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The Curious Case Of The Furious Mutton Handi
Quaintly nestled in a fairytale valley amidst the lofty mountains of the mighty Himalayan range, in the backdrop of the mystic snowcapped peak of Mount Kanchenjunga glittering towards the pristine cerulean sky, stood an old and beautiful Anglican Boarding School, in the Darjeeling district of India’s West Bengal state. It was a magical land where…
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The Price Of A Miracle
The jerk from a sudden impact startled Biju from his momentary slumber. In a split second, he applied the brakes as years of driving instincts kicked in, and the Toyota Innova Crysta veered and screeched to a dead halt. As the smell of grazed rubber gently floated into the MUV through its rolled-down windows, beads…
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Haji Harry
In the 980th year of the 2nd millennium of the Anno Domini, the 80th year of the 20th century, the leap year of our Lord 1980, a frail and strange-looking tiny boy was born to a mentally unstable beggar lady in a flimsy cloth shanty beside the Belur Math Kali Temple on the banks of the…
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Rickshaw Wolaaa
In 1869, in the land of the rising sun, an innovative individual found a brilliant up-gradation for the Kago, a sedan chair form of human transportation carried by two persons. He attached two large wheels to a seating cradle with two extended arms, which allowed a single human being to pull the vehicle. This new rolling…
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Weirdo Behind The Window
Behind the College Square swimming pool on Bankim Chatterjee street in the Indian city of joy, Kolkata, stood a dilapidated tiny two-storey building crowned with unwanted banyan saplings sprouting from the cracks in its outer walls. A forty-year-old weird man with a midget face and enormous arms lived in a small plaster pealed damp room…
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Soul Of A Gorkha
The ten-year-old Tau sat in front of a glowing charcoal hearth under the cold moonlit night sky in a small and obscure village in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas in the ancient land of Nepal. His father pulled out a glowing piece of steel from the burning embers and hammered it on an old…
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Pied Piper Of Pojhi
Tracts of fertile agricultural land stretched as far as the eyes could see. With the changing seasons, the colours of the harvest varied from shades of green to brown to golden to fluorescent yellow, yielding bounties of rice, maize, potatoes, mustard, red gram, and rapeseed. A mix of some thatched huts and other unplastered brick…
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The Human Bullock
On a blistering day in June, under the scorching midday sun, when the surrounding air danced in a haze of heat and rose towards the glaring sky, a giant of a man standing eight feet tall and weighing nearly a quarter of a ton tugged on his shoulders a massive wood and iron plough. Scarring…
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Tears On The Sand
Under the fading silver veil of a moonlit night, in the last hour before the dawn of morning light, on the glittery shores of a once turbulent river, an eighteen-year-old low-caste boy tirelessly shovelled grains of rock and coral into a banged-up truck’s weathered wooden cradle. The driver handed over five shiny ten-rupee coins to…
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Citadel In The Wilderness
South of the outer foothills of the Himalayan Mountain Range and north of the Brahmaputra River Basin stretches the alluvial floodplains of Dooars in the northeastern realm of the Indian subcontinent. With eighteen historic passages between the lush green plains and the imposing stone and ice mountains, it is the gateway to the kingdom of…
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A Pair Of Shoes
Thirteen-year-old Monikanchon dashed into the sea of clueless strollers, joyous visitors, and perplexed shoppers. The enthusiastic teenager head-butted and elbow-jabbed to reach some of his favourite stalls at the annual street fair on the occasion of Charak Puja on Beadon Street of Calcutta of 1920. It was the last day of the festival, and waves…
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Goddess Of Mud And Flesh
It was a cold and shivering night on the last day of December in Anno Domini 1980. A young and frail woman in tattered clothes stood at the edge of the water of the Kumortuli Bathing Ghat on the banks of the River Hooghly in India’s Calcutta city. Close to her tormented bosom, she held…
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Keeper Of The Family Tree
As the tower clock on top of Maniktala Bazar chimed three at the nocturnal hour before dawn every morning, an ancient and wrinkled mysterious man was up and ready to perform his most unusual antic. Centenarian Jotayu Pakrashi was the last leaf in the Pakrashi family tree of the corner house at the intersection of…
