It was the third day. Budhia was once more atop the tall palm tree. Mangala shook her head in despair. ‘No one can save this man’, she thought, ‘he was sure to die any day now’. Budhia, her husband, would climb the palm tree at day-break and remain there for the rest of the day. No food, no water for him. He would pee in his loin cloth and it would dry in the sun. He would look over the undulating land, mostly barren. The little crop that grew has been reaped. The land lay like stubble on a rough cheek. There wasn’t much to see. Yet Budhia, expert climber that he was, perched himself on the tall tree. He looked and looked all around, all day long. He looked for the return of his son. Bansidhar was born eight years after their first born Parvati. Budhia was crazy about…
“New year, new me.” I exhaled and said to myself,though loudly enough to be heard by Mr Husband. “I can see that, Anu,”he…
They were reading poetry, the English kind.It was exhausting, and the Miss wouldn’t take a break. Meera scratched her palms yet again. She was…
Ameena was 15 when she married Munir. “Got” married, to be precise. She first laid eyes on him at the Nikah (wedding ceremony). Munir’s…
When the Deputy Editor called his line, “Could you please come to my cabin for a moment?” Roger left a sentence typing halfway, logged…
When Ram helped his father to the rear seat of the cab, Kumar held the old man on the other side. “Appa, you board…
With moist and dismayed eyes a foreign worker in clothes mildly smeared with grease and paint stood first in the growing queue. Pusillanimously lost in thought…
Looking far at the wilds, Jack turned to askBala, “Are leeches found here during these months?” when the latter was about to dash up…
It was a Friday afternoon in January. The widespread Neem with several sturdy and innumerable small branches made the atmosphere cool. A couple of…
