Self-hate that I had been growing all this while.

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it to carry my message to my love, miles away in another land, but



“Go do it yourself. I’ve had enough of playing messenger. “

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a story, I am reminded of her. Of how we used to read each other stories all the time. Sometimes she’d read till her throat went dry, not stopping even once for a sip of water. Because readers are like that. So engrossed in finding out what happens on the next page.
I wonder what happened to our next page. Why did our story stop mid-sentence?
Whenever I try to read to you, I am hit by the realisation that maybe she is reading to someone else now. I wonder if he sneaks away to get her a glass of water like I used to. I wonder if she mock pretends to be angry at him for breaking her concentration. I wonder if they too read and make up like we used to.
We never confessed our feelings for each other. We didn’t have to. We exchanged books.
But I won’t ever tell you all this. About her and me. About us. You are not a reader. I don’t expect you to understand.

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by 'being present' in everything you do.

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THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT (a 100-words story)

“I heard you talking last night. Was it a dream or was it your voice?” Ali asked Bijlee, smelling the jasmine in her hair.

Bijlee lay motionless, angry silence between them.

“It was your fault, you know? I hate finding elaichi in my biryani, and yet you always...” he grumbled.
A fetid odor assailed his nostrils. Ali retrieved a small vial from his pocket, and sprayed a few pumps in the air.

“I even brought your  favorite attar.” He told Bijlee.
Then drawing the blanket over his dead wife's clobbered face and his own guilt, he quietly left the scene.

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May May cure the mayhem
Summer may have brought
May May end the maybes
The Whys and Why-nots

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“Because star-crossed lovers travel best solo, and years from now, when the attraction dies and the past seems a blur, I do not want us to regret the things we did not do, the roads we did not walk, the paths we did not take…at least not on account of each other.”

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This ordeal will end.

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Because, people, once broken, cannot be fixed.

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Here she lies at peace tonight
She who fought and swallowed fire
And froze the world with her icy stare

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