Flash Fiction

                (Based on true events) I was on the roof, looking at the horizon in the east with arms tightly crossed across the chest when Aligarh gave a sidelong glance to the mighty sun that day. Twinkling in the sky were a few stars with the moon competing against the sun in terms of glow. For the first time after many months, I was awake at 5 a.m., probably because of the saint who hinted me to experience the moment of serenity in the morning amidst the hustle-bustle of humans after the day crosses its puberty. I was fully in the moment when I heard that sound coming from somewhere around the front gate of my house. The perfect silence gives you the power to notice even the slightest of the details. I climbed down the stairs and opened the gate. What I saw there made me feel a bit emotional in those small hours- a female dog was whimpering out of acute hunger. Suddenly, she looked at me with some transcendental expectations, making me feel m...

11-year-old boy : Mom, why do you always come up with a glass of milk every time I enter the house? There’s no need to be too concerned about me. 25-year-old boy:   Mom, you know the thing is that I want to enjoy my own life. I just want to be done with you in my life. I hate your pestering. Why do you always butt in? Mind your own business! 60–year-old man: Today, there’s nobody who can come up to me with a plate full of food every time I enter the house, with eyes looking for my problems instead of money every time I return from my office, with attentive ears every time I want to share something, with a feeling of gratitude every time I recover from any disease, with full of praise every time I win something and with a smile every time I hurt him/her.    Image courtesy- alamy.com

In the middle of a cremation ground in a small village of Uttar Pradesh stands a small hut of a ‘chandal’, a person who deals with the dead bodies of animals and the persons with no relatives. There is a black mark on the hut to inform the villagers about his residence. The chandal is considered a master occultist. The villagers visit him whenever they feel that the problems they are facing deal with the world of ghosts. Many a time, he has protected the village from evils and teething troubles without uttering a word. Nobody has ever seen him speak, but a few of the villagers say that they have seen him talking with the supernatural forces in night. His life has no external aims- only the obsession with his own thoughts is apparent. Everything is normal in his life, but one night an unexpectedly strange thing happens, something that is beyond normal experience or scientific explanation. The dark clouds in the sky are preventing the light of the unknown universe from reaching the eye...

It is eight o’clock in the night. Mr. Gupta is looking at the city of Mussoorie in the Himalayas from a height of 500 ft. above the city. He is standing on a road encircling a small mountain. No house or building is visible now, but the faint beams of light from residences, shops, and street lights are flickering through the thick blanket of fog and mist, signaling the presence of humans in this remote part of the world. The Night has robbed Mussoorie of its scenic beauty. The night brings equality in the world and the day-inequality. There is no beautiful, ugly, or average looking thing in the night. The day is responsible for all the differences and inequalities in the world. Mr. Gupta is a loner. He has no close friends or family besides his passion for ghosts. He stays at haunted places alone for a night and documents everything that he experiences there in a book. He has visited almost all the most haunted places in India but never encountered anything supernatural. Today, he is...

On the deserted bank of river Ganga, which is flowing through the densest part of the forest somewhere near the Tehri Dam, stands a middle-aged man, staring at the crystal clear water of the river for an hour now. The immediate vicinity is still, both visually and aurally; as still as the heart of this despondent man. He wants to end his 35-year old life in the water of the holy river, but his inner instincts are not letting him do so. Finally, he resolved and looked at the surroundings in a way that was similar to a Hindu bride looking at her maternal house just before departing to her in-laws' house. A moment later, the man sees a monk, silhouetted against the horizon. The monk has a magnetic effect on the man, and the man is completely drawn to him, by the glow that he has never seen in his whole life. He doesn’t even realize when the monk has come too close to him. “So you got tired of this capricious life! And you want to end all now?" says the monk with the seriousne...

Elevated on a massive stone platform and surrounded by old, dusty colonnades, the temple in the middle of the forest is the home to many birds and a deity. On the platform sits an old, wrinkled woman with the knees pressed towards the breast. The monkeys, huddled together on a tree to keep themselves warm in a cold, December night, want to sleep inside the only room in the temple but are afraid of this unexpected visitor. At times, a strong gust of wind rushes out of the dense fog and flutters the worn-out flag on the top of the temple. Two years before now, she was, in a small hut, happily preparing dinner that she would enjoy with her husband and her only son when they would return from the field after a day’s long toil. She was happy with her small family and want nothing more from God than the safety of her family. She would sell pots when her husband and son would go out to the fields. One day, they didn’t return from the field, and she kept waiting for them for the whole night....