Short Short Stories

Joseph came alive when he met Jenny, his ex-wife’s friend’s thirty year old daughter at a party. He had not felt like this in decades. She was a free spirit looking to having as many experiences as she could before her time ran out and Joseph knew that this was his window, and if he missed it, he would regret it. He was himself pushing sixty, but age did not matter at that point in his life. Here was someone who got him.  They met a few times for drinks and discovered many things that they had in common. She was an artist and had an amazing ability to express herself without the regular bullshit. She made it clear to him that she was into him and was not looking for anything serious. He was happy with that and they were soon in a fun relationship. They went out to bars, concerts, galleries, and had a wonderful time with each other.  He cooked for her and she loved the stories of his youth. She had yet to live some more to have stories of her own. She made him pose for her whil...

Gina was the most popular girl in college. She had a smile to die for, a body to try for and a mind to cry for. This simple and elegant girl would make grown men cry with her simple brilliance and the ease with which she made boys and girls hum with life. She loved life and was living proof that life was indeed worth loving. She elevated the most mundane jobs into works of art. She was fine, so fine, that you could drink her like a bottle of wine. When she walked into a room, she set hearts beating so fast, you could think it was a rave if you really listened hard. She spread joy everywhere she went. To see her once in your day was like having a refreshing dip in the ocean after a long day at work.  She rejuvenated you, she made you dream, she made you scream. She was loving and helpful, compassionate and understanding and gave herself completely to anyone who needed comfort.  There was a story about her taking care of a young homeless man for six months by letting him stay in...

I got off the truck on the outskirts of town and was filled with a mix of feelings. I was looking forward to going home to my family and friends, but I was also a little blue about my travels coming to an end. Where would I get that rush of life now?  The uncertainty of travel gave me a rush, something no nine to five routine would give me; yet I was ready to return home to see what life had in store for me.  I checked my pockets and saw that I had enough money to take a bus home. I waited for the bus and got on to the one that would take me homewards. I found a seat and sat quietly, watching the city, and as we got deeper into the city, the bustle of the city just blanked out all my thoughts. It was indeed a cacophony and I had forgotten my tune. I could no longer keep a thought in my head as the buzz of the city just got busier, louder and distracting.  After an hour of this madness I reached my destination. I got off the bus and looked around for an auto rickshaw to co...

I had never been away from home for such a long time.  It had been three years that I had been travelling all across the country; trying to find the answers to long forgotten questions. The questions no longer mattered now, it was the answers that I had stumbled upon. It was things that nobody else wanted to know about.  It was beginning to rain and I waited by the side of the highway for the next truck that would take me homewards.  The feelings of familiarity were coming back in slow waves lapping over the shore of my memories, of a past and a place I knew so well.  Everything that I had left behind when I embarked on my quest, now welcomed me back. I was happy and even looking forward to it.  I didn’t have many stories to tell, although I had met some fascinating people. These could be interesting stories if I was being honest, and they would be good over a few drinks, but the next day everybody would have forgotten them under the cloud of a hangover.  T...

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”  Lalit liked this quote of Shakespeare and it had a special meaning for him. Neither was he born great, nor did he achieve greatness, but he did have greatness thrust upon him when he took the blame for a prank instead of his whole class getting penalised for it. He was a hero, a saviour and fearless to his classmates for it.  He had hit a high note at fourteen and there was no going back into obscurity now. He now had to maintain this aura of a selfless patron saint of his classmates, which was quite a turn from being the guy who could get you porn videos for a price.  Horny teens needed their porn and he was the one who supplied it to them. He would rent it for twenty bucks from a video library near his home and make copies on the multiple VCRs he had at home, courtesy of the video library that his parents ran, which he sold for three hundred bucks each.  He ran a pretty good ra...

