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Fleeting Remorse

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Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Her ears stubbornly tuned out everything else but the needle of the second hand of the clock in the room, as she tried to focus on the words swimming in front of her eyes. It wasn't her first rodeo, but it was different for two reasons. The first was that this would be the first exam she had been in for five long years in academia. The second was that she was on the other side of the table for the first time. She was the ‘adult’ here. There are not many rules for writing a final exam in any college — bring your hall ticket, keep your phone on silent and in your bag, and rid your pockets of any materials (including but not limited to bus passes, receipts, random notes). This was for the students. For the professors, however, only the second rule was common. Apart from that, they had to be vigilant, take regular walking rounds, never sit/stand for too long in the same place and report any case of misconduct or unethical practices to the exam section. So, she h...
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Happy Onam 2022

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     I am in the middle of writing an essay for my supervisor when a WhatsApp Group Video Call notification vibrates on my desk. I look up from the randomly splayed, unstapled sheets of paper to see my roommates calling. I pause the Malayalam Lofi playlist I was listening to, remove my earbuds and rush out of the room, unable to contain my excitement. They'd gone home for the weekend celebrations while I had chosen to stay back for work. The next ten minutes zip by fast with the three of them telling me how busy it is with preparations for the mouth-watering sadya of the day and showing how they've successfully managed to create beautiful pookkalams (flower arrangements). They log off one by one and I sit near a plant with a bright red flower, gently stroking its petals - not having the heart to pluck it and make a minimalistic last-minute pookkalam of my own. I am taken back to last year's Onam when it had been a sunny day with the kind of weather perfect for hanging a ...
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A Helping Hand

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    I looked down at my watch - 09:13 am. The heat was bearable but it was only April. Easter had been a good break for me and now I was going back to college. I walked past the baggage security check and looked to my right, where a footbridge was. The Thrissur railway station was a bit crowded considering that it was rush hour and the middle of the week. I looked to the left and spotted some seats beneath a ceiling fan, right next to the deputy station master's office. I placed my suitcase under a seat, my bookbag on my lap, and looked at my watch again. It was now 9:20 am. A young woman in her late twenties was seated across from me. She was wearing a black and white Kalamkari print Kurti with a pair of red palazzos. Her mask covered most of her face and she had shades on. I'd likely stared for a couple of minutes when all of a sudden, an elderly lady rushes to stand next to her.  I look over and see that she's accompanied by a young girl roughly aged around 10 or...
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A Mid Spring Night's Dream

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 At first, there is nothing.  Just darkness that seems to surround her. She feels a shiver down her spine as she sees the haze clear. She searches for something and finds herself squinting. She is looking at a young girl, probably a few years younger than her, dressed in a white coat with her hair in a loose low bun running around. She seems to kneel down, stay put for a few moments, then move to somewhere else, repeating everything. She finds herself walking toward the maiden engrossed in whatever she was doing. She gasps when she sees that the girl is herself and at the scene unfolding before her. The girl is now kneeling in front of a man laying on his back, opening a white box with a red cross on it, and tending to his wounds. She lifts her head and attempts to understand where she is but the darkness surrounding them both refuses to show her anything. The girl suddenly looks up and rushes to another area; it's a woman this time - she treats her as well and this keeps happ...
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Sneeze

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14.2.2012, 8:45am      From a very young age, he'd learned that princesses never married kitchen boys, and he firmly believed that there was no such thing as love. 'Why?' you may ask; because his mother, the purest form of love he had ever known, loved his father, but that love wasn't enough for him. His father truly loved the other woman, but it wasn't enough for her. Both of them loved him, but it just wasn't enough for them to stay together. The only love he knew was the way his mother sang him to sleep, the way he used to bite her cheeks in return, the way they danced in the rain, and the way he lit a candle in memory of her, every February 14th.  Now, as he hugged his grandmother before leaving for school, as far as he could see, the stores on the street were decked in red. From ribbons to curtains, from banners to tiny heart-shaped stickers stuck on huge glass windows, and from gift hampers to chocolate wrappers. 'What is with the whole Valentine's...
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About A First Date

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 I see your thank you message at 7:21pm, and my mind goes back to the minute we decided to take such a day for ourselves in the first place - and how both of us just knew that we wanted to be by ourselves. We just knew that we could be in our own little world for the hours we choose to spend together. I have zero expectations when I get up in the mornings for days like this, but somehow that sudden hug in the confines of your room made me feel otherwise. It actually felt like I was going to enjoy the day to it's fullest; just because I was with you. So in our cab when you said that you're fine because you're with me, I just couldn't help but smile and sit an inch taller.   My 'clinginess' was an issue with some of my friends in the past and I didn't want to repeat the same thing with you; but then we walked - hand in hand mostly and I realized how much I missed that touch, how much I missed being myself around someone who feels the exact same way. And then...
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What’s Special Today?

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  The clanging of a bell woke me up with a start. Sitting up hurriedly, it took a second for me to register that it wasn’t the prayer bell that usually rang at 5:45am; it was the campus bell that rang at 5:00am. Breathing in, I picked up my phone off the floor and pushed the power button – it didn’t light up. I blinked twice and tried again to no avail. Trying not to think of it too much, I plugged in the charger into the C-port and waited, yawning. A few seconds later, the image of a battery with green bars slowly rising to its top popped up on the screen. Shaking my head, I realized that I hadn’t charged my phone the previous day; and if it wasn’t for the bell that had made me get up half an hour early, I would’ve overslept and gotten late. I murmured a ‘thank you’ and grabbed my toothbrush.   Two hours later, I was at my desk in my room, clad in my Wednesday-best, jotting down the tasks I had to finish before 5:00pm that day. The unexpected pats on the back and greetin...
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