Archive for the 'Creative Writing' Category

His Final Moments

Published on May 2, 2011 in Creative Writing. 145 Comments

Tariq’s surma-rimmed eyes gleamed cold and hollow. He had known Tariq for ten years, enough to know that he was serious. Dead serious. ISI handlers of high value assets usually are. And Tariq, Tariq was one of the best. He had to be. After all he was Tariq’s asset.

On hindsight, he felt he should have seen this coming. It had been a horrible weekend from the very start. On Friday, there was that horrible royal wedding which he had to endure sitting with his youngest wife. She had kept sobbing and ooh-oohing “so cute” throughout, an experience worse than having a camel bite your balls. And he knew what was like, having experienced it many years ago. He had reminded her that she too was married to a prince. But somehow she didn’t seem to be too pleased by that observation. Saturday, the weather had been horrible and the kababs had been over-cooked. But nothing could have prepared him for this shocker on Sunday morning.

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Fathers And Sons

Published on July 30, 2010 in Creative Writing and Politics. 90 Comments

Son: Dad, I need some money.

Dad (not looking up from the newspaper): Why?

Son: You know I did not get through to a merit seat in engineering or medical. I need the money for capitation fees. You know none of this would not have happened if you had only managed to get a fake SC/ST certificate right? Or if our grandads had been like oppressed, depressed and suppressed like centuries ago?

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Rabin Babu

Published on August 3, 2009 in Creative Writing. 83 Comments

[Introductory remarks: Something a bit different today. My attempt at a short story, based on a legend from our ancestral village. Warning 1: Long post. Warning 2: There is no humor here.]

It was a quiet night. A stiff wind blew in from the west making the heat slightly less oppressive than on other days.

Rabin-babu was on the porch, reclining on an ancient chair. Nights in the village were always quiet. And today it was even quieter. There was a fair going on a few miles away and it seemed that the entire village was away.

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Pariyon Aur Haiwanon

Published on June 3, 2009 in Creative Writing, Cricket and Silly. 69 Comments

After the rip-roaring success of “Da Vinci Da Gupt Katha” comes the sequel “Pariyon Aur Haiwanon” (English: Angels and Demons), another nail-biting conspiracy thriller from the team of Dhan Brown, Ron Coward and Panty Shah.

In the world’s premier nuclear physics research facility CERN (Chattisgarh Entropy Research Nigam), Dr. Ganga (played by Mandira Bedi) , expert on super-string theory (she calls them noodle straps), has been able to isolate what high energy physicists call the Mamata particle, a sub-atomic “Nano” particle produced by colliding Jyoti Bosons.

The power of the M-particle is so enormous that if it comes in contact with matter, it will create a catastrophic explosion. So catastrophic in fact that there will never be any industry or prosperity within 250 miles of that cataclysm. Ever. Which is why Dr. Ganga keeps the M-particle in an egg-shaped vacuum chamber (called the Charu Sharma container) under high security.

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A Valentine Day Story

Published on February 11, 2009 in Creative Writing. 114 Comments

[Long Post]

Scene: A red heart shaped statue. A tourist guide with a bunch of tourists stand at its base

Guide to tourists: And this over here is the monument, the beautiful Broken Heart, constructed to commemorate all those marytrs for love who fell, many of them nameless, on that fateful Valentine’s Day. In the greatest non-violent mass movement since the Non-Cooperation andolan, young men and woman stood together and took a stance against repression. They took blows and punches and had their hair pulled so that successive generations have the freedom to get drunk, pass out, buy overpriced long-stemmed roses and splurge on “My heart will go on” -playing musical cards.

It was a time of great political ferment in the country. Scared that women in low-rider jeans drinking, dancing and cavorting with the Rocky Khannas of the world will wipe out Indian civilization as it was known then, a mass movement of cultural fundamentalists united under organizations with names like “Banar Sena” , “Dushashana Fan Club”. They then announced plans to forcibly prevent Valentine Day celebrations across the country and to marry off any girl and boy who were walking together, unless the boy tied a Rakhi around the girl’s hand and made her a behena.

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