The setting is the fictitious hill station of Anandur in the Palani Hills of Tamil Nadu, South India, the Christian cemetery of the congregation of Saint Andrews. Frederick Osbourne (1901-1923) I was young, brimming with enthusiasm for life, eager for adventure. When my uncle, the District Commissioner, invited me to come out to Madras for […]
Before the Divorce On their last night together, he finds her naked on the bed, his right hand on her chest, the left slowly probing what he is convinced is the grand canyon of betrayal. For most, love comes in shape of a flute. Or a birthmark resembling forgiveness. She is a black piano standing […]
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Calvin-in-exile Blue eyes, pupils dilating to the fire creeping up the cigarette butt, sickly yellow hair, swaying in the harsh blonde Beijing wind, Lines on the face, canyons hewn by rapids over the century’s bends, Calvin Palmer, while still alive, wandered the xueyuan’s corridors like a Dybbuk trying to follow rules defining space and smoke, […]
At an almost-dawn one February, I tell you how my parents had almost named me after a Mahadevi Verma poetry collection (twice) निहार(इका)। नीरजा before the Russians invaded the familial decision-making, and I was christened Никита| Nikita “Funny how poetry finds ways of coming back“, I chime. Like Gulzar and so many others, I want […]
sky train it’s difficult to say what we are fleeing: the city is far below. on the front seat, people read or sleep, their faces suggest peace. but something dark curls around my shoulders. blue must be the colour of fear. this is my precipice of impressions – twirling tree- tops, billboards. yesterday on the […]