SHORT STORY

So, on this brilliant April afternoon, when the wind rustles in and scatters the papers, they gather in the Common Room. Amidst chairs scraping, coughs, low murmurs, one by one, his colleagues mouth eulogies….

They are up before the streets come alive. They go from house to house.They do not scale the gate but stay around the wall. This is about the fraction of the population, active and functional from five a.m. to seven a.m….

Dear you,
It is strange to call you so, as if you do not have a name. But you do, and I was forbidden, in the early days of our marriage, to put that name on you, to grow close to you in the articulation of that name in the little, everyday routine of our lives. But it never happened, not even when we moved to our own house….

A small hillock stands above the smaller hillocks dotting the village as far as eyes can see. All of them have experienced the transforming touch of human hands; and are now flourishing areca-nut, black pepper, banana gardens…

That Basket of Food Dr Bhupati Das Manu was walking slowly to Mahajan’s house. He was feeling low and depressed.