There is an element of trouble involved in many beards. I am not talking about people for whom religion makes it mandatory that they keep one. But those for whom it’s a matter of choice, the world turns slightly complicated when they allow nature to take over their faces; coz a beard brings on many […]
Category: Fiction
THE GIFT OF A MACHINE — EXCERPT FROM DILLI MUMBAI LOVE STORY
Out below the clouds I rode, waving at the moon. On a black bike I rode, a dream that… We were going to live that dream again. Soon. In a minute. The rain was beating down on us like crazy. The moon was a faint silhouette behind the clouds. You wouldn’t look up and say […]
THE BEAUTIFUL SUICIDE OF MEERA
“Meera!” She is in love. She was in love. She would always be in love. Always. She puts her left palm on her heart as a gesture of promise to him. Always. They can take away her life but they cannot take away that. She looks at the shallow silver cup before her that contains […]
OF DREAMS AND MULTICOLORED DRAGONS
At other times she was like me. Dreaming strange things and feeling proud about it. She dreamed of a curve once. It was a white curve to begin with, but every time it looped up, it changed colors. When you touched it drops of colors fell on you. She was not very tall and in […]
PARTINGS
When I found her I was overjoyed. Or rather she found me. Most of the times it happened that way. She was the active one, doing things, taking decisions, defining boundaries. Let’s go to the beach, we shouldn’t talk right now, let’s part. She was the one who left me. We parted at her insistence. […]
A STORY DREAMT FROM VIVALDI’S MANDOLIN CONCERTO
The girl got up from her bed. Nimbly she put her step forward. One. Two. Three. Thump. She rose in the air. Four. Thump again. She went up once more. She bounced like a balloon on its exquisitely small buttoned tail, and went up so high she hit her head on the roof. ‘Ouch! That […]
THE BEAUTIFUL EFFECT OF MUSIC
Music makes Firoj Ahmed cryptic – in both body and soul. His words, usually strong, tricky and profuse, an undercurrent of a torrential mountain stream, become sparse in the times he is leaning back in his chair, hearing one of his many cassettes play – cassettes that are kept in three wooden baskets lying on […]
LOVE AND THE ART OF BICYCLE RIDING
Did you ever ride a bicycle on a lonely stretch of road – at midnight in the shadow of trees, when the moon is softly bathing the world in its light like a hallowed sage smiling kindly upon a confused disciple? Well, at first you go leisurely, for you can’t see much further. The breeze […]
THE LOST WORD
‘I was seeking him on orders from ammi, and saw he was searching for something. Searching vehemently, throwing books from his bookcase upon his bed. He was seldom that impatient with books, always treating them tenderly, making a fuss over them. I knew something was wrong then. So I went and asked him what was […]
AN ARGUMENT ABOUT GOD
Six months went by. The seed sprouted into a young and comely Night Queen with a voice that was musical, quite different from the one in which she had first asked the stone with childlike candor, why was he so hard to rest against so that her head was aching from leaning against him for […]