FARE. FEAR. REAF. FERA.
Let us play a game. Take a few random alphabets and rearrange them into a word that makes sense… then make another one… and another one… I generally find that anagrams make me less fearful of even the most fearsome words. I chose A-E-F-R and one of the words that I made, was FEAR. Now...
Yes, the Gods ordered
Even I would never have believed had Arjun Rampal not told me the story. Well I’m talking of Arjun and Rampal, two of my best friends who love walking up and down the ramp in every major fashion show all over the country. In our circle of friends we call them Arjun Rampal as it...
The club election
It wasn’t a club really, but an association of around two score shop-keepers in a small cul-de-sac in Chandni Chowk. I attended their annual election of the Club President on the invitation of my friend Suresh. Suresh was a wholesaler of health food. Their club had people selling suitcases, embroidered sarees, diaries, books, dry-fruits, food-stuff,...
The audition
I was prepared. I was full of confidence. I knew my lines and I had rehearsed them umpteen times in the past few hours. So as I opened my eyes after a night when even in my dreams I was up there on the NSD stage, I murmured, ‘What a glorious morning!’ That day I...
Boiled eggs and other tales
Do I remember nursery rhymes from my past? Of course I do. I remember them all… and I also remember all the other tales that I link them up with. I remember the time we had the story of the fox that couldn’t reach up to the grapes and walked away calling them ‘sour grapes’....
Failure is just a bruise, not a tattoo
Team: Maximus Dramaticus Read the previous part of the story here Darkness has strange properties. It appears to swallow everything that comes its way but what no one realises is that it is cunningly selective. ‘Just try walking on a dark road where stones are strewn,’ said Jennifer to no one in particular, ‘and...
Listen to your mind but follow your heart
Team: Maximus Dramaticus Read the previous part of the story here The air on the first floor of the house in Chuna Mandi was pregnant with the sort of tension that you could actually cut with a knife. Jennifer sat in one corner peering into the eyepiece of her camera and pretending she...
Raindrops on paper
‘Another wayward white strand into the bin,’ he muttered, as he stretched his right hand to throw in the bin whatever it was that he held between his index finger and thumb. I was sitting right behind him and could see and hear what Param was doing. We shared the same room in the hostel....
Her paintbrush is a razor
Team: Maximus Dramaticus On that dark and cold late December night, Cyrus sat on the tilted pushcart and stared ahead. The street dogs were not howling. There wasn’t even the expected rustle that a gentle breeze inundates a silent night with. His mind was as silent and as numb as the night seemed to...
The turn
‘I’d like to drive,’ he said, ‘I have a licence too now.’ And as he said this, his right hand involuntarily patted his back-pocket. His driving licence there was the reason behind the excitement in his voice. But I knew he wasn’t yet ready to drive on the highway, so I asked, ‘If I gave...
The Megma Dharma
What’s ‘Megma Dharma’? Before I tell you what this means, let me just say that there are other words that could easily have replaced ‘dharma’ when it converged with Megma. I’m sure there will be people who’d call it the ‘Megma Trauma’ or use even ‘stigma’… life is so full of interpretations that each of...
The lost truth
The artwork was finally approved and sent to the agency. My design team had left and I was waiting for any last minute query coming from the publication and one that needed to be solved speedily. The phone rang and I asked, ‘All well? Has the artwork reached the publication? They are holding the dummy...