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The Last Cake By Chand Ali
“If prepared correctly, a fruitcake can have a shelf life of more than twenty-five years,” chuckled the toothless betel leaf chomping Chand Ali as he mixed perfectly calculated portions of assorted nuts and dried fruits into a massive copper plate. Twelve-year-old Rani and her five-year-old brother Riju peered over the master baker’s shoulders to ask questions…
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Playing Brass
Strolling down the Mahatma Gandhi Road from the College Street end towards Howrah Tram Depot in the vibrance of the Kolkata metropolis, one can spot a unique world of orchestral cacophony. Little shops from the colonial days of the British showcase a wide array of musical instruments and jazzy uniforms of starking colours with gilded…
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The Red Bus Robbery
In their quest for colonisation, the British faced many tenacious races all over the so-called third world colonies; men and women of varied colour, creed, ethnicity, and metal. Stories of whose bravery and strength are etched in the annals of human history. Of all the people they dealt with, perhaps they found the Bengalis to…
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The Man Who Brought The River
Somewhere on the mighty Himalayan range in the northern mountain lands of the Indian state of West Bengal flickered the hilly settlement of Kharapahar. Surrounded by deep jagged cliffs on the east, west and southern sides and a colossal mountain wall in the north, the tiny village was not easily accessible to the outside world.…
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The Tunnel
Deep in the bowels of the Eastern Ghats Mountain Range nestled the small and obscure village of Cheenna Gato, meaning a tiny hole in the native tribal dialect, a mix of the Odiya and Telugu languages. The year is 1960, and while the rest of the world celebrated many human advancements, the villagers of this…
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Over The Rainbow Bridge
Hatchu opened his eyes and found himself in a mesmerising meadow of greens. The constant pain in his hind limbs was no more there. Neither was there the nagging agony in his kidneys. He slowly lifted his right leg just a little bit to mark his territory. He was scared, that like every time, there…
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Bat Brigade
“Steady your breathing Naba. You are one with the forest. The jungle is an extension of you, an amplification of your senses. That which grows, creeps, crawls, and moves in it – you are aware of its presence. The night is your prowl and darkness your element,” whispered the ninety-year-old warrior Akoijam to his prodigy. War…
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The Last Click
At 141 Surendranath Banerjee Road in the New Market area of Dharamtala, in the post-colonial city of Kolkata, stands a dilapidated building named Photographe. Established in 1840 by famous Calcutta lensman William Howard from Britain, the studio was taken over by the British photographer and traveller duo – Samuel Bourne and Charles Shepherd and renamed…
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Duburee
Atop a small hill, on the banks of the mighty Damodar river in the steel city of Durgapur in the Bankura district of the state of West Bengal in the Indian subcontinent stood a rickety little mud cottage. In front of this tiny earthen adobe towered a metal and concrete two-way vehicular bridge atop a…
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Kaali of Malana
In a small stone tribal hut devoid of any hint of natural light, under an abnormally pitch-black night sky, with the moon and the stars hidden behind a veil of a never seen before black cloud, a mother gave birth to an unnaturally dark-skinned curly-haired girlchild. At 8,600 feet above sea level, isolated from the…
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Hucchuman And His Humber
Horogobindo Haldar was the funniest looking man anyone could ever come across. A strikingly protruding lower lip & jaw topped with a tiny button nose coupled with a pair of beady and squinty eyes under a large shiny dome with a few strands of flickering hair perfectly sat in place to create his hilarious look.…
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The Gatekeeper
Neither very far from the hustle-bustle of the Kolkata city nor very deep in the lap of the South 24 Parganas rural landscape stood an ageing gated community, the Adidham Housing Complex. It was developed in the year 1937, a decade prior to Indian independence. At the time of its inception, the project was a…
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Hunter’s Moon
Chandrabhanu lay motionless as a rock on the wet and cold forest floor, camouflaged in the colours of the jungle like a predator patiently waiting for his score. Neither the seldom trickling of the night dew nor the occasional insects crawling across his seasoned skin made him blink or move. The creature he was after…
