Power does not always enter a room with the noise of boots. Sometimes it slips in with a soft paw, pads across polished floors, and rests its chin upon the knee of a man who carries a nation in his briefcase. In the fading gold of a Delhi evening, at 7, Race Course Road, the cicadas begin their patient recital before the news anchors do. The bougainvillea lean against their trellises like old politicians who have seen too many seasons. The guards at the gate remain statues of discipline, their eyes scanning the horizon for threats the size of men. But inside, in a room where curtains breathe with the breeze and a lamp casts an amber halo on paper, the Prime Minister sits with a pen between his fingers and a dog at his feet…
To read the full story and 19 other short stories in this series click on the links below:
This story is part of the book Unknown Companions, my second printed collection of short stories, bringing together twenty quiet encounters between well-known Indians and the animals who moved through their lives.
These stories do not revisit achievement. They turn toward the smaller presences history rarely records: a dog waiting at a doorway, a bird crossing a garden, a stray who appears at an unexpected hour. In such moments, reputation falls silent and a different kind of companionship becomes visible.
Rooted in real lives and shaped by the quiet crossings between humans and animals, this collection gathers the unnoticed companions who stood briefly beside lives that history remembers for other reasons.
If you have found something here that stayed with you, some of my other books (collection of short stories, novels, and more) are now available in print and digital editions. They gather many unique journeys, quieter questions, and stories that continue beyond this page.
Weekend Stories by Trishikh 