Night settled over Patna without finishing its sentences. The lanterns along the riverbank flickered unevenly, their flames bent by a breeze that carried the smell of mud, oil, and old water. Mosquitoes announced themselves with a persistence that felt almost moral, a reminder that patience was never free. The Ganges moved past in the dark, wide and unhurried, its surface breaking occasionally where something unseen chose to surface and disappear again. From across the river came the faint sound of a drum, not rhythmic enough to be celebration, not urgent enough to be alarm. The city listened with the practiced attention of something that had learned to survive by overhearing…

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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.