‘SHASTRI,’ SAID AZGHER to Rama Shastri as the two of them sat on the granite floor of the shivalayam, under the biggest of the five bells hanging from the roof just outside the inner sanctum. The February sun was about to set, and a steady breeze blew their way from …
UNCLE BHALERAO HAD a way of whooshing into rooms. He was a large man, and not even his closest friends would call him a nimble mover on two feet, especially while carrying his black umbrella, and taking utmost care with the ends of his cream-white dhoti to keep it off …
WHEN KALYANI, THE first-ranking student of Class Ten walked into the staffroom, Matthew put aside the paperwork he was pretending to work on, and cast a wary glance around himself at the empty desks and chairs. It was the second week of June, the fourth day of the school year. …
‘I don’t need to tell you the exact memory.’ ‘No.’ ‘Is there any way you can know – after I am gone?’ ‘No.’ ‘The machine – it doesn’t have a log or something? It doesn’t remember?’ ‘It doesn’t remember.’ ‘Okay. Okay. So I go in there – and take the …
PRAKASH PAI, THE forty-eight year old sole proprietor of Savitri Studios – the second-biggest film production house in the state of Andhra Pradesh, headquartered in Hyderabad – glanced at Sister Agnes and thought to himself, again: heroine. The priest with the triangular head was a character artist; perhaps he could …
THROUGH THE SQUARE window of the kitchen of Babai Hotel, Sampangi looked out at the seating area. Babu Ram was taking the woman’s order, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry about it. She waved her arm in that urban way of hers, and tilted her head just …
MADHAVACHAARI SHOOK ALL over as he stepped into the dimly lit office. A faint tinge of cheap lilac room freshener worked its way up his nostrils. Two orange lamps were lit behind the seated figure of Velayudhan, the man’s long face shrouded in shadow. The desk at which he sat …
WHEN I CALLED HIM on the phone and asked for directions from Dhavaleshwaram to his house in Palem West, Mr Yug Awasthi laughed heartily. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you that.’ I might have asked him to recite the salient properties of the Binomial Theorem. ‘All I know …
DOCTOR ANNAMALAI HID his contempt with practiced ease. The man sitting across his consultation desk, Lingababu, was a near stranger. Besides the fact that he ran the ladies’ hostel on third cross road in Palem West, Annamalai knew little about him. He was a squat, square-shaped man with a round …
I asked Mother where you went. I don’t think she knows. (I don’t think I know either.) Sometimes she says you went to sleep. (I did.) Sometimes she says you went to a place far, far away. A place where you cannot return from. (I did that too.) But it’s …