My Space

  “I wish I could get all the attention Anita was getting. She is of the perfect frame, articulate and professionally extremely successful.” Sunita said rather wistfully, while replicating the building before her as a charcoal sketch on paper. “Art gives me so much solace when my mind is plagued with such thoughts.” She spoke with herself. There was nobody else to listen. Anita and Sunita were twins in the Khosla household. Both so similar yet so different. While Anita was academically sound and popular in school, Sunita had been a recluse. Her parents thought she was the underconfident one and best left alone. They felt it wiser to invest in Anita instead. Both girls had round faces that occasionally sported a dimple, were tanned in complexion, wore their dark tresses in a braid. Anita preferred a single long one. Sunita had to have two, because that was the school norm. Anita being a bright student, the teachers would easily overlook this minor breach of dress code. Anit...

 Dear Dad, These past three years have made me feel such a void that I couldn't resist penning down this letter to you. After all you have listened to my lamenting all your life, so why should things change in your afterlife. I'm not very articulate, but you and only you can hear my unsaid words clearly through all my rambling. Ashita is your favorite and I am sure this fact will help her earn brownie points this time around too. And where does leave her rival because of whom I happened to you? Agreed that I married Ashu with your blessings and that I have my own pitfalls as a husband and she as a wife, but we have withstood the test of time. She's impulsive, hot-headed, and way too self-righteous for me to handle, but deep down within I know she has a good heart. Mum, on the other hand, has been living with this mortal phobia of being judged. She just has to be perfect and wear that mantle of an ideal mum. Neither of us have ever mandated this, but this is just her...

"I didn't sign up to be your housekeeper, I wanted to be your life partner," Meera hollered. An indifferent Shirish kept tapping keys on his keyboard, not even looking up to acknowledge her. Silence seemed to be his strongest weapon to show disapproval towards her. Meera felt like she wasn't given a choice. She had to endure. "Do you have any idea how difficult it gets for me at times? And I have nobody to speak with." Anger was seething on Shirish's face but he didnt react. He continued to do what he was doing, growing increasingly hostile.   Meera relented. If things went wrong, she and her meltdown would be the sole bearers of blame. And nothing would change. The long spells of ignorance peppered her mostly-at-home life with post lockdown work from home. She and Shirish seldom stepped out. For a five-year long marriage this kind of routine translated into boredom and disdain ... for Meera. Was Shirish bored? Did she not matter to him anymore. That apa...

  He talked, talked and talked like he had verbal diarrhoea. He needed to splutter out the last word he knew about whatever he was talking about. And then this infamous B-word would splutter out of his mouth if he felt very strongly that things were amiss. It would slip through his tongue in the most innocuous fashion, while the rest of us looked on quite wide-eyed. The B-word was like his trailing spouse. She followed wherever he went annoyed, as if she were the only thing that would pacify his agitated state of mind. She just had to come out! Retired seniors read newspapers like the world depended on their being better informed. Politics and current affairs are key topics of their discussion. Being neighbours, our parents made socials calls to each other quite frequently. During one such visit the argument over a politician's vested interest got heated up. He felt very strongly for the politician in question as did my parents feel against him. When the kitchen heat brewed too...

Sandeep Sharma walked in chuffed with entitlement into his father's cabin. His expression wore suppressed hostility and a sense of disapproval from the get-go. The first button of his shirt was undone, providing a sneak-peak into a well waxed chest. He wanted it to be  seen , a sign of his misplaced swagger. The button would never meet the eye for that day.  His slick black hair was thrown on his face like a mullet. He pushed it behind with a black hairband, branded and expensive beyond rationality. His mullet made a puff just above his forehead. The mosaic on his designer shirt looked asymmetrical and complicated. His fair complexion and broad rimmed smart glasses sat on his bulbous nose, his eyes were narrow and dismissive, like walking into the workplace had been the forced chore of the day. The crisp blazer and trousers, matching in hue, looked dark and murky as he might unfold to be. The make of an unheard of Italian brand that rhymed with Ferrari. His cufflinks were Swar...