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Silent Schooling - #ATOZCHALLENGE – S (2026)

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  On the third floor of Izzat building, a proud mother stood looking at her son’s engineering degree. A freshly laminated frame had just been hung upon the wall of their one-bedroom apartment. Geeta couldn’t help jerking out a tear full of pride. She remembered all of Siddharth’s struggles, his late nights, his hours of staying locked in his room, his absence from all social events and activities. All of it was a build-up to the day when he would proudly wield his degree. With good grades, he got a campus placement in a top IT firm and could even work from home on most days. Life seemed to be absolutely perfect and revolved mostly around her and her model son. She yanked out her dated Samsung phone and began searching for the recording of her son’s presentation at work. It was a well-researched, insightful articulation that everyone was lauding. To add to that, it was engaging with witty puns and jokes interspersed intelligently between a serious presentation. Everything was go...
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Rogue Rider - #ATOZCHALLENGE – R (2026)

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  Taruna sipped her warm mocktail as she typed into the laptop. A short story had to be churned in another half hour and ideas were just not cropping up. “What do I write about? When I try to pen down a few unfiltered thoughts, the only thing that comes to mind is family problems, how inappropriate people can be, how unfair life is generally and why a perfectly functional washing machine decided to break-down today.” A drive along the busy crossroads of the city’s buzzing locality wasn’t always a cake walk. Traffic converged from all directions. The intensity of the snarl made most people go rogue. Some went into lanes that were clearly no-entries. Some overtook from the wrong side. Some two-wheelers squeezed themselves into unrealistic gaps, all in the name of moving ahead. “What was the motivation for all of this?” Taruna thought. “Was it the frustration of being caught in the snarl, the sheer impatience in human nature, or was it an unsaid norm in these parts?” As her thoughts ...
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Quirks of Life - #ATOZCHALLENGE – Q (2026)

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  She walked in icily without even saying a word. Zoya was totally at a loss. How do I tell her to dust the walls properly? Will she sweep under the sofa, the bed, and even the cupboards? How do I tell her to go easy on my glass cutlery? She seems to break something or the other. While all these thoughts played in her mind, the very preoccupied Zoya was in a moral dilemma of her own. Am I being too demanding? Or am I being fair? Sahina, the house help, had successfully gaslighted her into believing she was being unreasonable. Her mind game? Just look emotionless and rigid. Let the opposite person feel it is acquired stoicism from a very fraught life. She was poor, and she obviously did not have it easy. Her excuse was perfect. Sahina’s plan worked. She managed to clean the home superficially, earphone in her ears to avoid any of Zoya’s instructions, and then dashed off to her next employer. The furniture was still dusty; the vessels had a film of grease; and the washr...
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Please Hear Me, Brother! #ATOZCHALLENGE – P (2026)

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  “Why is it so tough for me to say anything without being judged?” Karishma just said what Jay never wanted to hear.   It felt like a sudden drop from the 10-foot ceiling! A hard one. He didn’t respond. The only thing she got was a cold stare. The emotional overload began to rise for Karishma. She had had a long day, and from the moment Jay walked in, he kept noticing imperfections in things. Why is the dim light on when it isn’t even fully dark? Why are you having such chilled water? Don’t you think the centre table is too much in the way? Let’s move it to the side. Her mind wasn’t prepared to process chores at the end of her very busy day. But he wouldn’t relent. She did tell him a few times. Listen, Jay. I am not in the right frame of mind. Let’s do this whole fixing-the-situations thing some other day. “You have this whole, its-too-much-for-me phase when I try to tell you anything. When the hell are we supposed to resolve these things, Karee?” “What is...
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Optimistic About Opal - #ATOZCHALLENGE – O (2026)

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  “You get the best beef burgers in this outlet, Akash. They may not be as good as they are your side, but you won’t regret it.” “No problem, Alisha. But if the meat isn’t as per my liking, I will surely have an opinion on it and you might get to hear it till her flight arrives, tomorrow night. Works?” “Baap re, I’m scared. Let’s order a veg burger instead. Let’s pin the criticism on the green dot, then.” Akash dramatically nodded his head in a traumatized no. His expression growing graver with each nod. “No points to you for overacting. Come. Let’s go. This is the only evening we have. Tomorrow, Opal will be back and we won’t be able to do our hangouts.” Opal was Akash’s girlfriend, a self-proclaimed South Delhi fashionista who liked to sport famous brands in clothes and jewelry. She was the daughter of Shrutika Kataria, a rags-to-riches socialite single-mother who had built her own brand of rings. Fate led her to cross paths with a Hyderabad-based engineer who worked ...
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Nobody Genius - #ATOZCHALLENGE – N (2026)

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  His frail and fragile frame sat on his lone cot. The apple that lay in his dish was slowly browning. Still good enough to consume, yet not desired. The 80-year-old Kishore Garodia sat by his bedside nursing himself back from an upset stomach. His water consumption was measured. Anything in excess of a litre would lead him to lose the essential electrolytes he needed to preserve his aging frame. Rakshit, the intern from the government hospital, saw the ORS missing from the table. It triggered in him a surge of concern that came out as anxiety, and a checklist that was reinforced repeatedly by his medical college HOD. “No, no tell me. Should I ask the staff to get you ORS?” Kishore looked on calmly. The only answer he could give was a muted no. He lacked the strength to placate the young doctor’s fretful tone. “Your doctor’s prescription, Kishoreji, I hope you have everything that is on it?” Geeta, the caretaker interjected with the better intention of taking stock of the situatio...
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Mine? The Mirage of Scarcity - #ATOZCHALLENGE – M (2026)

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  “You won’t be using this extra iron will you? Then I will keep it.” Kavita claimed ownership of the iron even before Anita could reply. Anita and her husband Shyam were cleaning their home for Diwali. A lot of unnecessary and unused utensils that were stashed away were removed. And Kavita, their neighbour always developed a need for anything they didn’t want. Later, over a cup of chai , they talked. “She’s grown up in a frugal home, Anita.” “Who?” “Kavita, of course. Didn’t you find her acting strange?” Anita raised her brows and nodded quickly in assent. “Yes, it did look a little over-the-top and unnecessary. She’s doing a job and getting a good salary. Then why this financial insecurity?” “Like I said, her frugal life. Her mind is trained to fear scarcity. I am sure she must hoard a lot of unwanted things in her home out of the sheer fear of losing them.” “That’s not a happy place, Shyam,” Anita concluded. “One should always express gratitude for what they have...
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