Sundays were holidays for Oxford Coaching Academy too, so when my mobile rang that morning, I was in my room, slicing onions on an inverted steel plate. Sandeep, my roommate, had finished cleaning the chicken and was setting up a makeshift kitchen in our only room. An induction cooktop, two pots, a box of spices, a spoon and two plates were all the kitchen we had. The call was from Rajesh, another loser like me from my village. We used to be best friends at school, going fishing together and everything else, but I didn’t feel like talking to him today. The last couple of times he had called, it was for money. Just a hundred or two each time, no more than that. Perhaps he, too, had grown sick of asking his parents for money, just like me. I had sent him the money then, but now I was…
One must be somewhat mad to leave home at half-past four in the morning, but such are the demands of a working life in…
Ananda Mukherjee was, by all accounts, a contented man. At forty-two, he was a respected physics professor at a reputable college in Kolkata. He…
Introduction This collection of short tales from the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II and Johnston Island is my embroidery on stories that my…
My name is Adithya. Everyone calls me Adi. I’m ten years old, and my sister Divya is thirteen, and she thinks she knows everything.…
The trunk of that great tree separated us from our husbands. They sailed on the canoe, and we could hear their laughter. The sun…
Most of the rest of the world doesn’t understand why we have a king. I’m not sure our population does either. It’s not as…
Rosin was a member of my writers’ group in Dublin—a woman in her forties, sturdy yet graceful, with auburn hair, a ready smile, and…
Fozia Khan lay on her Charpoy under the open sky. The night in the Tank district was still. From far away came the sound…
It was 11:55 p.m. when he stepped out of Moscow’s Lefortovo Metro Station. His whole body ached; his legs trembled. His eyes were sleepy.…
