The Figure
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES JULIE was leafing through her biology scrapbook. She was supposed to write an essay on houseflies and complete the labelling and descriptions. She was putting in much care and effort, trying to live up to the standards her aunt Bidisha, a professor,...

Ethics
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES I INITIATED the process. Weak electrical signals reached the amygdala of the detainee. He twitched momentarily, his sinewy frame evident as he adjusted on his chair. Deep, somewhere inside his body, a few endocrine cells were stimulated. A powerful f...

Coming Home
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES It was close to midnight and raining when I stepped out of the editor’s chamber. Generally I have to walk some distance but today, at the end of the lane, I saw a cab. Lucky me! In the darkness I could faintly see the driver trying to close the boo...

Disappeared
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES ONE more child vanishes without a trace and never returns. The parents keep their voices silent even as pain sears through their hearts, while other villagers live in fear lest their children form the next string of victims. A distant God-forsaken...

Beyond Time
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES I am 15-years-old. I live with my parents in Golf Green. I have no siblings. I am in Class X. My favourite subject is Physics. Dr Sumit Banerjee is our physics teacher. He is a bachelor and lives in a one-room flat somewhere in Beliaghata. Our Bengal...

Wrong Side
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES MAJOR Rajiv Verma crawled through snow, shells and minefields - the terrain was treacherous but there was no looking back. He had to keep crawling to reach the other side of the snowy ridge, which was a safe zone for Indian soldiers. Rajiv had bee...

Eggs
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES RAHUL wakes up. He has just felt a tickling sensation, as if something is moving over his body. But it is dark inside his bedroom. Even his sharp eyes are blinded by it. Rahul gropes for his mobile-phone. He gets it, flashes it on his legs, then o...

Knock! Knock!
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES I regard myself as a rationalist. Being a doctor, I remain so even today, but my rationality no longer stands on strong foundations. A long time ago, I was on night shift at a hospital and, having been satisfied that on my mandatory rounds I had f...

The Divination
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES THE year was 1986.She could not find her name even on the second list of candidates for MA — English Literature under the University of Calcutta. A shaft of remorse and dejection sliced through her heart. Her whole was crumbling like a pack of card...

Like A Fairy Tale
on Sep 18, 2009 in STORIES DR MAHAMAYA Basu, MRCOG, stood outside the iron gate of the bleak mansion. “No memsahib,” said Mangal, the caretaker, “The babus can move in any moment.” But his wife intervened and allowed her stay for a night. Simultala in 1952 was a rem...