“It is human to err, but to forgive is divine” is what he read on the wall across the street. He looked away, lost in his thoughts about how could he forgive her?  She had lost all sense of humaneness when she told him she wanted to leave him on their third anniversary. It was not because she was attracted to another man. Yes she was attracted to another man, but it was not because of that.  It was simply because this was not the life she had hoped to have with him. She aspired for more out of life, more money, more comfort, a higher status, her career booming, it was all over the place and she was getting none of that from the life she had with him.  It was not that she did not love him, it was just that she loved herself more. It was a cliche, and that was exactly that.  Human aspirations are a cliche he thought, but he could not understand what was to be done now. He was jobless at the moment and she was paying the bills and she had run into an old flame a few wee...

“Stop teasing me!” she said.  “I am not” replied Gino, “it is true. I have just booked us on a seven day cruise of the Caribbean.”   Selena could not believe it. It was so unexpected. She had only mentioned it once in passing that she would love to take a cruise once before her life was over. It was beyond her wildest dreams that it would ever happen and Gino had made it happen.  “Where did you get the money?” She asked.  “I sold something that I did not need anymore” he replied,”Nothing to worry about. We leave Friday, so start getting your things together.”  It was a moment that he wanted to remember for the rest of his life. Selena was truly happy and was still dazed from the shock of it. She may have been a little woozy from the chemotherapy, but she had enough energy to feel happy and amazed at his acknowledgement of their love.  He did not know how much time they had left to be together, and he wanted her to have this experience that she had so badly ...

Nick could not believe his luck. He had just wandered into a church and it had started pouring heavily.  He was glad that he was not caught in the rain and as he looked around, he saw a man sitting quietly, looking at Jesus on the cross and wondered why did they have such a harsh image of Jesus.  He had known it all his life and had loved Him and prayed to Him and he had been comforted and taken care of by Him.  He went and sat and looked around. He had no idea why he had been drawn to this church, but it felt beautiful. It was charged with energy from the prayers of the lovers of Jesus.  All the places of worship that he had been to, had this strong energy. He had been to churches, temples, mosques, gurdwaras all over the world and all of them had a strong energy which totally enveloped him.  “God lives in the prayers of His devotees” he thought, maybe that was why the prayer house was called the house of God.  Devotion was the path, and devotion was the g...

“How does one write what one knows, when one knows nothing about anything?”  This was the question running through Nick’s head when he sat in front of his computer to write.  All sense of being a writer left him at that very moment. He knew that he had a few unique experiences, but were they worthy of being written about?  That was the question he was afraid to answer. He wanted to inspire, not titillate and that was a tough call to make. Would writing about his subhuman past inspire anybody?  If he wrote it well it could, it totally depended on how he felt about it. To write from life was a big step, but it was the only way forward for him. That is all he knew.  To write about life was all he really could do, and now he was waiting for the first sentence to come to him.  Grammar and vocabulary should not stand in the way he thought. He felt like Snoopy for a bit, sitting at his typewriter, writing his best selling novel, as he placed one word in front of a...

The first time he cried at a movie was when he watched The Champ, when he was seven years old.  It wasn’t until he was fifteen that he cried again, watching The Love Story.  A cry was good for the soul they said, but he did not feel that way. It felt like someone was pulling his heart out through his tears. It was a terrible feeling to not be in control of your emotions he felt.  The last time he cried, he cried so hard that it lasted for six months. He lost 24kgs in that time. No good came from crying he felt. It was better to understand that life was indeed what your mind gave consent to and to watch what you were giving consent to.  This wisdom came to him when he realised that we all had selective emotions. It came to him when he saw that he reacted to some dumb movie and cried like the world was ending and totally ignored the agony of a man starving in pain from his hunger.  This would not do.  He felt he had to sensitise himself to the pain of others....

