Binging on Balaji

Over the past two days, I've been binging on Alt Balaji's web series called Bewaffa si waffa, and rather enjoying it. Well, yes it does have the trappings of a Balaji serial, the heroine (Aditi Vasudev) who is apparently cash strapped lives in a dream home (fancy kitchen, living room, enough space for cattle shed) …

Short fiction #27

It all started when Madhu mama decided to fall in love with the girl next door Uma akka was “one of the others” as my grandmother succinctly put it, not our type. While all the falling in love was done from my mama’s bedroom window that faced her house, conveying and growing this love was …

Short Fiction #26

“I know Radhika is your favorite” my son says, “you are visiting her for two days more than me.” He knows it’s the cheaper flight that caused that one day extra stay in Boston, but he can’t resist saying it. It is an ongoing argument, one in which my son maintains that his sister is …

Conversations #1

“He broke up with me” “Oh!” “And can you believe what he said?” “What?” “He said I was clinging on to him, because he represented an idea I had about romance, and not because I really loved him. Yeah! That’s why I edited his god forsaken fantasy novel for him. He is such a…..!” “Hmmmm” …

Short fiction #25

How do you tell someone that she was the reason you stopped writing? Because you could not bear to see her comments on your blog anymore. That you deactivated you Yahoo account because you didn’t want her to message you That you changed your life, because you were afraid that you were living half a …

Short fiction #24

Every summer Karthika came home to the hills Every summer, without fail, Arjun was at the bus stop to greet her And on the first day of the holidays, they would always walk down to the corner of the lane where the chaat wallah had his trolley Some days they would have bhel, on others …

Short fiction #23

I’ve been dating Rahul for a year now. I like him. Wait, the truth is I love him. But, is he the one? Rahul doesn’t match a single item on my list. He is an only child, I come from a huge joint family. He doesn’t know how to read or write Kannada (I work …

Short fiction #22

We were never close, my mother and I Growing up in that vast ocean called a joint family, I was closer to my youngest aunt When my mother was out working, my aunt took care of me, and though I always slept with my mother at night, it was my aunt I turned to when …

Short fiction #21

We had been friends since childhood. Our grandparents stayed next to each other. Growing up, summers were spent eating mangoes, swimming in the pool, climbing up the wall separating the two houses, and sometimes just lying exhausted under the old fan that creaked as it turned. Then life happened. And suddenly we were not friends …

Short fiction #20

Even before we started dating, I knew about Puru’s lunchboxes He got food from home, and initially I thought it was silly, considering that office provided us free food. Till one day he sat next to me at lunch and offered me some. His meal consisted of a pulav and raita along with alu gravy. …