The last conversation with my old bewildered laptop
If I tell you that I’ve had many meaningful conversations with my laptop you are going to smile indulgently and say, ‘Oh yes, don’t we all?’ But the moment my back is turned, you will probably mutter, ‘He has lost it. Conversations with laptops! Ha! Ha! Whoever heard of such things.’ But this is true....
A writer, a smartphone, and a thriller in the making
This is the story of a writer who leaves his desk at dusk and goes out in search of a thriller. No, he was not carrying with him a pistol and 9mm bullets, nor is he trained in any of the martial arts… but he fortunately remembers to carry with him his new Moto G5...
Museum of Memories
Memories. They’re good and they are ugly at times. They’re fascinating and they can be terrible. Despite variations, I am fond of all of them as they together make up what I am today. Most of the time memories have a bit of restlessness meandering between large spaces of pure joy. One of the fondest...
There is no space without adventure
My kid is grown-up. He is an architect and stays in London. But at home in Delhi we always have a lot of kids coming in and going out yelling, shouting, playing hide-and-seek, pretending to be imaginary characters, and writing. Writing? Well, yes, I ask them all to sit with their notebooks and pencils and...
That’s how stories happen
I tried rubbing the edge of my study table, whispering, ‘Appear, my lovely story. Appear!’ It didn’t. I tried this with the walls in my home, with trees in the park, and once even slyly tried rubbing the end of the shawl of a woman I didn’t know at all. Nothing happened. No story appeared...
Six word stories
Stories happen everywhere, all the time. In homes, out on the road, inside an office cubicle, on a roof-top, in a room… and they are not always that go on and on page after page. Some do, of course. But most finish rather unexpectedly. Many leave you with your own interpretations and some just tell...
We’re all inside a story
Life is fiction if that is what I want to believe in. Or real fiction. These are my choices because I am there in all my stories. I mean we all are there in our stories even when we weave one with other characters. So yes, like the one who created us, we are all...
The backlash of an opportunity
The backlash of an opportunity My existence is no less than the life of characters in a thriller because like them, I was born the day my mortal creator decided that I was to be born. But where characters in a novel get authors to patronise them, nurture them and nourish them and they...
We need stories everyday
My life is a set of stories. Let me tell you one with a lake that forgot to reflect my face… and until then I thought no one could beat those people who invariably forgot my name. ‘What’s your name?’ Atsü asked me the day we were introduced at a press launch. ‘Forget my name,’...
The visible is the mystery
No, there is no cellar in our house and no attic, no hidden cupboards and no passageways opening up when you strike the wall in a particular way. I remember there was a time when all this troubled me a lot… but I was in school then and was reading a lot of Ellery Queen...
Stories Within Us Wish to Live
NOTE: This story was first published in ‘Open Road Review’ dated 01 August 2015… . My father is 83 and still goes on his morning walks. He is fond of solving Sudoku puzzles and calls up long distance to remind me to get newspaper clippings with these puzzles. ‘We don’t get this newspaper here in...
Mating the meeting
‘Forget grammar. Forget logic. Forget the logic of grammar or the grammar of logic. Just remember that I have a meeting today.’ This is what Ajay told me in a few hurried punches. Now before you shoot your left eyebrow up in a gesture of surprise, let me add that I am Ajay’s laptop and...
