Ramnath Jiโs house? Who could have expected this? What threat? What danger, could an abandoned house pose? Next to Ramnath Jiโs house is a departmental store- Royal Bazaar. Once in a while, a car may pull up near the glass door and a family with sophisticated strides will enter and return with the same sophistication…
โThe game weโre playing is all about focus. Donโt heed to propaganda unleashed by spectators.โ Silence reigns supreme as they mull over their next move. Some obvious shots are stark. But they wonโt take it. Making the game obvious for their opponents is not in their rulebook. Like veterans, they love to keep their rivals…
It was quite a nice morning; the sun was shining bright outside my window in that clear, spotless blue sky, and I was still in my bed. Abba already came three times into my room, scolded me and tried to wake me up. โBut why should I get up? Why should I let this morning-sleep…
Soaring through the warm, misty skies of Delhi and Punjab, we rumbled through the brooding clouds over Pir Panjal before we touched down at Srinagar airport, where the wild summer rain followed me home.ย Iโd been away from home for three long years. When I returned, I learned what three years can do to a…
He kept looking dreamily at his white sneakers left to sundry on a green plastic armless chair on the roof of his fatherโs one-storey house. Jibraan looked at them yesterday as well, even a day before, too, with varied curiosity, but today he sat on his knees and blew on them twice to remove a…
You see, Snow White was chosen. It could have been anyone, couldnโt it? But it had to happen to Snow White, and it did. Mirror, Mirror on the wall. We often thought what if, in the parallel universe, Snow White was born in Kashmir? Someone would put a bullet in her. โZoonieโ would be her…
The durood were heard from both the local and distant mosques. It sounded as a viscous amalgam of voices to me, in which, if listened with the ears of heart, one could quickly lose himself. It was strange how it awoke me, even though it had never done before. I went to the kitchen where…
โGo back to your country! We donโt want you here!โ The words still echoed in my mind as I crossed through the carpeted lobby of the Student Union building. Students sat in huddles on the floor, others sitting lazily on the arms of couches occasionally laughing at something someone said. When I walked by, the…
On the bulge of Amira Kadal, I stare at the fish in their basket, murmuring between themselves about their estrangement from the Jhelum that flows underneath, belligerently. Or, maybe, they are just gasping for a few extra breathsโ as many as they canโ before it is all over; as all of us try to do…
It was time. The time; when I fell in love with the fall of darkness, when dying light of the day slowly yields to the devouring darkness of night. It was the time when I fell in love with the sensually unabashed darkness, silently nestling the verdure fields of rice and the far and wide…