Author: admin

He was easily native looking like any other typical illiterate farmer. With a rice bag in one hand and his shirt pocket clenched with the other, he entered the village collector’s office. Reaching the table of a busy officer he waited for sometime, cleared his throat and said, “Sir, I am a farmer, I’ve come to hand over gold coins”. ”Sorry”, the officer cut him short, without even seeing him on his face; “The loan section is at the extreme right”. The farmer stood by the table for a while,…

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‘Kirukka’ ─ that was how people called him. He wore a dark brown half sleeve shirt with a torn collar and pocket. With a single button and a pin, he managed to keep his shirt over his body. His pants were no better indeed. The right side was always folded up to the knee. The seam of his pant had given away in many places. Apart from his dress, the only property he had was a steel plate and an aluminum tumbler. He carried these with him wherever he went.…

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The annual temple festival of Kaddachery village was just one month away and things weren’t looking good. The biggest event of the village looked uncertain for the first time in decades. The bridge had given away and the rath for the deity’s procession had to be brought from the town. Engineers from Trivandrum had expressed their inability to get the bridge ready in time for the auspicious fair day. Meanwhile people from nearby villages had started coming to Kaddachery with hopes that the giant rath would be moved into the…

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The village was in the grip of a near devastating drought and famine. Three consecutive monsoons had failed. Food was scarce, not to mention drinking water. It was dry everywhere around and people walked miles to get drinking water. The cattle stock too had dwindled drastically, and those alive had only bones and skin on them. Life for the village was hard and people were eagerly waiting for the next monsoon. It had been predicted that this monsoon would bring good rains to the village. This was the only consolation…

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She was clad in white cotton sari just like the other women prisoners. Except for the nights when she had to be alone in her cell, and which she always longed for, she was always with her fellow prisoners. Every morning, the instant the prison clock struck six, she had to start work along with others and wait in queues for her daily meals. She wasn’t any particular of her food; for all that she wanted was something that would help her last the next day. She had to toil…

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His age cannot be more than fifty, or less than forty. Tall, lean and dark, with a short white beard, he had his shop by the roadside. It was a very small shop, hardly enough to seat two people. He sat there in the middle of it, stitching a torn slipper. Damaged shoes, slippers, soles and leather bits lay strewn around him. He looked at his son playing across the road, “Sankar come here, bring me some water”. “Coming appa”, the boy limped across the road, his right hand supporting…

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Kishan was undoubtedly in a fit of anger as he walked down the colony road. A young man of about twenty four years, Kishan walked so fast that he almost collided with people as he walked. Then, suddenly he pulled a silver medallion from his pocket and flung it out. “I’ll teach the astrologer a lesson, he wont cheat hereafter”, he said to himself, as he walked. Only a week before, when Kishan was roaming about the market place, he came across an astrologer selling, what he called, the ‘love…

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“The train must be late today, come and have your breakfast”, Raju’s mother shouted at him. “No, I wont, first let the train pass”, Raju shouted back as he sat on a small rock and looked in the direction where the tracks curved. “The trains would be coming any moment”, he told himself. He waited patiently as if he was well used to it. It took sometime before he heard faint sounds of an incoming train, he then saw thick black smoke at the far end of the curve. “Ma,…

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