Avik's Story

When all the flowers swayed with soothing air and welcomed her, the little one smiled. Her mother taught her not to touch or pluck flowers. Flowers do have a life. The baby flowers grow from little buds to colorful petals, a full journey. She understood, and so when the flowers welcomed her, she leaned forward and giggled. She walked over the grass and played with butterflies, as though she could speak with them. They showed her their secret hives and their unlimited love towards flowers. “How come you guys fly? I cannot fly”, the little one asked. “You don’t have any wings. I can’t see any wings”, the leader of the butterflies said. He had these two beautiful mosaic see-through wings. And his little body was attached in-between. The little one was sad. She too wanted to fly and sat on flowers and love them. No one stopped butterflies from touching the flowers, only her mother did. She flipped her hands as though she could fly. The gang of butterflies laughed. “Why ...

(representational image @ pinterest)  I had a tickling sensation in my stomach for so long and I had no idea how to solve it. The problem was seemingly ridiculous. The middle aged tea-seller in my neighborhood wasn’t serving me tea anymore. Somehow he was angry or offended by me. And God knew why. That day at morning, I started walking briskly from my house as usual, crossed the rows of closed shops beside main road, and then took the service lane alongside NSIT, the famed engineering college in vicinity. It was my morning routine, except the days when I swipe off the alarm in my mobile and wake up exactly at nine. That is the last possible hour of time to be able to prepare for office and not to be marked as late. As usual, I walked that day upto the police chowki at the edge of the vast campus of NSIT, and then turned back, and stopped near the tea-stall at market. The uncle was from Bihar and he had a short  stealthy stature. He knew me by face. I was a regula...