It was a chilly morning, the winter sunshine locked in battle with threatening clouds that were adamant on making the sky overcast. So apart from being chilly, it was also dull and grey. When Ram Lakhan Singh came out of his tiny city apartment in Lucknow to wash his...
When madness governs the actions of a man or woman , no power on earth it would seem can stop them from actions that even a few hours, or days later, make no sense at all. So it was in Bhopal, the capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh. A wild fever had gripped the...
Walking to the school, one of the two that the town had, via the same route that hugged the railway track, was how Lala and Kabir first became friends. Kabir would be walking, satchel sling over his shoulder, talking to imaginary friends in fantasy situations when, at...
It was late at night. The whole city was tense after the events of the past few days and while most people were terrified of stepping outside their homes, a large group of blood thirsty men with coloured bands round their heads, drunken eyes and armed with freshly...
THIRTEEN year-old Lara was very excited about attending her chacha’s wedding in Hyderabad. Her new clothes, the jewellery she would wear, flowers in her and best of all, the mehendi on her hands. She could not wait too, until she could get the first the first glimpse...
The moment Smruti stepped off the bus and Tulsi joined her, these two heads would be closed together chatting continuously, first each midly showing off to the other about the contents of their tiffin boxes. As they grew older the short, sketchy details that each...
A Survivor’s account of the Indo-Pak nuclear holocaust It has been one year today since I came to live in Japan. I am lucky to be alive, and lucky that the Japanese agreed to take so many of us refugees. At first I didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t easy to give up my...
This is a story about Hatihalka, a cluster of villages in the Midnapore district of West Bengal. When you visit there, apart from the villagers and their homes, what is unusual about Hatihalka are the enchanting ruins of terracota temples, 32 of them, which we are...