Coffee longings

It was odd at first glance. The way he was looking at his coffee as if he was lost in a deep meditative state. I had never seen anyone treating their coffee this way before. He drank it real slow, like he was performing some kind of ancient ritual to honour the sanctity of the…

Evanescence

I first noticed her in a sea of faces, radiating differently, smiling at almost everything that came in the periphery of her sight. Her gaze was dreamy and filled with tentative hopes and fragile wishes. And the visage, it was something otherworldly- absolutely naked, flawless, and truthful like a baby. She floated through the crowded…

Why do I write

‘And…why should we write?’ You asked me in that endearing manner of yours in which you casually looked for the lighter you somehow misplaced earlier to light a smoke. ‘How else should I let my angst out?’ I answered in the quietest way possible, suppressing my frustration at being asked a question as silly as-…

The Stopover

It was only a stopover, and the door was open. The food smelled particularly good, and the coffee inviting. He unwillingly got off the bus and followed the other passengers to the café with the tacky neon signboard-Welcome- blinking in the rain. The boy who served him seemed warm and nervous. His face had a…

Evening Musings: A Personal Blog

I go for walks every day. Long solo walks in the evening when the sky is mellow, preparing for nightfall, children prancing about in the park; their jubilant screams when the swings go up in the air charge up the atmosphere around me. I look forward to this time of the day. This activity has…

Scented Meadows

Bittersweet memories of a brief rendezvous with a stranger in a foreign land. A memory she had no idea she had still clung to in the deep recesses of her mind until now.

Blocked Pipes. Blocked Hearts.

My neighbour called me up while I was taking a walk in the evening. Normally, I avoid phone calls when I go for walks but seeing her number flashing on the screen, I knew something was off. We live in a two-storey house and hers is on the ground floor. There is a recurrent issue…

When nostalgia hits

That night, in my dream, I found myself back in school, strolling around the old abandoned wing of the huge complex where the early years of my life, the precious moments of my teenage were still safely tucked away in the cracks of the crumbling walls now partially encroached by an ancient banyan tree. Its hanging roots cried out my name.

Diving deep

Dubuuk Dubuuk The bubbles burst and dispersed as I slowly dived in. The sound was fuller but muffled and gradually it dribbled down to a dullness my ears couldn’t quite catch. The outside world, the world I belong to, was blocked shut, and the world I was descending into had its own set of rules…

Daughters of Venus

They all menstruated on the same day of the month and their monthly cycles ran in sync with the lunar cycle. On a full-moon night, these women performed elaborate cleansing and renewal rituals.