Published on May 14, 2026

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NYAC

Rains of Rajasthan

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date May 14, 2026

Rains of Rajasthan

Frank’s father was transferred to India. Now the family lives in Rajasthan in a place called Barmer.

The transition was substantial for the Scottish lad, it was supposed to be the cool season of September and this ‘cool’ season gave the boy a mild heatstroke the first week of being there. The collector bungalow was beautiful indeed with a well-maintained garden; the architecture that was supposedly British yet it was so alien. The sloping roof was purely decorative with no real roof gutters – even the pantiles were just cement ridges painted red.

Their butler was a thin man with a rat tail who called frank ‘chote Saab’ he never got what it meant yet learned to answer to it.

After six months of varying degrees of absurd weather from winter mornings cold enough to freeze the local ‘talao’ to thirty-five-degree heat in October afternoons- the dreaded summers came. His father had told him it would be best if he went back for a while and his mother already had but frank was too invested. So, he stayed soon to witness sandstorms that burned the straw houses of villagers and seeing the air wobble over the sand all the while boiling over in his room even with the fan turned on. When the hot winds blew, the servant would stuff the windows with a mesh of dried grass and poured water over the setup; it always got so cool when he did that only he could do it when the winds blew.

Finally, when the weather got bearable, he stepped out of the quarters after months- with an umbrella and all measures needed to prevent the heatstroke he got last year.

This time he stepped out he saw something which made him ask the man “where did they come from?”

What he saw were a bunch tents made haphazardly with a cloth laid on a dry shrub as roof and drapes hanging from thin ropes on the other. There were goats and sheep- dozens of them, grazing on trees standing on two legs. He was confused, there was nothing like this he had seen, there was no making sense of it. The man however, didn’t look so intrigued.

Frank looked at him expecting an answer. ‘They are wandering people, kalbeliye. Their girls do dancing; not good people, that kind’ said the man arising more questions than answering.

“Dancing isn’t bad” frank said only to be interrupted before saying any further ‘you are a child only. I already tell you they are bad people. Now we go from the other gate, if you wish “let’s go inside already” said frank with child-like annoyance. And thus ended the stroll.

Apart from some cold days, August this year is warm and somewhat humid, the kalbeliye children were unaffected, running barefoot on the sand, The girls looked out of the ordinary with their black clothes with little mirrors. So, this is what they wear to dances, frank thought. After a fortnight or so of frank being a voyeur, the weather got worse, he heard thunder the first time last night, the rain he saw in July was not this torrential, he didn’t go out anyway so it wasn’t a big deal.

The next morning, the clouds were dark. the kalbeliye began to pack. The girls no longer wore those clothes and switched to rags. When they were left, still clearly in sight; the rain began.

Frank went outside, Ganesh was nowhere close, he saw the children being to howl in excitement, the adults were indifferent, frank felt rain the first time in India, the rain was warm.

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At Eternity’s Gate

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date May 14, 2026

At Eternity’s Gate

I am a sick man, always have been. it’s just that now I am a sick old man in a hospital whose illness shows for once. In my time as a director, I’ve seen my fair share of gore, and it had always been my speciality for directing hospital scenes, and why not, after all a hospital patient is one you have infinite control over- put a tube through him, tie weights to his shattered leg, put him in any twisted position to create a scene of skin crawling repulse. “With an open mouth in awe and the upturned head, the man is put on a bed with grooves to support that position as they look at the white cold metallic bed frame fluttering like a pigeon with mechanical clicks and clatters, all the while choking on the tube that is the reason he still breathes.” Or some other showy attempt of visual strangulation. Being in those positions lately has changed me. Cast in stone, they would pass for modern art. In reality, they don’t hurt half as much. After all, a man drugged out of his mind can only feel so much. Those vials left me feeling like the party animal me, only with a tube shoved up my throat this time. There is no torture in being a bed model with enough morphine to knock out a horse. But you know what real torture is; those wretched ratcheted general ward beds that made the person into a mechanical toy whose back hurt every time you turn the handle up and down. And those nurses- terrible excuses of them- what they were was a bunch of giggly schoolgirls in scrubs who twirled their pastel nails with dolphin sounds every other minute. Those good for nothing incompetent bunch. But they were good at one thing if I be generous, and that would be lowering expectations because they made me worship the ICU nurses for giving the medication on time. Those nurses kept me sane, at least; one can stay lying only so long, being but a bag of potatoes who gets talked at only 5 to 6:30 except for doctor visits. God, now I get why they the old folk love you so much, even an atheist falls to you when he is alone 22 hours a day. Never had I thought of being called bed no. 12, but it’s good. Now I get the old ladies who have more or less forgot their names, alone in a family with 8 grandchildren, treating a sculpture as their child- the living faces they see rarer than a blue moon. There’s some charm you have that hooks the isolated, making them not so alone anymore. It’s all you, always were, just that I only saw you now. Never would the young Anand think he would say this. I have really changed. God, oh god, you are here; away from the crowd; in isolation. Oh, why is it 5 PM again, those fake lackies will be coming here anytime, they have no pity no well-wishing but still they won’t stop coming with that mournful face of theirs- there is no compassion when the sick is in sight even those humanitarians have their noses scrunched, even those saints lie, they are disgusted by me; they make a violated face. only the cleaning lady only she is true. She talked to me as if I was a toddler; she cleans me up while exclaiming, ” look what a mess you have made” somehow, she has nothing against me even when she criticises me there is no hate no repulsion. the way she says all that is no different than how a mother exclaims dressing her infant. I have become a child.

