The radio arrived in the village like a rumour. No one could remember exactly who had brought it, only that one evening it was there, sitting on a wooden stool in the corner of the schoolteacher’s house, its dark casing catching the last light of day. It was not large, nor ornate. Its knobs were…
Tag: writing
What Remains: A Life Practised Carefully
Some stories arrive loudly. This one arrived by sitting down and waiting. For years, many of you have walked with me through short stories on StoryNook. Stories that travelled through forgotten histories, unnamed griefs, quiet courage, and lives that rarely ask to be remembered but deserve to be. This book grew out of that same…
The Valley Of Thundering Hooves
The dawn fog of 1850 clung to the Imphal valley like a half-remembered dream when Lieutenant Joseph Ford Sherer first heard the thunder of hooves. It came faint at first, like a heartbeat rising through the mist, then nearer, stronger, until the ground itself seemed to breathe beneath him. He drew rein, his mare snorting…
The Man Who Could Hear The World
Bhaskor Mollik was born on a humid summer afternoon in the year of our Lord 1900, in the narrow bylanes of Jessore, in undivided Bengal. The monsoon clouds hovered heavy above, the scent of wet earth and mango blossom swirling in the air. His first cries mingled with the drone of mosquitoes and the distant…
Bonomali’s Cathedral
A cold winter dawn lay across the St. Paul’s Cathedral grounds, in the heart of Kolkata, like a thin veil of grey. Faint mists curled between ancient tombstones and evergreen shrubs, and the air tasted of damp earth and the distant tang of dew. On one side of a narrow pathway, under the skeletal arms…
The Armenians
The whistle shrilled like a winter’s breath, sharp and cutting, in the frosty air of the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club field, better known as the CCFC. A low sun filtered through the overhead clouds, scattering gold upon the dew-kissed turf. La Martiniere Old Boys or LMOB Captain, Harrington “Harry” Devlin, full back, stood at…
Fat Mama
The wok hissed like a temple gong struck in fire. Fat Mama’s large, seasoned hands dipped the last wonton into shimmering oil, its skin puffing golden almost instantly. Steam rose, twirling into the dusky air of her drawing-room-turned-eating-house. The smell of pork, garlic, ginger, and a whisper of sesame clung to the cracked lime-washed walls,…
The Varanasi Seer And The English Shadow
Pandit Pankaj Pandey had been waking at the auspicious hour of 3:00 AM for as long as he could remember. Long before the swelling roar of the city fully stirred from its dreams. On this particular winter morning in 1984, as the faint chill of mist clung to the crumbling rooftops of Banaras, he rose…
Baburam
The sun was soft gold over a teeming park in Kankurgachi, North-East Kolkata, early 1980s, but to galloping fitness freaks, vegetable‑laden housewives, wandering loafers, fish‑loving babus with bags of silver‑scaled Hilsa, and children skipping along, the heart of the day was held in a mystical man’s hypnotic melody. Baburam sat cross‑legged on a frayed grass…
Last Cup For The Day
The market slept beneath an ink‑black sky, Burrabazar’s labyrinth of lanes silent at 1 AM. A pallid moon hung low above shuttered shops, warehouses looming like sleeping beasts. Rickshaw wheels rested, bamboo handcarts fitted with truck tyres stood stacked one after the other, piles of cloth lay dormant, and only an occasional distant clang of a…
Weekend Stories by Trishikh 