swerving. The car behind us sped past, missing us by a couple of inches. I had snoozed off for a few seconds. The… Continue reading
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The Stench
This is part of an exercise for a writing course I took during the Covid19 lockdown. We were asked to write a story that starts after a three-year long pandemic-induced lockdown, without using adjectives or words with more than two syllables. I don’t know if it was the choking that woke me or the stench.… Continue reading
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Uber has an Incentive Problem
Unless you’re living under a rock or completely off social media – which is the same thing – you’ll have seen a lot of tweets, updates and posts expressing frustration over the declining service levels of app-based cabs, particularly Uber. The internet universe is rife with angst. People are upset being stood up, being refused… Continue reading