It was a dark moonless night and Nick had just got off a truck which he had hitched a ride on.  He looked around and found himself standing on the outskirts of a small village. He wanted to get another ride but it looked like it was not to happen for a few hours.  He was used to this and just sat on the milestone by the side of the highway. He looked at the time on his watch, it said 2:15 a.m. He lit a beedi, a taste he had developed on his rides on the highways.  He was hungry and his stomach growled. He checked his satchel and there was nothing in there that he could eat.  A villager was on a bicycle and he was passing Nick when he heard Nick’s stomach growl and stopped and said “You look hungry sir, please come to my shop. I will get you something to eat.”  Nick was not surprised by this sort of thing anymore. Being hospitable was a way of life in the villages and small towns. Nick followed him and they reached a small shop that was shut.  The villager o...

He said “I know what it is like to be dead. Like the song, you know.”  She raised her eyebrow and looked at him, wondering what he was talking about.  “I will always be what I am and so will you, yet there won’t be a me or a you” he continued.  She laughed and smiled at him. That’s all she could do as he was holding a gun pointed at her.  She should have never told him that she wanted to leave him, she should have just left without a word she thought, that would have taught the cheating bastard. It would have been simpler and more effective.  Now she had to deal with a deranged lunatic who was high on God knows what.  She needed to buy time. She put her arm on his shoulder and caressed his cheek.  “How about not killing me,” she said “and let us forget that this ever happened.”  “Not so easy babe, I am going to need collateral” he said.  She knew what he wanted. It was her family heirloom that he had his eye on ever since he found out what it...

Dear Nick, I see that you have made up your mind to be a writer. I must say that it is a very brave step as reading is a dying passion. Everything is now reduced to blurbs and quotes these days. But if you feel strongly about it, you must.  It is indeed a privilege to be able to influence thoughts; through generations in some cases, and you must write what you know and understand.  There may not be many who see things the way you do, but it is your duty to express yourself in the way you know how.  Keep to it and you will find your voice and what you want to express will come to you.  It is in endless search that you will find your voice; and your beliefs will change as you traverse the landscape of your mind. Write because you need to, write because something needs to get out there into the world.  Writing can be very powerful mode of expression and you must feel it so. Write because it feels natural to write and your skill as a writer will sharpen and so will ...

As stories went, his was not one for the books, but it was worth telling.  Here was a man who loved women, but could not tell them that he loved them. It may have been some freaky DNA, or it may have been the sheer number of women he loved, that he could never know for sure.  First it was the girl on his bus who gave him a butterfly sticker in kindergarten. She always waited for him with a big smile. That could have been love, as far as love between four year olds goes.  And then there were none for a long long time. And then the hormones started creating havoc and then there were too many. But they were always out of his league. Older, too beautiful, had a boyfriend, not interested in him, the list of reasons for nothing happening just went on.  He passed out of school, and college was worse. The numbers were staggering. But still no luck. Girls liked him in college, but he was more drawn to being in his own space. A slight hash/opium addiction did not help things e...

Nick sat across the astrologer and asked her “When will I get laid?”  She looked at his birth chart and wrinkled her nose and said “How do I put this, not for another twenty years!”  Nick was flabbergasted. This was the only reason he had come to her and now this is what she had to say.  He asked her “Are you sure?”  She said “Yes. It is hard to hear this, but this is how it is. Sometimes we hear things we don’t want to believe. This must be hard for you.”  He laughed and said “That is a long time to go without sex. What am I going to do?”  She smiled and said, “You will discover many things about yourself and you will live life to the fullest. You have much Karma to pay off. But as time passes, you will not notice it after a while. It may be tough at first, but you will get used to it. You will do many things and learn that you are capable of more than you know of yourself.”  “What about money? Will I get any?” He asked.  “Yes you will. After twe...

  “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you” is what Sam heard Mina say on the car stereo while he was trying to find a parking spot.  It was a great thought, but was it possible to be so aware of the inner workings of our mind?  It was indeed a solution to our problems, as we were not aware of our own processes that harboured negative thoughts and feelings towards others.  “Nobody is responsible for anybody’s happiness or unhappiness. It is all, the fruit of our deeds” he heard her say next.  This too made sense. It was always what we gave out into the world that we got back. This was plain and simple.  “Good done unto others is good done unto oneself.” “There are no others.” This list of simple truths was indeed very easy to understand. Not so easy to practice though.  He finally managed to park the car and took the tape out of the deck. He was worried about losing it in case the car was stolen. He didn’t mind losing the car, but he did n...