Published on May 7, 2026

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NYAC

One Fine Day

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date May 7, 2026

One Fine Day

It was a serene day in late July, the kind that makes you think nothing could ever change until I heard he was leaving. I tried not to think about it. But then, as usual, I failed.

I pretended to listen to the class. But all I could think of was him. His eyes, like a firefly in a gloomy sky, his smile, which I could see over a million times, his dimples, soft slopes I’d
fall into. All these are just pictures in my memories now. Or had it always been like that?

A sudden sound hit my ear and made me jump. ‘Smriti, what are you thinking?’ Maya asked. ‘Oh, nothing, Maya, I’m just listening to the class,’ I replied, trying to hide it. She would’ve found it by now.

I ran out of the classroom right after the recess bell, my heart aching to know if he’s really leaving. I asked one of my friends if what I had overheard that morning was true. She responded with a straight face, ‘Yes, Tanish is going to Mumbai. Don’t you know that?’ ‘Oh, ok, I didn’t know about that. When is he leaving?’ I asked her. ‘Tomorrow morning’, she said. T’ll talk to you later,’ I mumbled, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, hiding my anxiety.

With an anxious face, I entered the class. I tried to settle in, but my thoughts didn’t let me. ‘Maya, do you know that Tanish is going to Mumbai?’ I asked her, thinking she wouldn’t have known about it. ‘Yeah, I know about it. Were you thinking about that all this time?’ she questioned me.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?’ I roared. ‘I thought you’d be sad.’ ‘Do you believe I’m happy now?’ Maya was speechless. ‘You know that I love him, still, you didn’t think of saying it to me. Why?’
‘I..I didn’t mean to. I thought you’d be worried hearing that because you love him with your whole heart.’ Maya said softly. ‘I trusted that you’d tell me. But—’
‘Hey Smriti, don’t be serious. It’s just a small issue.’ ‘No, it isn’t. You know what, leave me alone for a while.’
My backbone hunched on the seat, my hands and legs shivering, I tried to forget everything which was never a thing that happened.

Drowning in my thoughts, I didn’t see her coming our biology teacher. She entered the class with her usual grumpy face and her purple glasses, carrying a pile of books in her hand. As she entered, she stared at m e a t my eyes-with an offended look. It was a new feeling, getting stared at by her judgmental eyes
I continued to drain into the ocean I built. Thinking of him made me cry like a baby, but that baby has a mature image in school, which she doesn’t want to ruin. So, I made sure I
blocked my ocean. But how can it be possible while he’s still in my mind?

My legs trembling, I started to walk out of my school and boarded the school bus, hoping I could hear his voice for one last time.

I dialled the number, my heart throbbing, my hands quivering. As I reached it to my ear, I heard it, his voice, like honey flowing, ‘Hello?’ He repeated it. I kept being silent. I didn’t listen to it again— forever.

Like all one-sided love stories, mine was unsaid too, with pain till the day that I die.

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My Fairy

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date May 7, 2026

My Fairy

I could smell the aroma of the sweet Kashmiri Kahwa tea. It was an Eid day. Greetings of hollow joy flowed in the house as I tumbled through the rooms. My mouj ‘mother’ asked me to dress up. In no time, it was the time of the Eid prayer. Ahh, I did not like to pray, like what 10-year-old does? But I had no choice but to follow my ‘Papa’ to the mosque. People usually say, You can’t hear colours and see sounds, but it is not true. On my way to the mosque, I could see the silence reflected in the closed shops and the empty lanes. In the courtyard, my neighbours greeted me, and I them, but their smiles did not speak joy.

Anyways, as it was to happen, the Imam led the prayer. In our prostration, there was a loud bang outside. It was a stone pelting. It was quite common in those days. The people present ran. My father and I hid in the bathroom, waiting for the situation to go back to normal. A tear gas shell was launched into the same room; the whole room was filled with skin-burning smoke. I remember hands pulling me. I remember coughing so hard I thought my chest would tear open. Someone was shouting my father’s name. Someone else was crying.

The mosque floor felt cold against my cheek. Then everything went dark. I never came to know how my father managed to get me home that day. At home, the smoke still clung to my lungs, and my eyes refused the words I longed to read. Silence filled the rooms, and a fairy appeared. “Kill the misery. Why are you sad?” Asked the fairy.

“ My eyes… they hurt! I can not see now,” I said.

“ Because they hurt or because you can’t see?” It asked.

“ Because I can’t read the story now. The lonely fox.. It is trapped in the cave, and then what?”“ Then imagine the fox in your mind. What does he do there? You see him?” It asks.

“ No, I can’t!”

The fairy spreads her wings around me.

“Do you see him now?” She asks.

“ Ah, it is a fox! He is still in the cave and is terrified of the fog and the stones. Poor him! He moves forward. Look, he sees a path, and now, he is not afraid. He learns the stones and can see through the fog. He finally reached the pond, and Ha, there are his cubs, and they are drinking water!”

“ He finally met his cubs! You see? That is the true beauty of your mind.” I rubbed my eyes again. The light did not return at once, but the darkness did not frighten me anymore. I could still see the fox in my mind, standing beside the pond, his cubs pressed against him.

The fog had not disappeared; I had simply learned to walk through it.

The fairy faded forever as my room was in lights.