Archives
The Collection of Strangers
Posted on April 2, 2018 4 Comments
I just got back from walking the dog and am seated at the long wooden table on the balcony with my second espresso, reflecting on my family talent for collecting strangers. We’ve always done it. Some of the collections have been more successful than others.
Leader of the Pack
Posted on September 6, 2017 15 Comments
Storytelling and the awareness of the power of words started early for me.
Arranged Marriage
Posted on December 21, 2014 2 Comments
Priya, how will MummyDaddy react? Radha, do you want me to go through with this arranged marriage and spend my life in misery? You’re my cousin-sister. I thought you’d understand. We have maintained the lie till now, but we both know that by morning, I will be gone.
Prophesy
Posted on November 25, 2014 3 Comments
Larni’s fingers grip the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. Nanna didn’t sound well on the phone. She sounded old and tired. A large shape on the road catches her eye. A full-grown wedge-tailed eagle picks at the bones of a mangled carcass, the latest road-kill victim of a hurtling road-train. She doesn’t have time for this.
Redemption Missed
Posted on November 21, 2014 14 Comments
The old woman smacks her now toothless gums. It is her anniversary today. Forty years have elapsed since that fateful day when she left her family, left all she had known, for the man she loved. He had been kind to her, and loved her in his way. He had been patient with her, holding […]
The Unceasing Rain
Posted on November 20, 2014 21 Comments
The rain falls unceasingly. Corpulent drops, ponderous with the weight of their watery load, tumble and roll from the heavens. They pound on the roof tiles dampening all other sounds, creating an impenetrable blanketing silence. A world devoid of look-here distractions. I sit on the stone bench surrounding the central courtyard, hugging my knees close […]
The Prince
Posted on October 19, 2014 4 Comments
Carelessly tossed emeralds and rubies lie strewn across an ornately carved teak table, blinking their arrogance in the dawning light. A once opulent landscape, an abundance of crystal and silver pots filled to brimming with the most succulent foods, is lain waste. Bodies are scattered across the floor in various stages of undress, like dolls […]
Phoenix
Posted on October 13, 2014 2 Comments
The removalists scour Mama’s house, wiping away any traces of her. It has taken me the better part of the day to pack the picked over bones of her home, and I have left her bedroom till last. This is the most difficult room, the one in which she disappeared so frequently into her own […]
Wonderland Falls
Posted on October 5, 2014
Alice stands facing the door, her hand quivering the key to the lock. The weighty shawl of barely acknowledged memories shifts uncomfortably across her shoulders. Were her white linen and lace wish-memories usurping the real events that occurred in this place? Her mind tumbles, stumbles, hurtles backwards through blurred images, pitching and tilting through […]
Rotting Fruit
Posted on October 4, 2014
Like rotting fruit she hung from the branches of the tree. Arms aching, tear-stained face, knees scraped. How long had she hung there? She had run, the gang of kids behind her, laughing, taunting, cruel adult-child voices rising in derision.
Asha Rajan 