Shail’s Nest

- a short story.

Delusions. Beliefs based upon a misinterpretation of reality. I live in my world of delusions. Delusions of timeless and eternal love. A love I feel across time across space. You tell me you love me. Do you?? I tell you, I love you. Do I??  Is it all a delusion, your love [...]

Ours was an arranged marriage. Not that I had much choice in the matter. It was the norm those days. So when I came to know that people would be in that evening to ‘view’ me, I took it in my stride.
I had my own views on the subject, of course. Not that anyone was [...]

Money, I have heard my parents mention, does not grow on trees. I found the statement to be quite true in subsequent years, for never did I find one with money growing on it. The statement came in quite handy when it was my turn to bring up my own monkeys… err children. “Money [...]

-  A short story

She was miserable. Her heart felt heavy. The tears ready to flow. He doesn’t love me. I know he doesn’t love me. Loneliness enveloped her. Unbidden dark thoughts filled her mind. Cutting through it, like a ray of sunshine escaping the dark clouds, memories of the times she had felt so close [...]

Lines deeply etched
Skillfully engraved
On palms visible
By hands invisible
Origins unknown
Ends unseen
Making us move
In a predestined groove
The reasons clouded
In mystery shrouded
The spawn
Mere pawns
Lines once drawn
Never redrawn
The master craftsman
Having provision none
In his infinite grace
To alter or efface
- Shail Mohan (Feb 2008)

Showcased post from shail-mohan blogs @ sulekha.com

Run little girl run and hide
Fearful monsters roam outside
Close the windows pull the blinds
Shut the door and stay inside
The swirling mass of inky black
Slimy hands waiting to hack
Evil eyes and dripping fangs
Wicked laughter deafening clangs
Monstrous trees standing tall
Branches spread to scratch and maul
The scary world holds them all
Do not venture out at all.
Lies and Deceit [...]

Having been reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy just before dozing off, in all probability I should have been dreaming of Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two headed three armed Galactic President who I am told has been voted the Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe for, hold your breath, a total of seven [...]

The other day I had been to Bob’s at Shasthamangalam for a long overdue haircut. The boys there were beaming with welcome.
“Ma’am, haven’t seen you for quite some time!”
Wow, sure felt nice to be remembered even after almost a year of absence. I hadn’t been in, for the past one year having had [...]

Women cannot read maps, they say, and men do not ask for directions. I cannot vouchsafe for the veracity of the first part of this statement, the opportunity of testing it having not risen in this two score and odd years of my life on Planet Earth. I am willing to admit though that perhaps [...]

Rebuttals stand guard
glinting knives in hands
Refusals choke into silence
Rebuffs with axes hack.
Wounded limbs chopped
lesions and cuts adorning
thrashing for life
lies frail Spontaneity.
Dwindling hope flickering
in eyes beseeching
to live to survive
in a world hostile.
Are its days numbered
the hours limited
Is time ticking
will Spontaneity be no more??
Shall it be sacrificed
at the altar of Rejection
meet an ignominious end
and die bereft, unmourned??
- [...]