“May I watch you?” She asked. He heard this over the roar of the engine of his latest acquisition, a 1932 Packard Twin Six Phaeton. He looked over his shoulder and saw a small woman standing behind him.  She smiled at him and said, “I have loved classic cars all my life. My father used to own a few.”  “Sure, I am just setting the timing on this one. She is a beaut” he said, “and as all beautiful things, she needs work.”  “I am Shawna” she said as she reached out to offer her hand.  He raised his hands and said “These are dirty”.  She smiled and pulled her hand back.  “I am Manjeet” he said and  dove back under the hood. The roar was back up as he tried to get it to sound right.  She looked on with an eager curiousity that came from her childhood, when she watched her father tinker around with his cars.  “That’s right” he said and looked satisfied with the sound of the engine. He turned to her and asked her, “What do you think?”  She smil...

This was not the end. Aisha had seen this sort of thing in movies, but she had no idea that it would happen to her and thought that this too could pass.  It must be just a passing phase she thought. All of her pain had tied her in a knot that nothing could untie. She had to see this through to the end.  Haider loved her and she knew that he would never hurt her. He was sensitive and caring.There was not an evil bone in him.  Her father had tried to warn her about this, but she was too much in love to think clearly. All of her days and nights she had thought of him, loved him and took care of him. Now he had told her that he was gay.  “Where were the signs?” she thought.  Her father had warned her that he was much too effeminate and she would get her heart broken.  But she just dismissed it as the opinion of a suspicious man. Now she regretted not having paid heed to his words.  She had a ten month old baby and was feeling totally helpless. She did not ...

It had been a long day and Sid had been looking forward to a drink. He had called his friends to meet at Trio, a posh nightclub in South Mumbai.  He picked up Satish and they headed to the bar and met their friends and had their drinks and chatted about the stock market. It was 11 p.m.  They decided to get a table and have dinner there as well. It took fifteen minutes and their table was ready, the perks of being regulars and big tippers.  They enjoyed their dinner, Pan Asian was the rage at the moment. They continued with their drinks and soon everybody was pretty drunk. It was 12:30 a.m. and they decided to call it a night.  They went down to the valet and waited for their cars. Naresh got his car first and then it was Amyn and then it was Siddesh. Everybody but Sid and Satish had left.  They were oblivious and were engaged in conversation. They noticed that everyone had left and they were the last ones there. They asked the valet where their car was. He said ...

It was a sunny morning and Ram was headed to his Guru’s ashram 200 km away from Mumbai. He was driving alone and was quite uneasy about it.  He was always worried about making these trips alone, fearing a breakdown or any other incident on the highway. He always tried to get someone to accompany him, but this time there was no one available.  He reached the outskirts of Mumbai and made a turn into McDonalds for his regular breakfast and bathroom break. He always stopped there as they had really clean bathrooms. He had a McMuffin and a strawberry milkshake and went to the bathroom and the pit stop took less than fifteen minutes.  As he was getting out of the parking lot, he saw a young woman with her thumb out asking him for a ride. She asked him if he could give her a ride to Pune.  Ram was wary about doing it, as he had heard many stories. He noticed that she was wearing a Sai Baba locket. A good sign he thought and agreed to give her a ride.  She got into the ...

It was Niro’s 18th birthday and all his friends had got together at GC to have drinks. He was turning eighteen and had been looking forward to this day all year long.  His dad had bought him a car and he was damn excited. The last of his friends turned up and the drinking began.  Though it was a quarter system bar, they had ordered full bottles as they were all looking forward to causing some mayhem tonight. They drank and drank and drank. Bottles kept coming and snacks kept coming.  They were smashed by 2 a.m. and decided to go for a drive in Niro’s new car. Niro paid the bill and all six of them got into Niro’s new car and took off for the Gateway of India. They stopped by Gokul and picked up some more booze.  The boys were parked at the water front and were having a good time swigging straight from the bottle and laughing at the worst jokes that anybody could come up with.  A police van passed them but did not stop and they continued with the drinking. They t...

