She stands in front of the almirah at one end of the dressing room. Behind her, in the bedroom, people come and go. She can hear the low murmur of their voices, deliberately hushed. But she is alone here, in this alcove-like room that leads to the bathroom beyond. It is a large cupboard, made […]

Majid disappeared from the house one day like a wisp of smoke lost in the sky. Ever since he got up in the morning, up until noon when he left, Malka had no inkling he was about to do this. He’d woken up as usual and asked for some cardamom laced tea. Then he’d sat […]

[her] On this planet, you lived through the lives of others. It was that simple. She knew that from the moment she signed up, signed in. In another century, in another kind of story, she might have signed in blood. Not in this one. This was a bloodless transaction, though no less binding. What it […]

THE STREET: ONE Long after the man with green coconuts has come to my door, holding out a coconut to me with his right hand, his body and head just a little bowed towards me as if this were a ritual, and perhaps it is, between him and me; after the schoolchildren at the church […]

Prasad swivels his head to watch a dragonfly that is moving too fast to allow him to fix its colour in his head. It is dazzling blue, but a moment later, transparent silver. The September sun is beating down on the heads of the forty-two boys and nineteen girls of KP Kattimani High School. A […]

1 Over the years I have come to believe increasingly in the truth of Jacques Lacan’s formulation that each mode of discourse has its underlying fiction, and that the discourse collapses the moment the fiction is removed. The difference between literature and history rests on the supposition that history is a referential discourse while literature […]

How does one know a man for what he truly is? How does one recognize his real virtues? Who is it who can? Who really knows? And even if one knows, how does one know for certain? Because of this uncertainty, in our country it is the robes of the man which are worshipped, not […]

अलवर जिले की उमरैण पंचायत समिति में एक गाँव है रूंध बीणक. शहर से मात्र 20 किमी की दूरी पर स्थित यह गाँव सीलीसेड झील के उस इलाके में है जहाँ के बरसाती पानी से सीलीसेड झील ही नहीं जिले के सबसे बड़े बांध जयसमंद में भी पानी जाता है. सरिस्का अभयारण्य के जंगल में […]

प्रतिमान वो एक पुरानी दुकान बब्बन हलवाई की वहां मिठाइयों से मिक्खयां भगा रहे एक वृद्ध स्वाद बचाने का कोई व्रत हो कदाचित. कहते हैं सन बियालीस की लड़ाई में इनकी टांग टूट गई थी गोतिया था लिखने-पढ़ने में होशियार सो उठा रहा स्वतन्त्रता-पेंशन. इनके जीभ में किसी जिन्न का वास है         तुरन्त बता देंगे […]

भिखारी रामपुर हर बारिश में ढहता है कोई पुराना घर उठती है नयी बखरी. हर साल उखड़ता है कोई बूढ़ा वृक्ष लुटती है किसी की गठरी हर साल उगता है नया अमोल हर साल पड़ती है खेतों में मेंड़. हर साल मिटते हैं कुछ नाम कुछ नये रखे जाते हैं ऐसे ही चल रहा है […]