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Flame Of The Forest
Deep in the jungles of Ajodhya Hill and Forest Reserve Area in the Purulia district of the state of West Bengal in India, blossomed the sacred Dhak tree or the Butea monosperma. Locally known as the Palash, it was nicknamed Bastard Teak by the Britishers. Much of its ancient forest tracts lying in the historic Doab…
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The Dom And The Goddess
In the year 1690 on the banks of the river Bhāgirathi-Hooghly locally known as the Kali-Ganga or Ganges in the ancient village of Sutanuti or India’s present-day Kolkata city stood a mesmerising idol of the Hindu Goddess Kali under the shade of a bowing colossal Neem tree. The appearance of the idol was simply bone-chilling. Her…
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Chidam
In the heart of the traditional northern localities of India’s Kolkata city, right opposite to the Mukul Bithi Children’s School on the Abhedananda Road previously known as the Beadon Street; survives a hundred-year-old barbershop under the main staircase of an equally antique mansion in a room measuring ten feet by four feet. Rain, hail, or…
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Alibhadra
In classical Buddhist literature and the five-thousand-year-old epic Mahabharata, there is a mention of a road called Uttarpath or the Northern road connecting the eastern regions of India to ancient Greece through Central Asia. Later in history during the 3rd century BC, Emperor Chandragupta Maurya rebuilt this mighty highway to reconnect India with Europe. Following him, Emperor…
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Pallagram Pandemic Pandemonium
Deep in the heart of the ancient and mysterious jungle tableland of Ajodha Hills and reserve forest at the easternmost part of the lowest step of the Chhotanagpur Plateau and the extended regions of the Eastern Ghats mountain range, very close to the Chamtaburu mountain peak, at a distance of a day’s walk from the…
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Priest Pundit Moulvi
Much before the rooster crowed at the crack of daylight and sometimes even before the sun peeped from the horizon to say good morning, three very distinctive loudspeakers blared to wake up the sleepy resident of the green and pristine village of Dhormosthol in the southern fringes of India’s most cosmopolitan and diverse Kolkata city.…
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The Tracker And The Desert Wraiths
Flashing sparks from two clashing flintstones landed on a small mixture of powdered camel dung and dried Babul leaves to spot a steady ember in a ditch dug three feet below the ground level to hide it, for a single flash leave alone a steady fire could be spotted a mile away in such a…
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Bhuto’s Banyan Tree
On a chilly December morning, as the first rays of sunlight pierced through the veil of fog created by the condensing water vapour rising from the forgotten Adi Ganga river passing nearby, it revealed the silhouette of a massive and ancient banyan tree the likes of which perhaps nowhere else could anyone find. The golden beams of…
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Tarachand And The Trembling Tracks
Tarachand turned over in his wobbly charpoy. The rickety bamboo bed meshed with handmade jute cord was just strong enough to support his enormous frame, however, it squeaked in protest with every twist and turn that the slumbering hulk made. At seven-and-a-half feet of stature, the sleeping man’s arms and legs jutted well beyond the…
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The Boatman
Robi’s boat gently swayed in the cool evening breeze of the mighty Ganges at the mouth of the estuary as he prepared his supper in it for the night, a little bit of rice, a bowl of dal and two fried Tilapias. His life as a boatman in this part of the river, especially after dark…
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Spy To Lhasa
Snow Leopard crouched and huddled himself shivering in the piercing cold winds that danced all around him and the glowing woodfire that did its best to give a little warmth in the dead of night at an altitude of seventeen thousand feet close to the Lanak La mountain pass in the Himalayan region. His mission…
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Doctor Train
Srikant anxiously glanced at the time displayed on the HMT Sona strapped on top of a sweaty handkerchief wrapped around his left wrist. People all around him squeezed and pushed each other in a pile of obnoxious human fumes, sweat, and breadth. Beads of perspiration trickled down his forehead and nostrils falling on the shoulder…
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Tarok
