Do elephants die in the wild? If yes, how? Don’t give me accounts of old age. No body gives it a hoot these days. Here we, tourists, skim around in ecotourist jeeps along the buffer zone of a national forest, hardly scraping the skin of its enormous greenbody, peering into the leafy curtain for a glimpse of action. Let’s see the highlights of life in the wild, the adrenaline part. A sudden whoop from the high branches, a hiss from the bush, a trumpet, a … Continue reading
I was about to turn the light off when my heart leapt jolted out by a sudden rap on the door. “What hell!” I checked my mobile for time, useless now, right at the blindspot of all the mobile towers in Palakkad. 12 am. Against the calm, serene, cold night at the Inspection Bungalow at Sairandhri, Silent Valley, the rap at the wooden door was too pronouncing and urgent to dismiss. “Sir, please come outside!” It was half whisper, half … Continue reading
The story behind a single glass of water on my table. This story is dedicated to the students of my final year English, where I taught Robert Frost’s ‘Spring Pools.’ I sat under the shade of a tree. I had been in tree shades before, but that was only to catch my breath after tedious hours of walk through the woods, skirt the sun, or perhaps to take a nap in the cool air. I never bothered to check which … Continue reading
Suddenly I want to know how my daughter reacts to this, how skewed the corner of her mouth is, and how dark her cheeks have turned into. I turn and find that I was wrong. Instead of the customary sullenness I catch an eager light flashing across her wide eyes. Must do something. I call her by my side just to bail myself out from an inevitable tragedy. “You don’t understand. This will take quite some time. You’d be bored … Continue reading
