A Moment of Tension
"With each contraction came the pain that dominated over my whole body. In those moments, for those seconds that stretched to infinity, there was nothing else, just toil and tension..."
A Room Full of Strangers
"I woke up, slowly trying to focus on the naked bulb above me. In my nebulous surroundings I saw a party of people in a uniform of white shirts and black stripes tied with chains..."
The Kitchen and the Laboratory
"If examined intensely, a normal apartment kitchen resembles a complex science laboratory! Sleek, sombre and monochrome, professionally designed with granite counters..."
Celestial Bodies
"Suddenly everything stopped moving and there was complete silence... Our eyes met, there was something between us that wasn't there a moment ago."
The Lark at Heaven's Gate Sings
"The earth suddenly seemed to sink below me. I rise above the expanse of the plain, feeling light as a feather floating amidst thin wisps of clouds..."
A scene before and as a theatrical production begins.
"The minimalistic set, ironically, spoke of spatial grandeur. For massive productions of Indian periodic films, sets are a key element; the director had crafted a fine ambience of rich shades of brown..."
Prejudiced
"Amidst the hubbub of gentlemen and women discussing their worldly affairs, beguiling maidens pirouetted and swirled with broad smiles and coy smirks in the extravagantly illuminated ballroom..."
Qamar: The Lady Who Called For the Moon
"As Batool Bano, my maid combed the tangles out of my hair, I asked her to narrate the story of my birth for almost the hundredth time. Although after hearing it I felt low, the knots in my hair hurt less..."
The Power of Solitude
"Masks! When did they become such a vital accessory? On my face, in my purse, in my car, on my desk; they were sprawling everywhere! This year, this pandemic was definitely a life-changing experience..."
The Birth of Venus
"I set my foot into the Uffizi Gallery and found myself encompassed by a plethora of gigantic painted canvases; some were vibrantly colored and some were monochromatic and others looked too powerful..."
The Bridge
"Prophet Fajan had descended from the Zagros Mountain range into the wilderness, he carried some depressing news for the many species thriving on earth. “God is dead!”, he professed..."
The Canyon Catastrophe
"“Those canyons contain some of the deadliest snowpack ravines in the world,” complained Rebecca Jones. “And I don’t say that for self-aggrandizement, but just to say that’s where I was at my life...""
The Desert 🏜
"Desert nights can be cold… The kind of cold that creeps into your flesh and freezes your bones. You can only lay still in your tents and stare at stars, stitched on the blanket of the night sky."
The Factory
"From a few meters away, the factory seemed like a citadel, guarding a civilization of its own. The sky-scraping turrets were the chimneys of the factory releasing putrid brown fumes..."
The Solar Eclipse
"The morning was flooded with ‘WhatsApp’ messages, news channel updates and flyers circulated about the superstitions about eclipses and the dos and don’ts during this rare event..."
The Song
"‘Three little dolls in a house, One went to see the sunset view, tripped over the cliff and then there were two...’ Lacyln, Pernilla and Leylah discovered this verse engraved on a parchment..."
The Blue Dagger
"The Afghan war had ravaged desolate mountains and shattered Afghanistan into fragments of rebel groups vying for power among which the Taliban emerged to be supreme..."
Geisha
"Geisha are not courtesans, nor we can become wives. We sell our skills; we create another secret world - a place of bewitchment. The word ‘geisha’ means artist and we are judged as moving work of art..."