The reversals It is seven fifteen, A tells me. We are both awake as the noisy neighbours from adjacent rooms knock at each other's, calling for 'mummyji' or enquiring 'ready ho gaye kya'. A draws away the blackout curtains but it is only the blobs of white light globes from the street below that glow; the sky hasn't lightened up at all above the Fulham Public Mortuary that overlooks our hotel. We are in London, a few days before Christmas, and my son tells me how the air feel

One could choose the onward journey for speed and precision, but the return might still be on the slow line. A return for documented identities and paraphernalia, however temporary. And then one might see the sunburst of oranges on every house tree, the peeling paint of Ovar and the shine of Cacia as a return north from the sweet Aveiro is ordained. One must stop at Espinho for the mirth that beauty brings.     This is where one will find her     face between the handrails,  

You are the only crack I can snort. The only bubble of oxygen I draw in. You are the last prayer my beads can count. You are the last leaf I have painted for myself.

You get down at Chickpet metro station instead of K. R. Market, to go to K. R. Market Apparently this where it all began - four bulls running in four directions as Hiriya Kempegowda laid the foundations of Bengaluru in the territory marked by the spots where the bull runs ended Yelahanka in the North and Domlur in the east had existed event before the wooded middle became Bangalore The appetite of the city is on display in the mounds of fruits that you will walk past - the ap

Levitating I had gently dozed off reading Chekov's The Nose, observing the choice of adjectives to describe our 'major' Kovalyov, the...

She broke herself into shards—pieces so sharp they pierced and bled. Yet she went on, gathering them one by one, arranging and...

The path that wound out of secret gardens smelled of adventures. Little G, skipping past rosy bushes, danced to the music of unseen bands...

Something is broken— can you feel it too? I didn’t hear the snap though— did you ? That evening when we watched Beef — they were having...

No matter how much you resist, there are days when love settles— like the thick, bitter sediment at the bottom of a coffee cup, the one...

A sultry afternoon— when sweat pools beneath your arms, a slow, nauseous psychedelia. Light fractures off the tarred road, glistens like...

All the blacks got washed today. She soaked them—     in warm,     lukewarm           water— gently. They puffed. Slowly   they rose. At...

बहुत ज़ोर से हँसती हो, बाप रे ऐसा कहाँ ससुराल में... पहली बार जब बहू बन के आई थी वो। अचानक से चुप हो गई थी उस दिन। शादी से पहले कई बार उस...

I felt numb— like a carcass, limp and graceless, laid on a slab of ice. A taxidermist hovered— clinical, exact, scraping away the...

I waited— for Eternity , for Love , for that soft touch that grazes the blades of grass, like dew on a cold winter night— quiet, tender,...

Bookstores overwhelm me all the time in a way a library doesn't. Inside the aisles of a library, I find a sense of continuum that is...

The morning news broke gently, like frost on glass: Ten people injured in downtown Boulder— raising their voices for Israeli hostages in...

Clad in his crisp kurta with just a hint of pink— a pink stolen from the flamingoes I once saw gliding the altiplano laguna of Chile—...

when you are withering from the inside, who holds you? is it the polar easterlies, that beat down your body thread by thread— take your...

-continued from Dance of Love (An ode to 40 Rules of Love) As we danced, abluted away with love— Kimya watched. She stood still, wrapped...

-       An ode to 40 Rules of Love Last night, the dervishes of love beckoned me… “ Come, dance the Sema. ” I hesitated— “ I know nothing...