Ginger drafts...

‘Apparently, the N62 neutron star of our galaxy is exhibiting strange fluctuations.’ I rode into my metal girded sandals, activated the tracking device, and stepped out into the open. Mother darted off to the window and threw an apple downstairs. I flung my gown up like a net and apprehended the gravitating fruit. Mother waved her chapatti dough stained hand and I reciprocated with a smile that reddened my puffed cheeks. Climbing up the leather upholstered narrow staircase of the school bus, I flung my head back and waved again. I thrust my ID card into the swipe machine and the rubber padded glass doors opened to reveal an empty bus. Just as empty as I thought it would. On Sundays, the school bus swished past the empty streets like a hungry whale with an empty stomach through deserted waters. Settling down on the last row near the window, I thrust my hand into the blue button and the monitor came alive. What was on? It was the video recording of the school principal from the day ...

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 ...