Ginger drafts...

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...

Chapter 1 My name is Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician. The incident that I am going to narrate to you occurred at the time of my exile. I had received an invitation from the famous observer of planets, Tycho Brahe. Conditions at home prompted me to leave home, and after thorough deliberation with myself, I had chosen to accept Brahe’s invitation. Throughout the arduous journey, I meticulously presented to paper, the questions that I had been grappling with for years then. The night before I reached Brahe’s home, I consulted my watch for one last time as the sun lazily ducked behind the great spread of wet lands. The cart’s wheels skidded occasionally as the tired oxen teetered. From the dark, arose pairs of eyes; they embraced the sides of the wet muddy road and glistened like festoons of bulbs. The sky was cloudless and with squinted eyes, I think I spotted Jupiter without the aid of telescope. Since the time of Copernicus, nations obsessively pursued observations on planeta...

Chapter 1 Pressing the white glowing button that had ‘light speed’ written on its head, Jyothi shrugged in disbelief. The dashboard was attached to a giant monochrome screen where presently a red tab blinked ominously. If the readings were to be believed, she was travelling at light speed. She unbuckled her seat belt. The tight brown straps loosened around her shoulders; as they rolled over the abrasive arm rests, sound of flaying followed by that of flesh tearing apart. She approached the glass façade that overlooked the cantilevered nose of the space ship. Around her, the horizon was mottled with glazing stars, big and small. It can’t be. Jyothi whisked out the manual and sifting through the pages, found the page on light speed. She ran her manicured finger over the lines; with the book resting on her left hand closed before her bosom, she skirted around the ship’s vitals. She found nothing wrong in the settings. But how can it be. If the ship was indeed travelling at light speed,...