Published on May 14, 2026

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Fruitful Life?

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

Fruitful Life?

Everyone was in the veranda, murmuring with jars of ostentatious liquid—”chai.” In her room, all locked up, Anvie was crying profusely. The tears made the cornea of  her eyes glisten, in which she saw the trail of memories, retaining daughter-mother synergy.

****

It was the death anniversary of Anvie’s mother. The house was submerged in dead silence, consuming each soul, just like an eddying brook consumes the banks of its sustenance.

Passing through this unwanted vacuum, Anvie’s grandmother, Arka, a soberly flamboyant lady with a peacock walk, reached her room. All stacked-up emotions turned messy and scattered when Anvie saw her grandmother arrive, an allegory of modesty to her. Arka compelled Anvie to come with her on the terrace. Like a peacock with its feathers spread all around and curling with their weight, capturing the unstable raindrop in the downpour, Arka picked up Anvie and took her to the terrace. At the terrace, Arka plucked a flower from the adjacent tree and placed it into a diary she brought along with her. The action of plucking appeared stiff, like the thorny stems of the rose. Then, she recited the poem to her granddaughter, with an amalgam of the cacophony of the nearby crow and cricket. She narrated,

“This poem was written by your mother:

“A flower of a pious child

From a fetus of bud

To the toddler of peaceful naivety

Where it slowly got cut from the umbilical cord.

The flower in its adolescence

Admired the pretty Polly natives

It was when he was the most capable of the incapable.

Amending nature’s greatest laws.Alas! It happened over a long time.

That flower introverted into a fruit….”

Anvie delved into her own mystic thoughts and instinctively turned the pages around, as a new sense of hope and teaching had hit her heart like a cupid, pouring wisdom and respectful love into her body like a vessel, and the abruption disrupted that flow. At the end of the diary, she saw an embroidered cloth hidden in the

diary’s secret pocket. With drooling blood, it was written:

“Fruitful was its disguise.

For peeling, it would be left damaged.

Dear this natural addiction,

Made the rotten hearts unpleasant

Fell on the ground

Stepped upon by a peasant.”

The lines left Anvie horrified. Tears and hands with smeared dry blood marked all parts of the page, and the title of the poem was imprinted as the ink bloated—

“Fruitful Life?”

The interrogative title changed its whole significance. The peaceful peacock hurried its walk to catch its prey, which slacks, piercing through its entrails. The grandmother pushed Anvie off the railing; as she fell to the floor, the body was radiating “Et tu, Brute?” The brook of blood, seeping into the porous rocks, made

the patriarchy bloom. Anvie’s mother was murdered by her in-laws for creating ‘retaliating’ pieces of poetry and not fettering herself into the shackles of stereotype. This was the reason why she manipulated her last piece of poetry, showing how her life had been devoid of that Arka (nectar in Punjabi).

All the evidence was removed, and Anvie’s corpse was laid close to the pyre of her mother, for the woven threads of feminism were turned to ashes in the fire.

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The Thing in the Reflection

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

The Thing in the Reflection

“You wouldn’t believe it”, grumbled the old, scarred face from behind the veiling hood.

“Noteven if I told it to you.”

The group of young listeners leaned in, with poker faces as a charade to their heightened sense of inquiry. Their exuberant visages seemed incongruous with the dark, cavernous pub in which this midnight revelation was unfolding.

“Years ago, on a similar night like this, I walked into that haunted manor”, laboured the beatenvoice of the old man.

“It wasn’t your regular horror house— the ivy ran all the way in fromthe windows and into the room. There wasn’t anything to be heard except the dreaded silence that shook me. I entered with a dimming torch, looking for the source of the nightly howls. Oh yes— there were rumors of all kinds. Werewolves, speculated some. Rotten corpses, guessed others. I continued deep into the house. Ichecked each room as I spiralled my way intothis labyrinth.”

The old man heaved as he glanced around. Yes,  he thought, he had got their complete attention. A faint glow of satisfaction warmed his insides as he continued.

“The rooms were screened by dust, lit only by the dead glow of the moonlight creeping in through the cracked glass windows. I wasn’t much of a daredevil; but, well, one can’t ignore orders while working in the police. Suddenly, my ears stiffened as a cold wave passed down my spine. Some sound, yes, some noise after all. Drops of water, I fathomed by their faint trickle. I became oblivious to the disturbing itching in my back as I navigated my way towards the room that was the sound’s source. It was the master bedroom— wooden furniture with ornate designs and an exquisite chandelierthat aggrandized the relic of a room. I ushered myself into the bathroom and found the source. It was a leaking tap and by the looks of it, it must have been cleaned quite recently. I doubled down to get a better look.”

The young audience, well into their thirties, was hooked. The old man continued. “Before I could ponder over the tap, I heard another perturbation. It came from the same room. I sauntered out of the bathroom, partly to look brave and partly to get my mind off my back pain.

There wasn’t anything there. Strange, I said to myself. The weary night grew on, and as dawn approached, my nerves started to get the better of me. By dawn, I had completed a thorough search of the shaky mansion. Just before the first streaks of daylight would flood the sleepy town, I decided to take a look back into the master bedroom.As I entered the room, I saw a big polished mirror in the corner. Weird, I thought— it wasn’t there before. As I took a few steps towards it, I began to notice something strange. I picked it up and cleaned the dirt off it with a rag. Then, I looked straight into it.

My back hurt.

I didn’t see anything worth recalling. But, since you young guys want to know, instead of my sweaty figure, I saw a full grown werewolf looking straight back at m

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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.