There was once a man and a reporter. There was a girl. The man fell in love with the girl. Both walked towards different sunsets and new dawns. Here is their story. - "The light's fading fast. Please hurry up," the cameraman told the reporter. - "What can I do? In Bombay nobody seems to be interested in politics." They had been to different colleges to get reactions on US president's forthcoming visit to the country. The idea was to gauge the mood of the youth towards the newfangled sense of friendship between the world's two large democracies. The cry of Indo-Russian friendship had given way to a bloody war to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction and pax Americana. To Mother India's ever-expanding billionaires list and an increasing number of homeless searching for titbits in the garbage dump near the lane where he lived. - "Try that group over there. They might be willing to talk. Just...

...time passes as quickly as a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall. - Nichiren Daishonin (1222-1282) - "What do I write this week?," I asked a friend. - "Why, don't you have any work?," she asked. - "Well, told you. Am in transition." - "Then write about transition," she said. The question I put to one of my good friends has plagued me ever since I started writing. I always knew that whatever I did later in life would have something to do with words. But what would it be about? Would it be newspaper articles, stories or novels? Or would it be everything? I really didn't know the answer at that time. When very young I used to write a short story a year for a popular children's monthly. Needless to say none ever got published. The first time I knew I could write was when one of my teachers in junior...

- "If you're so sleepy please wait outside my room!," Sharma remarked even as my eyes closed for the umpteenth time. - "No. It's not that. I often close my eyes when I'm thinking," I lied to buy my peace with him. I turned my gaze from Sharma just in time to see the lady at the table near the exit cast a stealthy glance at us. Summer is sleepwalking time in Delhi. As the day progresses the pleasant dry mornings make way for the languorous heat. Everyone from vehicles on roads to people to flies at fruit juice shops to birds in the sky move about in a half-awakened state. If only it were possible, most would just stop where they were and doze off to beat the season. It was on a day like this that I was in that government office. A few months back I had joined corporate communications team of an airline company. To survive...

I don't know how the stories started. Like colours old memories fade from even most rugged surface. Maybe this was occasioned by Baba reading out from a book from his colleague and good friend Gosh uncle's house. As far as I remember, my father has always been a loner and so whatever few friends he made have been really close. I might have failed miserably when it comes to imbibing his best qualities, but his aloofness and love for tea I have inherited in good measure. Baba was born at a time when independence was still a good decade-and-a-half away. So like all impressionable young men of his generation he was inspired in particular by Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement. Gosh uncle's children when they grew up turned over some of their books to us. These ranged from school textbooks printed in United Kingdom to The Thousand and One Nights. There were hardly any children of my age group in...