Ginger drafts...

Chapter 1 It was getting dark now. Nassir drove his SUV into the lane that was plastered with oil and grease. A warm shaft of wind gushed out of the ventilator. A broken slat of the window somewhere in the dark beneath the glowing pallor of the hotel’s back door, slapped its face periodically. Pushing his rotund figure beneath the oil coated tube light, his shadow now only a thickened daub around his body, met two elongated shadows. Two sturdy broad shouldered men dragged themselves out of the dark; Nassir produced his ID card and was marshaled inside. The lounge was once opulent. It was now reduced to an empty backdrop for bald headed, lean framed, and half sleeved clerks to scuttle about in their daily routine. On the desk before each clerk was a translucent dashboard with square topped buttons. The charred backsides of desks bore slanted wedges into which each clerk plugged in a USB. All the desks inside were pooled into a network operated under codename ‘Probe’. It was an underc

Chapter 1 In that house where sand trickled from the roof and nocturnal creatures ushered in their entry, I and my aunt Mauna lived our days rather sheepishly. We would wake up at the break of dawn and scamper about like rats with nothing to do but forage for food literally. It was the house of aunt Mauna’s father Muniswami. She bequeathed it from him years ago. Not that he is dead. He is very much alive. And he pays us his visit once in every year. Today was the day of his visit. Muniswami was over hundred years old. It’s a bloody miracle that he is still alive. Last year, if my memory is anything to go by, he argued about the present status of his house. ‘Oh! How so royally antique the doors once were’ he said in an exasperating tone when aunt Mauna patted his back and he was on his way home. I don’t quite know where he lived. Aunt had always been very secretive about her family. Where did I come from? My parents? Don’t even begin. In the rainy season, the roots of banyan tree ov

Chapter 1 It was a Sunday afternoon. Rain was pattering hard on the car’s windscreen. I took a dip of the milk bread in my thermos’ tea. Rain splashed hard on the muddy road exploding handfuls of dirt onto the porches of shops. I strained my eyes to gouge my vision through the algae splashes of rain on the windscreen into the shop on the other side of Charminar. Presently, a man in navy blue denim trousers and a black collared t-shirt stepped out of the shop. I pressed my car forward; sedately, the vehicle shushed along the burnished tar road. Avoiding a pothole unobtrusively, I brought the vehicle closer to him. I was wearing a white chudidhar, matching sandals and an orange red scarf that I wrapped my shoulders with. I stepped out and hurried past him into the shop that was reeling under dark like an underground cave. Power cut. Rain drops darted off the mud pots that were propped upside down in the porch; splashes of water found my shimmering sandal tops. His back pocket, the right

Chapter 1 We were at last on the other side of the worm hole. I squinted and shaded my eyes until it became clear that we were descending into what looked, at first sight, like a familiar ground. It was the city that I left behind. And the concrete insect swooped over my house with a great hush, it settled over the rooftop. It was a relief to get my feet on ground. What with the inexplicable pressure conditions inside the wormhole. The touch of solid ground was euphoric. No words were exchanged, I climbed down the stairs. Our neighbours had perhaps come back from the vacation. Their main door stood ajar. I dropped by to say ‘hi’. The lady of the house, in her early thirties, was an attractive woman. She stepped out into the sun, leaned down to pick the doormat before lifting it up and beating it against the ghoulish lumpy wall outside. I thought I had startled her, for I was standing almost behind her back when she turned around, looked about her, and slipped back inside. I was standin