Flash Fiction

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....

The world is as lively as it was a few hours before. But the world inside the boy sitting on the steps at the entrance of the dilapidated hut is annihilated as if it never existed before. The corpse of his mother lies on the cold floor under the dripping roof. The wind has stopped blowing and the sky is getting dusky with the accumulation of thick layers of clouds at the horizon. The mother birds are returning to their nests, after the tiresome day, to feed their loved ones waiting for them. The baby monkey, on a tree few meters from the hut, is glued to the warm breast of his mother and looking into the fearsome eyes of the mother repeatedly. The hyenas, hidden behind the bush, are waiting for the corpse to be buried so their children can be fed. The ominous silence sets in and the boy constantly stares at the barren land lying before the hut. The face looks like an old white statue in a museum, not dusted for many years. The channels of dried-up tears can be seen amidst the dus...