The room was small enough for the afternoon to feel crowded. Light from the Paris street entered reluctantly, filtered through dust and the thin curtain that smelled faintly of soap and damp wool. The bed had been pushed close to the wall. A chair stood beside it, holding a shawl that carried the memory of Bombay’s sun, though here it was winter and the cold crept up quietly from the floor…
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.
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.
Weekend Stories by Trishikh 
🙏👍
Aum Shanti
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Thank you so much. Praying for universal preace upon you and your family too.
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Thank you 🙏
Aum Shanti
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Thank you.
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This excerpt is quietly mesmerizing. Your prose has a gentle, observant stillness that draws the reader into the room as if we, too, are standing in that filtered afternoon light. The sensory details — the curtain’s scent, the creeping cold, the shawl holding another country’s sun — create an atmosphere that feels intimate and lived-in rather than described.
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Dear Vermaji, what a gift your words are.
Thank you for reading not just with your eyes, but with that attentive stillness of heart. When a reader says they could stand in the filtered afternoon light, the writer quietly smiles, because that is all we ever hope for: not applause, but presence.
“The Flag That Stayed Folded” was born from a room that felt heavy with memory, where even a shawl could carry a continent in its threads. If the curtain’s scent reached you and the cold brushed your skin, contents of just the first paragraph, then the story has the potential to travel well.
I am deeply grateful that you pause long enough to inhabit these rooms with me. In a world that scrolls, you linger. And that makes all the difference.
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