Bun-maska crept tentatively, one foot at a time, ascending the staircase that swung feebly around the decrepit Mira chawl like a barbed wire. Tiny glasses of chai clinked in the iron glass holder he carried, as though deliberately trying to betray the silence their owner hoped to maintain. The late afternoon sun washed the wooden […]

He squatted on a patch of cabbages, under the relentless supervision of a July sun.

The chicken curry had more curry than chicken. So, he threw it at her. She dodged the fiery droplets with a practiced ease. They fell instead, on Lolita, staring silently from a corner of the room. The book had stood there for a long time, mute and un-thumbed.  And now, rivulets of gravy and spice disfigured Lolita’s face. […]

‘Columbia’, irrespective of what the name suggests … was not much more than a run-down strip joint.