There was something about The Beatles that haunted Trudy. Even though she was born after they had split up, their songs connected with her life and everything around her.  She had never heard a song by them that did not give her an answer or a direction to any situation in her life. She knew that they wrote from their life experiences, no matter how surreal some of the songs got.  She lived through all of her the teens listening to them and they kept her wise and sane.  She partied, got high, prayed, meditated and this she felt, kept her balanced. She indulged in everything she wanted to, and always kept it in moderation.  There were times when she may have had one drink too many, but everything had its place in her life in moderation.  Her boyfriend Mike was the opposite in many ways. He was always trying out new things and trying to push the envelope. He wanted adventure, he wanted to live wild and that meant a lot of experimentation with drugs, sex and his ov...

Nick had been turning over a new leaf.  The welfare of others was now his focus in life, be they less fortunate than him or more. “Everybody needs a helping hand” he thought.  It was unfair to think that only the less fortunate needed help and support, according to him. The well off too needed someone to hold their hand when they faced their troubles. “Everybody needs somebody” as the song went.  He had started an informal group called “Helping Hands” with his childhood friend Amrit, and often wondered if their efforts were working. They spent all their energy working towards helping people out of a rough patch in their lives; be it loss of a loved one or financial hardship or paying a child’s school fees.  They did the best that they could and help was always forthcoming.  They had been at it for a year and funds always came when they needed them.  Nick remembered a quote told to him by his friend Vikram’s father that went, “The gardener may water his gard...

The sun was in his eyes as he woke up and he was startled by the surroundings in which he awoke. He had never seen this room before, and was in a haze about where he was and what had happened last night.  He slowly got out of the bed and looked around, it looked like he was in somebody’s living room. He walked around and saw a kitchen which was empty and a bedroom which was empty as well. The inhabitants of this house were clearly not at home.  He went to the kitchen and got a bottle of cold water from the fridge. He gulped half of it and felt refreshed. He went back to the living room and sat on the sofa and tried to piece together what had happened last night.  He had been invited to a birthday party in the loft of a recording studio. He remembered that there was lots of whiskey followed by lots of tequila interspersed with a few joints. He had to stop living like this and rethink at what cost was he trying to regain his youth after his divorce. If things continued like...

There was once a rich man who lived right across a poor cobbler. The rich man's wife often looked across the street and saw the cobbler and his family living a happy life, free of pressures, celebrating all festivals etc. She brought it to the notice of her husband who told his wife to watch that family over the next few days and she would get her answer. He secretly told his employee to place a pouch with 99 gold coins in it outside the cobbler's house. When the cobbler found the pouch of coins, he was ecstatic and counted them. He was slightly disappointed that there were only 99 coins in it. He decided that he would save every penny and make it a 100 gold coins. He started working long hours and had no time for family and celebrations. The rich man's wife noticed this and asked her husband what had brought about this change. The man replied "So far they had no wealth and so had been spared the lust for it. Now that they had wealth, lust for it had come into their li...

Mishraji was at a paan wala buying tobacco, Rolling papers and a bunch of lighters.  He was lost in his thoughts when his neighbour, Sharmaji tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Mishraji, I did not know that you smoked.”  Mishraji turned around and said “Oh Sharmaji, how are you? No no, I don’t smoke. These are for my son. He is unwell so thought I would get his stock for him. He has been down with a sprained ankle and cannot walk much.”  Sharmaji was very surprised and said “Mishraji, it is unheard of, for a father to buy smoking supplies for his son. In our day, a son could never let his parents know that he smokes let alone smoke in front of them.”  “Hahaha” laughed Mishraji, “Times have changed. Today we are friendlier with our children than our parents were ever with us. And it should be so. Each generation gets more progressive than the earlier one. It is a good sign. One should move with the times and not get stuck in the ways of the past” said Mishraji....