The unbearable cries of men being force-fed through rubber tubes inserted in their throats surpassed the sounds of the roaring waves of the mighty Bay of Bengal lashing on the rocky northern shores of Port Blair, the capital city of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on a summer night in 1933. The screams came from within…
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The Palanquin
“Hun Huna re, Hun Huna… Hun Huna re, Hun Huna… Palki choooleyyy gogon toooleeeyyy (The Palanquin mooovesss under the skkkyyy),” rhythmically chanted the fast-moving group of twelve. A torchbearer bearer in front and one in the back provided the only lights casting dancing shadows of the men and a swinging wooden box amidst them on the…
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Brihospoti’s Clock
In the year 1582 AD the Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, and polymath, from Pisa, Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei discovered that time could be calculated using a pendulum. He inked the blueprint of a wound-up device, which could measure time and changed the history of Christendom. Using his designs, seventy-four years later in 1656,…
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The Ancient Guards of Pancharatna
In the year 1980, a 17th-century cryptic temple lay hidden deep in the Joypur forest of Bishnupur subdivision in the Bankura district of India’s West Bengal state. This archaic monument was stone-built, unlike the other commonly found historical structures of terracotta in the region. The jungle had completely engulfed the structure, and ancient trees and…
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Masala Tea
As the clock struck four in the twilight hours every morning, as the slumbering postcolonial Indian city of Kolkata slowly woke up to face another day, Shibnath Sammadar or SS would get busy opening his 150-year-old tea-shanty. Located diagonally opposite the main gate of Scottish Church College, on the north-eastern wall corner of the Hedua…
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Children Of The Moon
Dawa moved slowly across the cold desert surface. The sun was bleak, and the land was dry. The wind blew mercilessly stinging on the little exposed skin of the old man’s face with fine particles of needle-like sand. The chill in the air made everything bow in its path. The landscape was sad, stretching flat…
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Maratha Ditch
Savitri hummed the ancient Bengali lullaby – “Khoka ghumalo, para juralo, Bargi elo deshe. Bulbulite dhan kheyechhe, khazna debo kishe? (My boy has fallen asleep, silence has set in the locality, the Bargis have come to our state. Passerine songbirds have eaten the rice grains, how shall I pay my taxes?) She was trying to make…
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Gopi And The Tank
Gopi Chand emerged from the pitch dark bowels of one of the four compartments of the world’s largest elevated steel drinking water tank, at a height of 110 feet from the ground level. His livelihood could be easily featured in the ‘World’s scariest jobs’ list, however, hardly any of the 10.5 million people whose lives…
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House Of The Living Dolls
There is a house near the Shovabazar jetty on the banks of the mighty river Ganges, in the postcolonial city of Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state. Once it was a beauty to behold, a mansion of breathtaking artistry, a marvellous reflection of the Roman architectural style. A spectacle of wealth and power of the…
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Bridge On The River Kopai
A strong and assertive old-man stood on the edge of the Khoai, a canyon of purple geological rock formation naturally created by millions of years of effect of wind and water erosion on red laterite soil rich in iron oxide commonly found in the region. From, top of the purple hill the greybeard looked at the…
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Leopard On The Terrace
At 3:00 AM every morning Gopal Gaitonde would diligently answer to natures call. He believed the nocturnal hour was the ultimate to empty one’s internals of faecal waste. On missing this specific moment, his bowels would go bonkers for the rest of the day. Failing the sacred potty hour meant a day of total commotion…
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Across The Valley Through The Air
Taibok hung dangerously from the edge of the forest a thousand feet above the raging mountain river that flowed at the bottom of the cliff, on whose edge stood his small and obscure village. The hamlet lay in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya, in the interiors of the dense East Khasi Hills near the modern-day…
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The Lighthouse
Khurram Kha anxiously glimpsed at the trickling sand in the hourglass. Glanced up towards the night sky, and then gazed at the frothy ivory waves lit up by the moonlight, lashing on the ancient and rugged rocky cliff-shore, on which stood his lighthouse, and finally looked at his daughter standing on the edge of the…
