“So yes, then he left and we’ve never talked again since that day,” she said with a forced smile. “That’s an interesting story,” he said after a moment. He knew he was lying and the story had not been interesting at all. She had spoken in bits and pieces, unable to suppress her emotions while speaking. Her voice broke off in some parts and she did not make any sense at times. He could hardly understand what exactly had gone wrong between the two of them, but he did not enquire further. They had …

The year was 2000-01. I clearly remember that it was my final year of graduation. I was in K J Somaiya College of Science and Commerce, and was the Cultural Secretary at the time. I was living my dream of being famous in my college. This was the first time in the history of our science-dominated college that the commerce students were in power; responsible for all the events in our college. We had named our Cultural Program as ‘Dynamo’ (Explosion of Fun). We were on a mission. We wanted to prove…

Here I am all alone, without a phone, Staring at the wall, like a moron. Carved on it is, “Go on, Move on” Don’t stop, nothing can go more wrong. Floating along the song, Knowing the path is long, I must keep strong. What I want isn’t going to come to my door, and ping-pong I know I can, but it’s not that easy, yo foolish man, It needs all I adore ban, So, the will needs to be nourished, So that what I started, can be finished, successfully! Yes! It needs to be successful, else, I will be…

My name is Anna. I am an eight-year-old. I like going to school and painting. I love colours. I love my tiny house plants. I would like to share a secret with you. My best friend is a fairy. She lives nearby. She tells me stories at night. I had met her once when I was a kid, but I have forgotten the time. I love talking to the yellow Mandeville flower that grows in my balcony. One day, when I came back from school, they told me I had to be at home now— no school or going out anymore! Daddy stay…

Harimadhabpur was a small village about three kilometres away from Futkundi station. A boy named Kamlesh lived in this village. He was born and raised here. Since childhood, Kamlesh had been good at both studies and sports. He studied in the village school, and this year, he secured the highest rank in his class and passed the ninth standard. He also won many prizes in the school annual sports competitions. However, the most popular sport in their village was football. Everyone— from small to bi…

Who are you when you are all alone? When no one is watching. Where there is only you. What welcomes you then is your solitude. A buddy per se ain’t alone, he’s lonely when devoid of any feeling. When there is no wait, nothing can be offered to bait. For, a man without a want is alone. Accompanied by thoughts of hope, and love, in the crevices of oblivion, seeking recourse in alternate multiverse, engulfed in a fiasco, surrounded by raging silence, I am not alone. An air of despondency Drow…

My mind, they think is incomplete, no grit it is composed of, my heart, they say, got me to cheat, no fire it spares to animate me, my body, slander cause of my defeat, bare meat with no tensile, no pace. Bleak, aloof, dispassionate, as I am viewed, discerned to be proud and arrogant, abandoned by spirits, zeal and beaut, they think I Am. I suggest you cover your flute, ’cause you quidnunc, you wide of the mark! You settle on a façade, my soul protected, is confined to me only. Sufferings o…

Rocky and Roma had purchased a new house. Rocky’s job as a sales manager did not bring them a lot of money; but they had a seven-year-old son, Rehan, who would need a room to himself soon. This was the perfect house—it was cheap, it was big, and the best thing was that it came furnished. For the little family, the house was a steal. All they had to do now was make it a home. Among the furniture that was already present in the house, there was a baby’s cradle. Rocky and Roma did not know the prev…

“Oh you are getting it all wrong! It wasn’t a case of love at first sight; it was definitely not that! You know, it was more like a slow built romance, or perhaps you can even call it an emotional connect. But now that I think of it— as I describe it to you— I guess it was a mere acquaintance. Yes, just a coincidence. I hope you got it now?” “Yes,” he smiled back at her, and waited for her to resume her story. “No, I don’t think you understand it at all! I was not in love with that man.” She pau…

** The cover image is the draft design of the book-in-progress ** 1. Raymond Rambert, the journalist who comes to Oran to research on the sanitary condition in the Arab population there in Albert Camus’s The Plague gets trapped by the sudden quarantine of the city because of the plague epidemic. He is separated from his wife who is in Paris and his desperate unsuccessful struggles to meet his wife defying the quarantine show a measure of his love. Sudeep Sen’s poem ‘Love in the Time of Corona’…