Fiction

                                              WONDER She wondered. It is the deep afternoon.Shaan was crouched over his lap top.His two hands  moved  haltingly over the key board the clawed fingers remaining  motionless and raised a little  over the keyboard.She  could see his eyes widen up while looking at  the screen intently.Suddenly he moved and seeing her  standing there in the door way of his room he   pressed some   key and with annoyance grudged her  being there. With a flutter in her heart  she told him that she  wanted to see him since he hardly showed him-self up with the rest of his family.She told him she knew that he was very busy with his exam preparations but then  she felt like coming to his room. He ban...

                                              Opaque Sight The teeming moments between this moment and the ones which have slid past seem bursting at the seams entailing the vast repertoire of stormy material which have grown pricks tattooing my heart with a graffiti  lurking eternally to gobble me up rendering me a mute spectator of the world going around It  was a huge hiatus  a big blank between this moment and the buried  past. The other day I was walking over the corridors of Daryaganj  in Delhi. Stretched  out before me were the wide swathes  of books gone soggy and soiled in the dusty paths.People were walking past them and unwittingly treading  upon them which of-course could have been avoided if there was some thought for those beings of imm...

                                                    The Album  The cute monkey baby riding the back of its mother  was terrifically frolicsome.Jumping from the back going over the wall and then hanging from a branch swaying indulgently and the sullen mother though confident of the safety of its offspring growled at anyone who came in its vicinity .She would look at them lovingly till the mother got up lazily careless of its mischievous imp who would make a neat dive on her back who sauntered away like a self absorbed ape carrying the burden with an imperceptible signs of worry in her  eyes.   She was holding the hand of her child while trying to cross the road.It  was early evening and it was her daily...

It was extremely hot. SHE had covered her head fully and was wearing the sunglasses   which she had preserved since long. They belonged to her child and looked quite pricy  though she could never estimate their price even after looking at the label.She hardly knew any brands.It was the way her child had  guarded it all the time  that she estimated its worthiness.The urgency with which she took them after her child discarded them  showed her hidden desire to always  possess them.They soothed her eyes and the dusty and scalding atmosphere got mellowed down to a soft hue of shady tenderness.Her aching legs picked up speed.Brushing the trees on the side walks she marched ahead. She was sweating profusely.The sweat dripped down her knotty fingers highlighting the thick varicose veins.She let it be.she never wanted to smear her hanky with the grimy sweat since she wanted to save it exclusively for her face.And then it was very bothersome to get a clean one...

                                                       The Balm The small oval piece of lawn centred her in the middle.The  grass looked   anaemic green with a tinge of yellow in it.The intertwining soft blades merged into  one another turning into a soft mesh of expanse. Soni felt  a strange empathy with it.She had put her chair in the middle of the lawn  but suddenly she felt that she was trampling on it.She tried to lift her feet a little higher to lessen the area of pressure on it.One leg she pulled up and the other she left dangling.She could sense that the movements had quietened their imperceptible hobnobbing. In the margins of this small oval lawn she could see some plants growing haphazardly but  with wild abandon...

                                              Canvas She tried to get up from her bed.It was going to be evening.The sun was almost setting but the intense summer heat was all consuming.She jerked her gnarled hands and   thrust her feet into her well- worn out slippers which were now loose and  ill-fitting.she was a little disjointed as to her next move.Well she had to push off to the near- by park.prior to this she had tried her best to dig into the note book which she always had along side.nothing seemed to be materializing.A non-sense compulsion of repulsive obsession.A slow breeze was building up stealithly  trying to pierce the invisible hot sheets  of burning air.She quickly changed into her shoes.They were the sturdy branded sport...

                                                                                  Panic        The small plane touched the tarmac.So they had reached.It was windy and cold in the air.Her eyes panned the entire airport which was all concrete and because of that there was nothing idyllic about it and nor any hidden niches to be explored.Mona held her carry bags and rushed through  the transit.Everybody seemed to be bolting out.She found a strange change in the demeanour of her co-passengers.They were hurrying their kith and kin with an urgency boardering  on intolerance.Their kin who might be joining them first time got into panic.But their adaptation to the situation was astounding.They became more pushy and tried to jostle through the cr...

                                                                 Revelation                                                The dichotomy between this self and that? I never tried this region which remained dormant so far-how it has taken an enormous shape now. Renu felt as if she was drowned in the deep fathomless ocean where she was simply flailing her limbs in all directions trying to remain afloat while the two points of her pupils looked back into her skull.The deep bluish waters had stars of small fishes and other aquatic life swerling and speeding up in fits and starts-their rested sembl...

                                                                 Revelation                                                The dichotomy between this self and that? I never tried this region  which remained dormant so far-how it has taken an enormous shape now. Renu felt as if she was drowned in the deep fathomless ocean where she was simply flailing her limbs in all directions trying to remain afloat while the two points of her pupils looked back into her skull.The deep bluish waters had stars of small fishes and other aquatic life swerling and speeding up in fits and starts-their rested...

                                                                     Bus-stop Sheena craned her eyes into the distance on her rt.She was waiting for the bus which was to take her  to the nearby public library. She was new to the place and in an entirely different world.She was feeling very nervous though she was made to memorise all the small and big landmarks which she could recognize while going towards the library.Yet  she was mortally scared of getting lost.The place and the people were new to her though few people were in sight..The wind started  blowing hard.She held to her shawl tightly which she had worn like a stole in order to avoid looking starkly alien in this foreign land.She kept her eyes glued to the electronic schedule board which flashed the coming bus routes every minute.The bus...

                                                   Reaching out Every bit of sound coming from the other side of her room pricked Richa’s ears.with bated breath she waited for somebody to open the door and appear to her view but it never happened.Her window opened in the common courtyard which was attached to the other end of her house where her tenant stayed.  He  was a boy in his twenties of lean body medium height and of unsure gait.He had almost begged  for the accommodation since his place of work was quite nearby and no other rental vacancy being available.Richa’s mother like an inveterate land lord scrutinized him from head to toe and seemed not interested but Richa  took pity on him .The boy was almost half in and half out of the main gate almost buoyed there not daring to enter fully inside.His dangling ID card swayed a litt...

                                                   Reaching out Every bit of sound coming from the other side of her room pricked Richa’s ears.with bated breath she waited for somebody to open the door and appear to her view but it never happened.Her window opened in the common courtyard which was attached to the other end of her house where her tenant stayed.  He  was a boy in his twenties of lean body medium height and of unsure gait.He had almost begged  for the accommodation since his place of work was quite nearby and no other rental vacancy being available.Richa’s mother like an inveterate land lord scrutinized him from head to toe and seemed not interested but Richa  took pity on him .The boy was almost half in and half out of the main gate almost buoyed there not daring to enter fully inside.His dangling ID card swayed a litt...