INDImag – Contemporary fiction | Motivational short stories | Social stories | Short story criticism

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Today, she wrote of what she cooked and how people ate, she wrote about her day, she wrote about her little world and how she dared not dream of more. This was her world she thought. Even in its defined limits, she was in charge here ; she controlled some part of the household.

On a moonlit summer night plunged into darkness by a power cut, our family of 5 sat for a ‘candle light’ dinner. In Rajiv Gandhi’s banana republic, talk was cheap and we spared no expense or effort and every dog had it’s say …

She hurriedly stirred the vegetables once and went back to chopping more onions. One needed lots of onions to be sliced finely, fried to a golden brown and sprinkled on top of the potatoes. It added that special flavor. And today of all days she desired the special flavor to be there.

“So you’re telling me that olives can protect you from evil?” asked Jassim, his tone revealing his disbelief. Maryam nodded her head vigorously. “That’s what Grandmother used to say, wasn’t it? She said that if there was an olive tree outside our house, angels would guard us from all harm. And that whenever we were frightened, all we had to do was hold a handful of olives in our right hand. You heard her say all this, didn’t you?”

“Madam, you are not buying lottery ticket today?” Gopal the lottery seller’s question brought her back to reality. As usual, Gopal was there at the bus stand with his board full of lottery tickets. Three days a week Veena allowed herself to spend money on buying them.

When Manu was born one of Latha’s demands was this “People say they never have time for their family. We shouldn’t be like that. On weekdays we’ll make it a point to have at least dinner together, and on weekends we will sit together for all meals. Family meals are important.”

I was juggling a number of ideas inside my head, but one in particular kept screaming out to me. I let out a loud sigh. Yes, I had made my decision, knowing full well that it would probably cost me my life. I slowly reached under the pillow and removed the gun from its hiding place. I’d have to be careful, very very careful.

Hope is the hatrack I hang my dreams upon.Hope is what keeps me going. To constantly hope and let others around you see the charm in it is what I wish I could eternally do. Come what may. But what would I do , if I were confronted with a situation where I had to follow this and yet not really follow it , knowing that my hatrack may not be the panacea after all? Would I still hope against hope? and let the other see the same? How right would I be, indulging in an act so blatantly dangerous?

Cock-a-doodle-doo..Cock-a-doodle-doooo…cock-a-doodle-doooooo…”damn my alarm!!”Snrrr..Snrrr… now what’s wrong with it? Oh no! It’s not the alarm; it’s my brother snoring loudly! For a minute, I thought I was in a lion’s den.

After the results of Class X Boards were declared, he turned out to be the second boy in our tuition group, and also one of the ten boys in the district to get Letter marks in Physics that year. We all knew that he had a bright future ahead.