Nick was awake well before the alarm rang. He turned it off and was looking forward to a day filled with fun activities. For him, fun at seventeen was saturating all your senses with everything you could take in.  He got up and went through his morning routine and got dressed. He rushed through breakfast and left before anyone could ask him anything.  He had just got into a Hotel Management college and had made new friends. New friends he wanted to get high with. He rolled a joint on the way to college as there were no classes for the day as the seniors were hosting a French food festival and had even booked a band.  He was nice and stoned when he got to the college. There was just a sea of people and he met his friends Raka and Ashok. Ashok was helping some seniors prep for the festival which was in the evening. Raka was just hanging loose and had no plans. Nick hung out with him and they discussed the plans for the day.  “So here is how it goes” said Nick, “First w...

Raju, Sanju and Pappu were six, five and four years old respectively. The year was 1974 and television was fairly new in India. They were watching TV when there was a bulletin on the Republic Day celebrations to be held in New Delhi.  Raju got a brain wave that he and his brothers should go to New Delhi to watch the parade. They put together some biscuits and a water bottle in a bag and started out.  The plan was to walk on the railway tracks which would take them to New Delhi.  As they started out, they met three year old me and told me to follow them to the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi. So we crossed the road and walked till we had reached the bridge over the railway tracks and took the staircase down to the platform. We got on to the tracks and started walking.  There was no concept of any direction or anything else for that matter. Just four dumb kids with an idea in their heads.  We had hardly walked for five minutes when a maid who worked in their ho...

Nick was standing outside the train station with no money to take him further.  He had spent the last of his money on the train ticket to reach Vijaywada. He did not know how he would proceed ahead.  He had a satchel with some weed in it and a journal and a map of India which he had been using to plan a nationwide tour of indie bands which never happened.  He searched his pockets and found a few coins with which he purchased some peanuts. That was breakfast. He pondered his next move.  He walked to the highway and took out the map from his bag and was trying to see where he could go next. He stuck his thumb out and waited for a truck to pick him up.  A truck slowed down and picked him up. It was being driven by a Sikh and Nick said thanks to him and sat down next to the the door.  He searched for cigarettes but could not find any. The cleaner who was sitting next to him offered him a beedi which he took very gratefully. No conversation was made.  This ...

“I’m playing with the fuckin’ band you dick” yelled Ray at the bouncer who had stopped him from entering the nightclub. He showed him his guitar and the bouncer just wondered what this kid was doing at a night club at that hour.  Ray was fourteen years old but had the chops of a maestro. That was the only reason his family let him go out so late at night. The only musicians who were at his level were thrice his age.  A prodigy with a temper to match. It would not be long before he would start getting loaded, high, wasted. But whatever he put into his body did not take away anything from his guitar playing. It only seemed to enhance it, or so it seemed to him.  His sister sang with the band as well. Those were days of having a good time above all else. The band had great respect for him as a musician, but often forgot that he was just a child.  He was caught with his pants down, getting head from one of the regular hookers at the club and everybody had a great laugh. ...

She was born on the auspicious day of Diwali and they named her Sita.  She was the most adorable child and never cried or had tantrums. There was an otherworldly peace about her and she was loved by everyone. She always wanted to sit in the family prayer room and would spend hours speaking with the idol of Lord Rama.  Her parents were God loving simple folk and they were very happy about her natural inclination towards devotion. She hardly ever played with other children and was most happy on her own.  When she was sixteen, they wanted to get her married as was the custom in those times, but she was not for it. They went ahead with the marriage and she was greatly distraught.  She locked herself in a room at her husband’s home and started chanting. Days went by and she would not come out.  Finally she asked to speak with her husband and explained to him that this life was not for her. Her love belonged to Lord Rama and she would not be able to perform her duties...