Shail’s Nest

Don’t try and fit me into ready-made molds
I don’t come in pre-conceived folds
Did I not tell you I was ‘different’??
Look closely, I am a mutant.

- Shail Mohan (2008)

- a 55 word story

“Go inside”
“Why??”
“You can read in your room”
“I want to sit here and read. It’s cooler here…”
“Some boys are loitering outside.”
“So??”
“They are staring at you…”
“So??”
She didn’t see the slap coming.
“Go inside, now!”
She went in quietly.
She learnt: When boys ogled her, it was somehow her fault.

****** ******* ******

The above is a 55-word [...]

I have spilled quite a lot of beans about the second-born in many a previous blog and yet here I am again to write more about him. The second born aka the blue-eyed boy was born on a bright sunny morning on this same day years ago at the Military Hospital in Trivandrum. The blue-eyed [...]

– a 55-word story.

“You haven’t done your home-work again!” the paan-chewing teacher spat exasperated.
He smiled insolently, not condescending to answer.
Some girls giggled. His eyes searched for her among them.
“Get out!” shouted the teacher.
He walked out of the class to the previously chosen tree, settling on a branch.
Now he could see her even better.

I firmly believe in the adage, ‘change is the only constant in this world’. Needless to say the change I am talking about here does not refer to it, but to the ‘change’ that is expected of a woman.

Recently IHM wrote a post ‘What would you not change for love’ which actually translated [...]

She fed them herself. Each rice-ball shaped with the right amount of vegetables, dal, rice ….and love that swelled in her heart. She stroked them gently till they slept, peacefully.
In the morning, the police came. As they led her away, she gave her son-in-law a crooked smile of triumph.
He couldn’t hurt them anymore!

– a rant pure and simple, be warned.

Earlier I used to attribute the fact to my diminutive size. After all at an under-sized five feet nothing and weighing less than a feather figuratively speaking and a soft voice, one is easily missed in the blink of an eye so to speak. And when [...]