Om…hello, am I speaking with Om? Om, Hi… ___ here…you remember me…I don’t know why I am calling you today…but can we meet…sure, I will drop in this moment…
(in a daze) He spoke as if he had known all along, that one day I shall turn towards him…
I didn’t ask him what time…well, he asked me to visit him this moment…why this moment…as if the world was being visited by a special moment…which was going to brush away the accumulated dust off our hearts and minds…
Anyway, onward to Om’s house…
(Om …

11 pm, Monday, August 10, 2010, New Delhi
“Looking out of my office bus window, I realized that the invention of motorcars were nothing but a waste of time. We sit inside the tin boxes discounting the fun of natural phenomena like rain!
I kept starring at the massive jams outside and somehow a thought came to my mind, why am I being so depressed about this rain. After all when I saw outside, cloud where on ‘cloud nine’ and it raining very heavily…And then
I took the CORRECT step…
I decided to complete …

I left my two-year-old son without kissing him good-bye.
“Mama’s running to the store, play with daddy. I’ll be back soon.”
His dark brown eyes pierced the armor guarding my heart—as if we both knew I was lying.
But that was impossible. Mason had a hard enough time stringing together a coherent sentence, let alone comprehending the fact he’d never see his mother again.
Lyle didn’t so much as peel his eyes from the TV, or his lazy ass from the couch. Nothing new there. The last I heard of my husband’s voice?
A grunt.
The …

The Indian Railway train #2032 down Raajdhaani Express slowed down and finally stopped at a railway station. There were very few people on the platform. A frail man stood on the platform, facing the train. He was doing small magic tricks. He pulled out a scarf from nowhere and his wand vanished into thin air! Inside the train a ‘man of science’ and an author of romantic novels sat by the window seats, facing each other. He relied on logic and she (the author), relied on her heart. The two …

I wake up with a start. It had to be a nightmare.
What else can possibly explain it?
Dazed, I glance at the clock. 4am.
Waking up scared, night after night, how long will I suffer?
I snuggle under my sleep-warmed quilt and my hand reaches out
to stroke the cold half of the bed-Empty since the last month.
All I want to do is curl up and weep.
But the tears have all dried up, sucked out from me by the same dark
angel that crushed his skull to unidentifiable pieces that evening.
I feel cold inside, without …

Even in the dark, I could see, the end was near, death was throwing open it’s arms to me. I could feel my pulse ticking, my heart was drumming in my ears,” any minute now” I thought to myself.
“Chikne!! table saaf kar” the man in blue loongi yelled at me.
I hurried to dutifully do the same, after all Anna bhau’s eyes were on me. I had come to Mumbai a day back, the last train from the village left at 3 am, I with the unerring logic of a 15 …

Akash’s diary
January 01, 2010
I woke up wishing I was dead. If dreams come true then why am I not an actor? I dream that I win awards, I’m a star and I’m married to the superstar Antariksha. And then I wake up.
My current job is so unglamorous, it’s ironical. I’m an accountant. Accounting has set rules; certain items can only be debited. If an amount meant to be debited is credited, the account won’t balance. But once everything balances, I can go home knowing that everything is in order. Except …

Esmay sat crying on the porch steps, thinking with dread at what her daddy had planned.  At first she thought it was all a sick and cruel joke; his way of paying her back for something she wasn’t quite sure she had done.  But as the days had wore on things became obviously clear that it was as real as the tears that filled her small hands.  She had planned to run; hide anything to avoid the terror not moments away.  She was an only child and the betrayal she …

Tringg-Tringgggggg! Anna wriggled in bed hoping the ringing would stop. When she eventually answered, her maid was calling to inform she wouldn’t come to work, as rains had flooded her house. Sulking, Anna slid back under the duvet, wishing she also could stay in. Having moved to the city few months back, Anna lived alone and worked with an advertising firm. Unwillingly assisting colleague Mary on a presentation for high-revenue client Mr. John, Anna worked late and hardly managed a few winks. The fact that she wasn’t part of the …