Few things are in my possession that I treasure. Over the years, it has been books, mementoes from childhood. With every move a few have been lost, misplaced or given away. Some things, however, come into our lives and transform it. The year was 2005. It was mid October. The season when leaves fall, trees […]
Read moreOne life to live
I step outside the garage and walk up to the car as it leaves. My fingers graze the rear end of the car as I blow kisses to its occupants. “Remember to smile” I remind them even as I smile myself. Two bright faces peer out of the rear windows as the car turns and […]
Read morePoint of view
This is my entry to Day Eighteen of Writing 101 at The Daily Post. Today’s prompt: write this story in first person, told by the twelve-year-old sitting on the stoop across the street. The neighbourhood has seen better days, but Mrs. Pauley has lived there since before anyone can remember. She raised a family of […]
Read moreMortality
I hang up the phone. I can almost smell the disinfectant. See the dull grey of the rooms. Hear the monotone of the nurse. Hospitals do that to me. It brings my deepest fears to the fore. Mortality. Perhaps it is because I have been in and out of them for a fair share of […]
Read moreLost and found: Life goes on
Balancing a load of folded clothes in my hands, I spy the letter for the twins I have to file away in their memento box. Picking it up I gingerly make my way upstairs. Stowing away clothes, I take the letter to my room and open up the grey suitcase that houses things old and […]
Read moreI was never the same again
The mountains shimmered in the evening sun. They looked gray, forsaken, eerily beautiful. The roads stretched like ribbons weaving in and out of the mountain town. Desolate. My eyes were vacant. My mind numb. I looked into the barrenness of the horizon and saw myself. There was no pain. Just emptiness. A good part of […]
Read moreIn love, hopelessly.
He breezed in one Monday morning looking dapper in his business casual. I sat at my desk watching his head bob up and down in the cubicle next to mine. Even before I could turn away, his eyes caught mine and he smiled. I bent down as color crept up my face and busied myself […]
Read moreUnexpected discoveries: Finding myself
I cut the conversation short. I feel relief as I continue loading the dishes. The disenchantment I feel is typed away in 140 characters or less but I refrain from hitting post. The picture of all three of my daughters in one frame begs me to upload to Facebook, but I demur. I look at […]
Read moreIt is a man’s world
It is a man’s world. I sit on the sofa, my baby cooing and gurgling in the bassinet in front of me. A phone conversation happens in the kitchen that I hear snippets of. I hear laughter and gossip. I hear recipes being exchanged. Then I hear something that makes me sit up. “Penn porandhapla […]
Read moreNostalgia
Dusty. The tar roads felt soft to my flip-flops as I walked to the house for the first time. The summer heat scorched the city when we moved from cooler, less humid climes there. It was a modest house. I remember lying awake at night as the rain pelted the windows and listening to frogs […]
Read moreHappiness in a cup
I walk down the stairs my head throbbing from too little sleep. The smell of coffee wafts my way and I cheer up. Even as I warm the milk for my coffee, I notice Amma fixing Saathi’s lunch. I am tempted to envelop her in a hug. The moment passes and I sit at the […]
Read moreWords that paint a picture
It is a lazy Sunday morning. I step out with the coffee in my hand. The dull red brick feels cool under my bare feet. I slip on my flip-flops and walk out of the patio. I feel my feet sink into the damp, lush grass. The smell of raw grass invades my nostrils. The […]
Read moreIt’s all in my head
I look in the mirror as I get ready to go out for a lunch date with my husband. My red and black dolman sleeve blouse against my black linen pants comes across as too vibrant. I walk down and exclaim “I look like a butterfly!” before I change my mind and run upstairs again. […]
Read moreLeaving a trail of sentiments
She flitted into my life, like a butterfly one day in the past year – bright, cheerful and full of energy. Her expressive eyes filled her face imbuing it with a spark that rarely left a person untouched. Her hands told a story of their own as her voice modulated up and down animating the […]
Read moreStar-crossed
“Funny how fate plays its hand” She says wistfully looking at water lapping along the edge in front of her. She and I are sitting on the patio of the food court in campus. “I once thought my future lay here.” The air around us is pregnant with words unsaid. My mind flashes back a good […]
Read moreLosses: People on pedestals
Sometimes in life, a realization so startling occurs when you least expect it. Like when you are in the shower or when you are mid sentence talking about inane things. Sometimes it is triggered by memories. Today’s Writing 101 prompt at Daily post is about a three-part series. It asks you to talk about losses. […]
Read moreMeaningful Melodies
Today’s prompt over at Writing 101 takes me back a good decade or more. To a time when I had just discovered music beyond what I saw on television or heard on the radio. It brings back memories of rainy evenings spent browsing the music section of a store I frequented then. Of being lost […]
Read moreHurtling through the past
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image. – Joan Didion The year was 2000. The city was Bangalore. I remember speeding through the roads in the dark, the lamp […]
Read moreJust write
It is late in the evening. My almost 2 month old is sleeping in her bassinet. My ears are tuned for sounds of her stirring. Twenty minutes. That is all I have wanted for myself today. Yet, those precious few minutes eluded me all day. Posts kept writing and rewriting themselves all day. You see, […]
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