Every father desires to sive his son the bast possible life.Aarav was a young boy whose father used to sell momos on the streets of Manali. This had been their family business for generations, but his father had aspirations to study. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, he was unable to do so and had to work at the stall from a young age. Knowing how painful it was to give up his dreams, he wanted his son to have the opportunity to study and choose his own path in life.

Aarav was...

Memory|स्मृति|याद

I love visiting my family in Delhi whenever I fly back to India. It’s mostly for work but this time it was because of dad. Upon being informed of his demise, I flew back to Delhi for his last rites. We didn’t have the best father-son relationship, but I loved him and I knew he loved me too. Being the only child of parents who were both brought up in Old Delhi, I grew up listening to ghazals and stories about Delhi which I have only now come to appreciate. My dad used to si...

Life isn't all about the hustle and bustle. Sometimes taking a break can make you feel more alive than anything else. It's only when we slow down that we truly appreciate the people and things around us. You realise the value of those who stand by your side once you have lost them. Wealth, power, fame, a man can attain it all but in those moments of your life when you feel empty and lonely, nothing can fill up that void.

I am afraid of being alone. Not like I fear ghosts or that I am weak but I...

Childhood|बचपन|Tafoliyat

Every definition I have ever read of childhood painstakingly fails to capture my yearning. To me, it’s a foregone age, when I was so full of love, for no one but myself. If I could run across the ocean into my own arms back then, I would.

For me, childhood will always be about waiting for the cotton candy man every Sunday morning by the porch of my house or being coerced into narrating a poem in front of a bunch of relatives, or having my shoelaces tied every morning b...

Jaagte raho! Jaagte raho! yu chilata to nhi par raat bhar nazar sab jagah pe rkhta hu”

Hi, I am Ramesh, the security guard of this society. My job is to keep an eye on the streets at night, pretty simple, right? Yeah, I usually roam around on these streets in the night, in shifts with the other guard who stays at the entrance. These cold winter nights are very lonely and silent. There’s no one on the streets because people go to sleep early these days. But I don't feel alone since I have bee...

Friendship, perhaps is not like a forest fire or a quick flint. It's an ivy that grows on the front door of your heart. Shiny, dark, and evergreen, knocking gently every now and then. Such was the remarkable friendship of Abhigya and her teacher, Ms. Surbhi.

It's been seven years since Abhigya left for the US, breaking free of the shackles of her emotionally abusive family. Ms. Surbhi was Abhigya's sixth-grade English teacher, although she went on to become much more than that in the life of...

Since childhood, I've had this peculiar dream on my birthday. I used to wake up the following morning feeling odd. The last part of the dream would always be a pair of hands clutching a beaded mala, but I could never recall anything more. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but it started occurring every year. My parents advised me not to dwell on it, and it was just a dream.

When I turned 18, my parents decided to have a pooja at our home for my well-being. I got ready for it an...

Prakash was a hardworking and content man. For a daily wage laborer by the day, and a Matka kulfi seller by the evenings, he had a peculiar perkiness about himself, one only heard of in unjustifiably optimistic fables and folklore. He would set up his stall at the same spot outside the central park of a posh colony where the elite lived, where the distinctions between the lives of rich and poor were sickeningly stark and apparent.

His regular customers included old people who came for their ...