Avik's Story

My little car got some deep scratch on side door and it was in body-shop for last five days. I rode a paddle-rickshaw and the puller was a lean young chap, hardly crossed twenty. I had to catch metro, like old days and spend an hour among strangers, unchartered body-odours and tiny interesting stories. The rickshaw went straight, crossed the bazaar and turned the round island - structured recently and took the road towards metro station. I could see the station at distance, and all kinds of cars, e-rickshaws or paddle rickshaws lined up in front of the entry, and then suddenly the young rickshaw puller screamed, ‘look, look, Africans!’ It took me some time to get into what he was pointing at. I saw nothing except large apartments and a school at one side and a high risen metro line at another. I narrowed down further. I followed the gaze of the young chap, who was clearly amused, as his teeth were outside and eyes were fixed towards a group of people, who were buying milk from...

It was dark. The sudden roaring of speedy motorbikes with screeches around the corner came through the glass window like thunderbolts and except that, there was nothing. Total silence. The ceiling was slanted towards the window and the curtains were moving slowly with wind. Faint whitish light fell through the glass. It was star-lights – coming from billions of miles away. And there was a slow but steady sound of breath. Sufi – the little girl was awake on her bed and didn’t know what to do. She tightly held her water bottle and searched for her blanket. It was somewhere on the bed. But she couldn’t find it. She did wake up suddenly in the middle of night, and found her blanket gone, water bottle slipped from her mouth and the room dark. She looked at the window and saw nothing except few stars above – way up high – blinking in a black sky. She turned her head away from the window and found a dark figure breathing slowly on her side. She knew the source. Her nanny was on the ...