July 2023 ~*~

June 2023 ( Photography ), July 2024 ( Essay ) Baba and His Bahadur   Bahadur is a colourful picture of imperturbable equanimity.     ...

June 2023 The first morning opens with a sparkling dialogue between two accomplished orators. The voice modulation is operatic, the...

June 2023 You live in a cosy home in Baroda and spend your days finishing college, socialising with companionable folks, and helping your...

Dec 2022 The evening is getting eventful. There are people everywhere, moving about with a sense of purpose, pursuing their very own...

Nov 2022 You are home. Far, far from the familiar, amid people who sing in a language you don’t speak, wear dresses and props you’ve not...

October 2022 The metalled road flows past stolid old houses and stylish new ones, shoots out an unpaved stump on the left, veers to the...

August 2022 Little grey fish nibble at my toes as I stand knee-deep in the river looking at the old boat waddling with the wavelets. I...

August 2021 One face to another, I feel like a cartographer mapping obscure terrains of unfinished emotions. In each face is a passing...

He would always wait at the veranda. He’d welcome me with a grin, a tight hug and back rub. He had strong hands. He would then...

He wouldn’t give up, and neither would I. “Let’s try again tomorrow, you little devil,” he would say with a chuckle. “I will, sir.” I would cycle back home, talking to myself: “Try harder, try harder.” I knew I had a long way to go before I could write or speak good English. I am not sure why I was so desperate. Perhaps because that was the only way I could impress people the way my cousins from Australia and America did. Perhaps that was the only way I could get noticed. Mr

July 2014 He didn’t give up even after my failed attempt to kill him, something he insisted on mentioning each time he introduced me to someone. “Meet Amit, the little devil who tried to kill me.” He derived immense delight from the discomfiture he caused me. I am yet to see another old man, a man who could barely take five steps without losing his balance, so full of childlike mischief. After he would finish chortling, he would elaborate, and rather theatrically, to my utt

November 2013 In these ten years of solitude, exactly ten this November, the longest anyone has stayed with me has been Joginder – one...