“hume lagta hai, you need a hair cut, arnav ji!” khushi blurted out when asr suddenly looked up while fixing his tie and caught her staring at him. (i think… you need a hair cut, arnav ji!) it was seven in the morning, she was still half asleep in bed. she’d heard some noise and her eyes had opened for a moment. he’d walked into the room from the adjoining dressing room just then, in a charcoal waistcoat over a…
khushi wondered why the green looked hazy, out of focus. something warm and wet touched her cheek, her vision cleared. it was a tear she realised. that choking sensation near her throat was still there. khushi shook her head not quite conscious of what she was doing… her breathing was getting irregular again. how would she make arnav ji understand? it wasn’t safe here, anything could happen. as the words filtered through, a darkness seized some corner without name, a…
it was soft and cool against his fingers. he stroked the fabric feeling its smoothness, its supple texture. the yarn had a natural golden sheen, a deep innate gold that didn’t need to flaunt itself or glitter too obviously. it was rich and comfortable with its beauty. asr held a fistful of mooga and then slowly let it go… watching it fall. “can you make it as light as chiffon, weave a fine transparency in? what do you think, salman?”…
asr gripped the secateurs firmly. he looked at the tip of the stem, brow scrunched, lips pursed, willing his mind to focus. he was not going to think of anything else now. he would snip the stem just where he knew he must, he was… “am i speaking to mr raizada… mr arnav singh raizada?” she had a poised voice, he could tell from the way she said his name, especially the “r,” that she wasn’t indian. she sounded… asian?…
INDEX asr breathed in sharply. what was that? he’d felt something spike near the middle of his chest. a warmth seemed to be spreading in the centre of his throat. his eyes had gone still. she was standing there at the top of the stairs… stairs he had rushed up and down practically every day of his adult life… his stairs, dammit. and she was now there, adorned in layers of red that he had seen in his mind,…
INDEX he frowned darkly as he looked at the faint trace of yellow on the back of his right hand where mami had put a generous dab of the turmeric paste. di had smiled widely as she’d taken a little bit of the paste off his skin and scraped it on the edge of another bowl of the haldi ceremony turmeric she was holding in her hand. “ho gaya!” she had smiled, “now we can take this over to…
INDEX anjali woke up and grinned. chhotey was getting married today, in fact, this very evening. she lay in bed a moment longer to smile happily up at the ceiling while she patted her belly absentmindedly. suddenly she frowned and pursed her lips, as a sense of urgency came rushing over her. there was a shadi… no no no no… two weddings in their family today. what was she doing taking it easy and dreaming in bed! she had…
INDEX “how… could… you… even… think.. you could get away from me, dammit?” asr asked khushi in a voice roughened by need, rasping for it tries to hide hurt. the call to the guptas had been made. now he wanted to get back to doing something about that bright alive feeling he was assailed by after two nights practically of no sleep. he had paused between the words to kiss her on her eyes, cheeks, forehead… khushi’s eyes were…
non nobis solum nati sumus. not for ourselves alone are we born. ~~~ marcus tullius cicero ~~~ fairy lights glimmered. the sound of shehnai floated through the halls and corridors and reached the lawns outside. there were people everywhere. sheesh mahal glowed and shone in the dusk. anjali and doctor verma had wanted a simple registration followed by a private blessing ceremony. khushi had felt a little let down by that. it meant there would be no sangeet,…
then even nothingness was not, nor existence, there was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it. what covered it? where was it? in whose keeping was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed? ~~~ nasadiya sukta, rig veda~~~ he stood outside the room, unable to look in through the glass panel set in the door frame. blue door, white walls, a skirting of pale grey oil paint along the wall almost three feet high. an eerie silence all around.…