I wait. To tie my lace Drive to a mart, fill a real cart Loaded with eggs And my girl’s laughing legs. I wait to go out Eat, drink and fight again In the backseat of a friend’s car In the dim senselessness of a bar. I am done With sick…

Dog! I will drink your blood. If you are as antique as me or worse, you must have watched countless movies of the 70s and the 80s where Bollywood’s Veeru Paaji a.k.a. Dharmendra had repeatedly professed his eternal love for the blood of the canines. If Shahrukh couldn’t do without…

(This poem is written by my thirteen year old son Aekansh on the Mother’s Day) Dear Mother, The things that I haven’t told you till today About how I felt along the way For the love you gave me and for the hard work you’ve done, Here’s appreciation from your son…

I often think about him at night. In its magical silence, when you hear the sound of your own breath and feel its warmth on your arm, when you are acutely aware of your own beating heart, your blood vessels throbbing in your temple or the subtle movement of hair…

As I sit in my cool cabin under a puddle of light from a meek table lamp, a few early gifts by my side, outside a predicted rain merrily jumps off a white corrugated roofing sheet, needlessly smoking and clearing my window pane, its hiss offering background score to the…

Last Diwali, I and my wife found ourselves vigorously arguing about whether or not to ‘upgrade’ a particular thing in the house. The grinder should have been the most qualified. It’s the only surviving appliance from our marriage days, its white plastic body drunk on all manner of pastes and…

Years back, at a hill station in India, my maternal uncle who was then a military doctor, mildly chided a girl, asking her to stick to the queue instead. People gaped at him, shocked, thinking what hole this plump, mustachioed gentleman just emerged from. Because the girl — if age…

Every time I watch a Hollywood movie, I am reminded of how necessary it is for the makers to drop in a few black people. Doesn’t matter if the insertion of the characters looks deliberate or even forced — sometimes there is just one character whose only purpose is to…

A heart-breaking journey — On the first floor of my parents house is a locked room, beige on the outside and yellow-ochre inside. It’s unlocked only when we visit — Ma says she never lets anyone use the room or its attached bath even when the house is overflowing with guests. The room, however…