Love at First Sight

4

There was once a man and a reporter. There was a girl. The man fell in love with the girl. Both walked towards different sunsets and new dawns. Here is their story. - "The light's fading fast. Please hurry up," the cameraman told the reporter. - "What can I do? In Bombay nobody seems to be interested in politics." They had been to different colleges to get reactions on US president's forthcoming visit to the country. The idea was to gauge the mood of the youth towards the newfangled sense of friendship between the world's two large democracies. The cry of Indo-Russian friendship had given way to a bloody war to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction and pax Americana. To Mother India's ever-expanding billionaires list and an increasing number of homeless searching for titbits in the garbage dump near the lane where he....

To the One I Love

10

...time passes as quickly as a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall. - Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282) - "What do I write this week?," I asked a friend. - "Why, don't you have any work?," she asked. - "Well, told you. Am in transition." - "Then write about transition," she said. The question I put to one of my good friends has plagued me ever since I started writing. I always knew that whatever I did later in life would have something to do with words. But what would it be about? Would it be newspaper articles, stories or novels? Or would it be everything? I really didn't know the answer at that time. When very young I used to write a short story a year for a popular children's monthly. Needless to say none ever got published. The....

Motilal & Sons

12

- "If you're so sleepy please wait outside my room!," Sharma remarked even as my eyes closed for the umpteenth time. - "No. It's not that. I often close my eyes when I'm thinking," I lied to buy my peace with him. I turned my gaze from Sharma just in time to see the lady at the table near the exit cast a stealthy glance at us. Summer is sleepwalking time in Delhi. As the day progresses the pleasant dry mornings make way for the languorous heat. Everyone from vehicles on roads to people to flies at fruit juice shops to birds in the sky move about in a half-awakened state. If only it were possible, most would just stop where they were and doze off to beat the season. It was on a day like this that I was in that government office. A....