Ginger drafts...

The year was 1933. My grandfather, a man of stately demeanour, stepped out of his brilliantly camouflaged straw walled and thatched roof hut. A majestic brown dog, sneezing heavily, pawing his rear feet in the mud behind him, rushed to meet his master who paid no attention to the creature’s servility. Rapping the slightly torn white dhoti in the morning mist, he proceeded to wear it with diligent care. He was an ascetic of daily chores, his short trimmed moustache beamed with military dogma; his neighbours, mostly paunched men, did not care to see the principled man, they saw a peasant. And peasant he was, with a dog that wailed and wilfully pranced around the master all day long. In 1933’s Germany, Hitler was promising to cleanse the German body of Semitic veins. through the streets of desolation and despair, rose anarchic voices of dissent. Hitler, a talismanic man of utilitarian principles, promised the unemployed, food and shelter. His supporters were the middle class, he proffer...

“Avoid placing your hand across through the grill” a soft mellowed female voice poured out of the speakers inside the elevator. With a typical grin, Kranthi remarked “what would happen if…” Shravani, a woman in her early twenties, was as pragmatic as she was sincere to the institute’s ambitions. Slightly dazed though she was with the day’s work, let out a half restrained smile. Pushing the maroon coloured holographic button, Shravani let the glow of neon torch on her helmet find Kranthi under its scanner. “Your reaching out with your hand, across through the grill, will dilate time. Work is under way, and the research team would be disconcerted”. Kranthi noticed Shravani’s long drawn pointed fingers with neatly manicured fingers. Like the erect stalk that rose up amidst the plump petaled floral envelope of a budding rose, her head sprouted out of the double padded space suit she had put on. She had a pretty face; short forehead, long lips, and lush cheeks. Through the brown irises, h...

Even the most inhabitable lands can be conquered by Colin. The savage will be vanquished, spare no one” thumping his chest admiringly, with a delicate lift of his chin, T continued “candle island’s mystic potentials shall no longer be entertained.” The crew, Colin, was named after a groundbreaking invention by one of its members. D, although shared her husband’s flare for much needed enthusiasm, slightly hesitated. Before venturing a thought, she cleared her throat as if to gather her thoughts under the pretence. “Well, of course, the women will be looked after with utmost care. No need to worry about that.” As he said these words, T was at once aware, as if a thin stroke of pain had shot through his nerves leaving him numb, momentarily, unabashedly. An unusual calm overtook them both. Clearing the cobwebs out of the way, D led the way up through the hilly terrain. Stepping out of the shallow mushy land that was surrounded with shrubs of esoteric quality, D pointed out to the crew tha...

Chapter 1 N was a man of indistinguishable calm and stately demeanour. Standing before the thickly coated green lacquered door casings, he would demurely fling open the doors every morning and walk towards the end of the hedgerows surrounding the compound wall. The other day, he lodged firmly beneath the door, a log of wood, for the street dogs occasionally stole into his veranda. He grabbed the door and shook it a little, the hinge was lax and needed mending; perhaps, he could run the cotton cord (that his wife weaved all through the day) around the length of the wooden shaft, and through the dry twigs where hay was puckered tightly into folds. Present season’s harvest did not yield enough to lay over a roof of opal tinted tiles. Mopping his brow, N observed his neighbour’s roof that ominously slanted both ways in straight lines of alternating furrows and polished curved backs of an army of red frozen tortoises. The election was round the corner and congress party workers were leavi...