Avik's Story

I frantically searched one more time, now in pockets - both of my jacket and jeans, again through the small luggage - now literally rummaging it, and then the pockets of other spinners. I looked down to the floor and scanned the surrounding, hoping to find a piece of paper and a small white hardback, lying somewhere unruffled. I could feel an enormous hole inside, moving up, sliding down, as if it was bouncing against stomach.   I quit the line and parked the cart at a side. I called the young cab driver, in a faint hope that the folder would be still on the roof of cab or somehow, by any miracle, he kept that with him. After a few rings, he picked up. My voice shivered. “Hello. Hello brother. I am the guy you just dropped at airport.” He recognised me at once. “Yes sir. I remember. Is everything fine?” “I can’t find my passport yaar. Is it in your car?” For the next few moments, which in particular felt like millions of years, I didn’t hear his voice. All I heard was some static w...

Have you ever had a moment, when all other things of yours, including the ones which remained so dormant for years, that you already have forgotten their existences, like the rise of goosebumps or burning of lobules, get so buoyant that you want to scream out your tonsils? And you wish to keep screaming and yelling and screaming until everything before you just bursts and vaporises, and then you discover that you can’t even fucking move your own fucking tongue, as if it was never there, or underneath it, there is black void, just like space! I had. The airport looked otherworldly and shiny even at midnight. The massive thick glasses put a thin barrier between two worlds. Lit and dark. The ‘left-overs’ looked through the see-through wall and waved their loved ones, the ‘goers’, who soon would be vanished beyond numerous kiosks and then beyond the horizon. And I stood against a pillar absolutely in drunken stupor. My gaze was particularly at no where, but I am certain, it covered everyth...

Oishikaa, Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, in ancient Nigeria, there lived a little brave girl named Komu, whose father was the best farmer ever. One day the evil Queen became ill and bad people blamed her father, as the Queen ate millet from his farm. The farmer was taken away as a prisoner, and Komu became sad. Days and months passed. Komu missed her father and one day she wiped her tears off and decided to rescue him. She sold everything she had and bought a horse. On her way to the palace, she passed a village, where crops were dead due to a terrifying disease and people were famished. But watching the hungry little girl, the villagers gave her their last food. When crossing the Niger River, watching the thirsty little girl, a blue fish gave her the last water drop of dried river. When she reached the bottom of the big mountain, on top of which evil Queen resided, a butterfly from a dead Obe tree gave her two wings before dying out of heat. Komu rode ...

she did it again this time with walk, once in a week sublime in rain what do you think of us? her voice coarse and i lost mine in alleys of my brain hang us in frame, that’s easy or, leave us in pain, amazing you see same flesh day after day your things rise, even we’re ten do we look slut when we walk or spread sex as you want do we resonate with powder and lipstick do we smile with full set of teeth WELL! we do and why should we care why should we care millionth time this decade bottom to top, leg to head you cringe you beg what do you think of us, she asked a miracle, i whispered, a charge

The last year was hard on me, as I watched death closely and her whiff reminded me of my childhood, which was mostly stuck at darkest corners of our dusty roof, and my friends, most of whom were imaginary and lived in mirror and walls, returned with demands of love. I know, they meant no harm, as I took countless adventures with them in a lonely floor or in a past-odoured closet and I saved their lives and they mine, but my heart pumped and breaths weighed just by mere sights of them and I knew I was in trouble. I am not a child anymore, at least not by looks or the decisions I have to make for survival. I don’t have liberty to replace the visions in my nightmares or strength to shut them down, rather I try to live with them and make in peace, and until I am married and fathered and have beautiful souls surrounding me, death was so enigmatic that I almost fell to her mystic ways. The magic to vanish a person forever seemed to be the best way of life one could get. And so when I...

It was a perfect Sunday. Last night I slept like a baby. In Delhi, fresh chillness had finally arrived and was slowly smothering the morning sleep by a nice cozy blanket. My own blanket was neatly folded and kept on a chair - like hundreds of other things which were mismanaged and misplaced all over my little den, and I was rather sunk under a softness, which only matched Taniya and her precious brown Kashmere quilt. But she wasn’t here. She must be sleeping in other hemisphere - maybe in an ocean of whiteness in a luxury resort, while her face resonated like the morning star and the little sound of her breath filled the room with life. Yesterday she texted that she was visiting a five-star with her friends - and that was subtle enough for me to not to expect any call or text this morning. Maybe she’d call later at the day, when she’d wake up and we’d do group video chat to our kids in Kolkata before missing them badly. But I had her quilt. I pulled it up to cover my face and sni...