Cheetah was afraid of losing his edge; he had worked very hard for it. As the cliché went: Use it or lose it! The thought of losing his speed to nothing but apathy made him very anxious. He saw himself getting rusty and crumbling to dust. How he missed his old buddies! If only he […]
Fiction
To Be A Magnet- (I)
Cheetah yawned. It was a typically drowsy, warm summer day. He looked around, utterly bored. There never was anything to do in this awful jungle. Once again, the regret of having to relocate to this dull place smote him. He sighed sadly. He’d had to relocate; there were no gazelles or deer left in his […]
Fifteen Years
He is coming home after fifteen years! They told me he was coming. A million times since then, I have repeated the sentence to myself. I have said it flatly and whispered it to myself with breathless excitement. I have tempered it with every different shade of emotion there is in the universe. I […]
A Simple Rope Swing
There was a rope swing on a tree. And there was a child. The swing was a pretty rudimentary affair- just like the simpler times which forms the story’s backdrop. Two parallel loops of ordinary, thick, jute rope tied on a thick limb of the tree. A rough wooden plank jammed between the loops, bridging […]
Betrayal (V- Conclusion)
Continued from Betrayal (IV) Vasudha’s reply to Chandini’s last mail was a lot more positive in tone than all her previous mails. She seemed to have realized that a blow might have knocked her to her knees, but to stay there was an act of choice. She had bridged the fine gap between considering ‘on […]
Betrayal (IV)
Continued from Betrayal (III) It had barely been a few hours since Chandni had written her last mail to Vasudha. She had a sense of waiting. Somehow, she was sure Vasudha would reply. She waited online, mucking around listlessly, unable to call it a night and go to bed. She left the machine running and […]
Betrayal (III)
Continued from Betrayal (II) Chandini kept thinking about Vasudha all day. She was impatient to finish up at work and write another mail to her. Vasudha’s reply to her last mail was fresh in her mind. Chandni had detected the beginning of a all or none panic in her. It seemed she was determined to […]
Betrayal (II)
Continued from Betrayal (I) Chandini powered up her laptop, murmured a short prayer and began pouring her soul out on the cold glass of her screen. My dear Vasudha, I read your mail. You know my love and regard for you well enough to know what the knowledge of your pain is doing to me. […]
Betrayal (I)
Chandini logged out of her email account and closed all open windows on her laptop. She stared fixedly at the desktop wallpaper that she must have seen a million times before. It was as if she was seeing it for the first time. There was nothing extraordinary about the picture. It was a landscape showing […]
Untamed
I gasped in shock as the scream slammed into me. It took me a few moments to realize that the awful guttural sound of pure rage had emerged from my own throat. All of the past year I have tried to run away from that scream. It was the sole witness to that truth you […]