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Haunting Howls of Hanabari
About forty-kilometres north of the city of Kolkata on the west bank of the two-hundred-sixty-kilometres-long river Bhāgirathi-Hooghly, a distributary of the mighty Ganges in the state of West Bengal in India lies a once important port town during the pre-colonial times, the ancient borough of Hooghly-Chinsurah city. Hooghly was founded right after the decline of…
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Donali – The Shotgun Of Haider Ali
In 1904 in the city of Defiance in the state of Ohio in the East North Central region of the Midwestern United States, Daniel Myron Lefever and his sons Charles, Frank, and George crafted some of the best shotguns ever made. Almost one-hundred years later in the year 2000, one of those original guns, a…
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Poetay
At four every morning the severely annoying sound of a gradually intensifying, prolonged and near-deafening yawn would obliterate the tranquillity of a sleepy northern neighbourhood slowly waking up to face another day in the cosmopolitan city of Kolkata in the eastern armpit of the Indian subcontinent. A solid ten minute of thunderous “Hh uuu aaaa wwwww…
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The Blue Indians
The year is 3,300 BC, Bronze Age begins in the Near East. The passage tomb of Newgrange is built on the north side of the River Boyne in Ireland. The Ness of Brodgar is built in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney in Scotland. The Harappan Civilisation of the Indus Valley dawns in the Punjab province…
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Bandook Gali – Gun Lane
Fourteen-year-old Abadan finds a one-hundred-year-old Mauser Construktion 96 semi-automatic broom-handle pistol encased in its legendary walnut holster cum detachable shoulder-butt, wrapped in a disintegrating rag with the faded tag – Messrs Rodda & Company, buried under a rock in the garden inside the Zoroastrian fire temple of Anjuman Atash Adran. The year was 2014, and the…
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The Crossing
A sudden burst of wind revealed the silhouette of a man lying huddled and hidden under the silver desert sand. Visible by the light of a million dotted stars and the enchanting midnight moon magnified in the backdrop of the nomadic night sky painted in hues of lilac, turquoise and electric blue. A night in…
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Midnight Swimmers
On the eve of Christmas in 1892, a young monk from Kolkata jumped into the shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean off the shores of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu at the southernmost tip of the Indian peninsula. He swam across to a rock perched in the middle of the rough waters, but what did he…
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Ramkingkong
Standing seven and a half feet tall and carrying a weight of one hundred and fifty-seven kilograms, eighty-two-year-old Ramkingkong was not your average Homosapien. He was more like an ancient Nephilim out of the book of Genesis from the Bible – a giant offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men. The old…
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Rooftop Ruffians
At about the same time that David Belle was inventing the acrobatic training discipline of Parkour in France in 1988, a much cruder and somewhat hilarious version of the same was emerging on the rooftops of closely stacked houses in the northern crannies of the port city of Kolkata. Similar to the Yamakasi – the nine founding…
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Mudskippers
Brothers Kada and Mati were abandoned as babies on the muddy banks of the river Ganges in the Shovabazar area of nostalgic North Kolkata. While some thought them to be the unwanted seeds of a prostitute from neighbouring Shonagachi, Asia’s largest flesh-market, others believed them to be Demigods, sons of the Goddess Ganges herself. It was a wet and cold August night in 1980. Chandrabhanu Pal, a…
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Derinchi
Derinchi was your everyday midget – the but-end of ‘short’ jokes. A daily dose of entertainment for the village bullies. Growing up with short stature, the dwarf had learnt to live a life of indifference and mockery. Take his name for instance – Der-inchi, which meant one-and-a-half-inch in the native tongue, was enough to add fuel to the…
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Fish n Rice
Bipin Bihari Choudharee belonged to a very particular breed of endangered Bengalis. A dying pedigree reminiscent of the bygone days of the Zamindars and ‘babu-culture’. A typical Bong in many ways and unique in some very distinctive traits. Residing in his ancestral home – a dying palatial facade in Goabagan, north Kolkata, Bipin had never left the ‘City of Joy’. The septuagenarian…
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Weekend Stories by Trishikh 