The gas lamps hissed like impatient insects, their glass chimneys sweating in the heat. Backstage smelled of attar and dust, rose clinging to skin, chalk to cloth, old wood to everything. Someone had spilled rice water near the doorway; it had dried into a thin white crescent on the floor, a quiet moon that nobody noticed stepping over. Outside, the city kept time with bells and gossip, tram metal ringing somewhere beyond the walls, a hawker’s call splitting into laughter, the night breathing in and out…

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To read the full story and 19 other short stories in this series click on the links below:

This story is a part of the book “Lives Between the Dates“, my first printed collection of short stories, bringing together twenty well thought moments from twenty well known lives across twenty Indian cities. These stories do not revisit achievement. They enter the quieter hours around it. The hesitation before action. The doubt behind conviction.

Rooted in real places and shaped by history, this collection gathers the unrecorded moments that define a life more truthfully than any monument.

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If you have found something here that stayed with you, some of my other books are now available in print and digital editions. They gather longer journeys, quieter questions, and stories that continue beyond this page.