-John Thieme Every morning, before classes started, they had to deposit their phones into the little pouches that the school had introduced the previous year. At first, they had resented this, but by now it was accepted as a done deal. The moment of the hand-in occasioned a certain amount of banter, most of which centred on who owned iPhones and who had Androids, but Kent’s mobile was another matter altogether – a Nokia. Ted described as ‘a relic from prehistory’. He said, ‘I

-Sarvajit Mukerji “He comes from a broken home”…. It was the principal speaking. This was the second time that she was mentioning this to his class teacher. He continued looking fixedly at the fish tank outside the principal’s office. He had been told to stand there as a punishment. The aquarium was like a house too, the kind of house he drew in his drawing copy— a rectangle, with a triangular roof. Was his home broken then? Smashed to pieces, like the tablet that he had once

-Anaya Khan As I climbed the stairs of the second floor of the school hallway, the first sound that greeted me was the chatter and giggle of students from the adjacent classroom. The second sound, was that of my own rising heartbeat. I glanced at my dusty shoes for a second and entered the classroom, only to notice the last bench waiting at the back of the classroom. It was pressed against the wall where the sunlight arrived late and the dust settled early. It was the perfe

-Sanjukta Dasgupta Our house was our pride. We were very skeptical about the proximity of our neighbour’s house. They were up to no good. Pretentious, pompous porcupines. Their smiles seemed like the flash of nuclear weapons. It is obvious we disliked them. But we spoke to them. They spoke to us. There was no love lost. For there was no question of any love between our two houses that housed us, porcupines, they, innocent lambs, us. But Fate and God connived and a lissome tee

-Sharada Banu As I got home after school I was nerving myself. I crept past the ground floor flats, keeping to common space, crossing no margins. Aunty would not catch sight of me. Uncle Avtaar would probably be asleep. I wasn’t ready yet. I walked quietly to the first floor. I let myself in, washed my hands and gulped down the grub. My mother had been working for some time now and I had got used to not seeing her, but the empty house I was facing for just the last mont

-Asita Ajith What follows in the upcoming paragraphs is an anecdote about an incident which altogether changed the perception of how I see people with disabilities. Growing up in a small village in Kerala, the community we lived in was a close-knit one, and everyone knew each other. This incident happened two months before my tenth standard board examinations. Our school used to give us mock exams before the main one, which was to take place after the New Year break. The ten-

“I can’t wait, I can’t wait! We’ll be out in a few days!” chirped Speckled Spud, brushing his brown jacket in excitement. But soon, joy turned to panic as floodwaters surged in, uprooting dreams. The Spud Kingdom bobbed in muddy deluge, while helpless farmers fished for their ruined crop, betrayed by seeds, ignored by the system.

She had cast a mesmerising influence on me. A day without meeting her began to seem drab, dull, meaningless. We met two or three times, and each time my heart danced in joy at the warmth of uninterrupted, heartening, candid talk... Last week, Indrani’s husband came with their two grown-up kids to find me and deliver the shocking news that left me half-dead in despair. Indrani was no more.

In a small room of the huge haveli, the midwife coaxed and cajoled the would-be mother to push, to hold on for some more time. She consoled her that in some time, everything would be fine. Half an hour later, as the moans of the mother subsided, and a hush descended, the midwife came out and announced the birth of a girl. Seventy years ago, in the year 1955, the birth of a girl was not an occasion to celebrate, and if that girl child happened to be an albino, it was enough to