Whatsapp Chat: When you hate his friends

Disclaimer: Not Family-Friendly. Disturbing/Explicit content. Babe…you online? Hmm. Sorry, these friends kept me.  And? They gone now?  Yup. I killed them. It’s just you and me now, love. For selfish reasons, I am sure. Now, come on. Don’t be mean. For you. Always for you.  What d’you do with the bodies? For now, I’ve kept…

Burqa Ban: A Family Zoom Fight

Scene: Family call.  Participants: Yasin (Male, 26, final year of some management course in unpronounceable city of Netherland, Pantheist) Ahmed (Male, 21, final year engineering in RV college..  Islamic) Manal (or manaltha) (Female, 30+, UAE, Product manager, agnostic) Me/lulutha/itha (Female, 40, India, writer, atheist) Mom/Umma (Female, 60, Islamic) Naji (Male 38, Autistic/Islamic/Piano Player) Dog/Phlip Cats…

AI Broken

My eyes scanned through the job listings on LinkedIn, and then fell upon Nirav absorbed nearby on his laptop. Vivaan meanwhile, ran about in the way of 5-year olds, bumping into things that were anyway out of his way but still making the effort at loud chaos. Nirav’s eyes met mine, and I gave him…

Dear Diary: Shit Poetry

I wrote a poem. I called it Connor. I woke up to a beautiful day. A day beautiful everywhere but inside my mind. Last night, I had seen the water shimmer white, though in nothing more poetic than Chlorofluoro light. The shimmer on the water was still beautiful to behold for my restless sleepless soul….

Dear Diary: Waking Up to a Viral Apocalypse

As i emerge (temporarily) from my Corona-induced breakup haze, i seemed to have missed most of the second season of the India Apocalypse. Season 2 seems to have a wave of international sympathy-mingled outrage at this tragedy of mismanagement. I had quarantined myself from all News until I wandered into chat rooms for the clinically…

Remember Me, (Or else…)

When the call came, I was thinking about death. Specifically by jumping. Leaping, is how I looked at it, from the top of the 13-storied Block D of Abad Ravines. I had surveyed many projects in the city  under the pretext of a purchase. This one was perfect because of the surprisingly lax security –…

Unhelpful Representation of Special-Needs People in Malayalam Literature

Despite its high literacy rate and human development index, Kerala struggles with popular regressive and misogynistic opinions bandied about on local tea-stalls and Whatsapp gossip circles. But when bastions of progressive thinking like cinema and literary circles normalize the same, it is perhaps time to pick a bone or two. For a taste of the…

Unhelpful Representation of Special-Needs People in Malayalam Literature

Despite its high literacy rate and human development index, Kerala struggles with popular regressive and misogynistic opinions bandied about on local tea-stalls, Whatsapp gossip circles. But when bastions of progressive thinking like cinema and literary circles normalize the same, it is perhaps time to pick a bone or two. For a taste of the severely…

Patient 31

Meanwhile, a pandemic was also spreading in the fictional Jamathi world. Women are wearing their hair loose, moral decay is rampant, and the end of days is imminent.

Killing Marie

A short piece into a writer’s soul as he grieves the death of love in the hunt for art and originality.