Black and White

M a y,   1 9 7 8

The muddy water lapped quietly at my feet. Here was the grey,dank place, one of the numerous ghats bordering the Hooghly, where people disposed off the ashes of their dead kin. Here was the colourful, vibrant place that, come October, would morph into a hubbub of activity; scores of people would descend onto these very steps for the visarjan of Durga. In a very odd fashion, this place stood at a curious juxtaposition of life and death, and embraced both with open arms. One of the many quirks that made up the wonderfully congested bitter-sweet cocktail that is Kolkata. 

When Melbourne Met Magic, Literally!

"Anakie? That's the name?"

"Uh huh."

"You do realise that you've turned the story on its head?? I'm Cinderella! I go to the ball, dance with the prince, and hopefully get hitched to that hunk. And I need you to do all that magic jazz. Pumpkin carriages...glass slippers, the full package...How could you be so careless?? Honestly, what kind of a fairy godmother are you, if you've lost your wand??" 

"I didn't lose it, the Anakie imps stole my wand...Look, the more you argue, the more time we lose. The come-back-before-midnight law still holds good. I believe some of our kind live there, in Anakie.... in the fictional world of humans. The imps there are especially mischievous," The fairy godmother's patience was wearing thin,"You have to go, Cinderella, and fast. Remember, all the 'magic jazz' you ask of me depends on this."

A Christmas Quarrel

 For those who care,I have been MIA for quite some time, thanks to a very hectic schedule which has completely drained my creative juices. I do have plenty of unfinished stories waiting to be be posted, will be finishing them very soon.
This is a story which took probably an hour to write. Hope you like it. :)

The silence of the winter night was broken by the sound of my periodic scribbling as I tried to memorise yet another formula by jotting it down. For some inexplicable reason, and contrary to what is generally recommended, I avoid sleep the night before an exam, and instead spend those ungodly hours on some unnecessary revising, interspersed with ten minute power naps. Though there are no tangible benefits from such a practice, it provides me with the excuse that I couldn’t have prepared more, after I went through with the inevitable disaster in the upcoming exam. Of course, all this could be remedied if I studied sincerely the entire semester. Had I done that, I would have fared a lot better academically, plus I would not have had the singularly odd experience about which I write here.

The fact that it was Christmas Eve had entirely slipped my mind. Not that it mattered; I am not a very Christmassy person. I had a thermodynamics exam the following day; my vile university is as Un-Christmassy as I am, if not more. I had to write a three hour paper on the day the rest of the world stuffed themselves with plum cakes and wine and bawled carols.

Would I have eaten cakes and drunken wine if I did not have my exams?

Wings Of Fire

Dear Ruth,


               I know I should have written to you earlier, but its been really crowded here, with the sudden influx of arrivals. I think it is the single largest human migration in history after Moses and his epic march from Egypt, although the 'migration' in this case isn't exactly voluntary, as you know.


Ruth,look...please,please don't cry.... I want you to know that my death was virtually painless, honest. Granted, the element of surprise was there, but to be frank, I really don't know what I died from.... I'll hazard a guess that it was incineration. That my body was recovered and identified from the rubble was a miracle in itself, you see. It was like.... I was staring out the office window in fascination-turned-disbelief-turned-horror, and then bam! The screech of metal on metal, the shrieks...then everything goes black, and then I find myself here..... For a fleeting second I hoped it was a terrible dream, but nah.. as far as I remember, the worst of my nightmares involved me drowning in a glass of pineapple juice. Sometimes orange, for variety's sake.


But never this, Ruth....never this. And it sucks you know, being snuffed out just like that....  I certainly wasn't one of those people with a hundred dreams and umpteen ambitions...hell, the only things I had in mind were the weekend Knicks game, and our fancy Italian dinner date I'd planned...ah yes.... the place you told me about.... West 44th....Carmine's, isn't it? That's what I had in mind, it would have been such a splendid surprise for you.

The Quantum Conundrum

Firstly, this is not a post about science, but an attempt to narrate yet another quirky experience of mine in this wonderful city called Delhi.


Ready? 
Great!

Time to roll back the clock,children.

Second semester, and we'd just made the happy discovery that our syllabus included a course on quantum mechanics. However, nobody could have been more chuffed about it than my friend and batch mate Aman; he was positively brimming with glee at the prospect of digesting another bunch of arcane mathematical equations which every subject seems to reduce to. Bless him.