Sharath Komarraju's Blog, page 53

Sunday Story 21: The Man Who Knew

MADHAVACHAARI SHOOK ALL over as he stepped into the dimly lit office. A faint tinge of cheap lilac room freshener worked its way up his nostrils. Two orange lamps were lit behind the seated figure of Velayudhan, the man’s long face shrouded in shadow. The desk at which he sat was neither ornate nor expensive. Just four slender legs and a thin plank of wood resting on top, fastened with a nail at each joint. There were only two chairs in the room, one on which Velayudhan sat, and the other facing...

Sunday Story 20: Doghouse

WHEN I CALLED HIM on the phone and asked for directions from Dhavaleshwaram to his house in Palem West, Mr Yug Awasthi laughed heartily. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you that.’ I might have asked him to recite the salient properties of the Binomial Theorem.

‘All I know is that you catch any bus that leaves Dhavaleshwaram,’ he told me helpfully, ‘and tell the conductor you want to get off at Rudrakshapalem.’

But what was I to do after that? Did he not know the way to his own house?

Again...

Sunday Story 19: Ladies Hostel

DOCTOR ANNAMALAI HID his contempt with practiced ease. The man sitting across his consultation desk, Lingababu, was a near stranger. Besides the fact that he ran the ladies’ hostel on third cross road in Palem West, Annamalai knew little about him.

He was a squat, square-shaped man with a round head. He sported two silver-coloured rings: one around his nose and one at the top of his left ear. His thick mop of hair was black and ringed with curls. He had a nervous, fidgety way of looking about him...

Sunday Story 18: Under the Circumstances

I asked Mother where you went. I don’t think she knows.

(I don’t think I know either.)

Sometimes she says you went to sleep.

(I did.)

Sometimes she says you went to a place far, far away. A place where you cannot return from.

(I did that too.)

But it’s a nice place, she says. I think she is lying about that, though. Because she cries. Like a lot. When she is doing the dishes. When she sits by me and watches me eat. When she is giving Father his lunchbox.

Which is funny. When they all came to our house ...

Sunday Story 17: Gisele

MY INTEL WAS spot on. The shivalayam on the edge of the village was deserted. A little black cat had perched on the compound wall and watched me change. It mewed suspiciously when I’d put on the fake whiskers and beard. I said ‘shoo’ a couple of times, but the bastard did not budge.

Cats are impossible to love. Until they come and rub themselves by your feet. Then they’re impossible not to.

I was once contracted to take care of a cat. A fat orange Cheshire that I hated at first glance. But just as...

Sunday Story 16: Leftovers

‘RICE? RICE? RICE?’

Some of the people shook their heads. Some covered their plantain leaves with their left hands. Others looked up with embarrassment at the slouched figure of Mihir – the boy Rama Shastri had tasked with serving the guests this morning – and said yes.

When Mihir reached the end of the line, he stopped. Lines of worry appeared on his smooth, round face. His master would not like this.

There was Chander, in his soiled and torn clothes, his amulet shining in the bright sunlight, gri...

Sunday Story 15: A Lesser Temple

MANDIRAMMA BANDA IS EITHER the first or the last thing you will see in Palem, depending on which way you approach the village. It is a rather grotesque, odd-shaped rock about five feet high that leans back against the main trunk of a banyan tree, pushed off to one corner of the old shivalayam compound. If you stand next to Mandiramma Banda, with a palm placed on her rough granite surface, and look to your left, you will see the seated Nandi, in profile, in front of the temple, and to your right ...

Sunday Story 14: A Special Friend

DID YOU HAVE a friend growing up? A special friend?

You smile. I can see you don’t take me seriously. You have a pretty face, Nurse. Not like the other lady they send up here during the day. She struts about like she owns the place, you know; and talks to us as if we’re vermin. Oh, she is all right to look at, must have been a dame too, once, back when she was your age, but it’s the eyes. Either they have it or they don’t. Yours do.

Go easy with that needle, won’t you? The mean one poked around at...

Sunday Story 13: Alter

VIDVAAN SHED HIS first tear of the night when he plucked the wings off the body of his alter. There were four in number, featherless, sticky and transparent like those of a dragonfly, attached to each of the puffy little arms. When Vidvaan pulled out the first one, red liquid oozed out from the wound, and Junior sighed in pain. He blinked up at Vidvaan and said, ‘That hurts, Father. But if you must do it –’

‘Shut up. For the love of god, shut up.’ His hands trembled as they worked, one of them ho...

Sunday Story 12: The Milk is Sour

THERE IS SOMETHING wrong with Amma.

With one hand, Sanjay waved a green plastic hand-fan over Swati. With the other, he tried to smooth the cotton sheets on which she lay. Amma had placed her on top of the old asbestos trunk, so that the ceiling fan’s air would reach her more easily.

But it was now past seven in the morning. The fan had already stopped moving. It would not move till it was dark again.

Swati was hungry. Sanjay could see it in the frantic way in which her little puffed arms reached ...