Prasanna Raghavan

  Picture from Google. Madhuri stuffed her bag with the steel tiffin box, small flask, and purse, dropped it on the Glossy creed black and white coffee table. Pulled the diary out of the bag, scribbled the grocery list stuffed it back. Removed two bulging plastic files inside the table made them flop near the bag.  Just another day, she gasped. She measured her movement as she sat on the sofa.  The September sun sneaked in through the window signalled a throbbing headache, a lacklustre sensation.  She was strongly inclined to take a break from everything to take a trip to somewhere alone-will it ever happen?  "One minute ma," Ankush called out from upstairs.  It was nearly eight. She should be on the road now.  A throb on the temple blinded her-- she hushed it with a fingertip and craned the head to scan the stairs. Not a sign of him.    "I have a test in the first lesson Ma, cannot wait for him," Megha reminded her from the sofa across from her--she was ready for t

  She slipped into a pair of sandalwood shade pyjama, pulled over the head a jacquard cotton salwar top, pinned the pleated maroon shawl on the shoulder. Na, not going to wrap it around the neck.  She sleeked down the pleats to make her look a head taller and hide the fat around the middle. In the dressing table not being full length couldn't figure out how the pair of designer sandal in maroon matched with the rest of the attire. With a smile oozing with self-pride, she grabbed her purse, locked the room stepped out into the hotel foyer to the walkway outside.  The milky air outside was fresh. The leaves of the hibiscus lined by the walkway were wet from the morning rain. She touched them fondly, shattering the water pearls dancing on the edges.   A lazy breeze from the valley of Neem trees cuddled her hair loosened a fringe to tumble on to her forehead.   The road in the front hadn't changed a bit in the years. The clusters of old shops on the sides teetering with the goodies

"Shall we not visit the classroom?" Shruthi asked Maria, the school counsellor.  Commerce 3.  Out of the three girls missing from the school, two -- Gauthami and Clara -- came from that class.   "Of course, that's a priority of the hour," Sara didn't have to think twice.  *** "Good afternoon Mam," the chorus of greetings from thirty-five learners less by two hit the visitors like a wave of grief. Shruthi greeted them back with a big smile, being the headmistress, she should cheer the girls up.   Gauthami's and Clara's desk brimmed with 'please come back' cards, mostly handmade.   "Who was Gauthami's best friend in the class?" Shrithi asked the class after the initial chitchats.   "Clara," the answer came in a chorus.  "Her second best friend?" "Rani."  Rani stood up from her seat, flashing a shy smile on her face. The girl with a wiry build and a decaying lower tooth sat a row behind Gauth

Courtesy to Pixabay.com "Ngozi didn't do his work," Thandi shouted loud for the entire class to hear. She did it deliberately to make him look small, everybody knew it, and accordingly, they all turned their heads to peek in his direction and giggle.  Thiry pairs of eyes shamed him gave Thandi a sort of prideful satisfaction. Then she turned to the teacher, standing on one other side of the classroom. One more second, she stood there, then walked forward to arrange the homework books she had collected from the rest of the learners on the teacher's desk.  While doing that, she glanced at Ngozi a few times shaking her head to express her disapproval of Ngozi's laziness.  The teacher thought she was acting teacher and ignored her. It was a Monday, after a long weekend, everyone in the class had got enough time to complete their homework.  Ngozi sat lowering his eyes onto the desk in front of him.  The teacher walked up to him, and seeing her he stood up. His shirt a

I am taking part in  The Write Tribe Problogger October 2017  Blogging challenge.   This is my 2nd post in the series. #writetribeproblogger Friday, October 6 # prompt- Short Story-A New Light on the Horizon Taken from www. google. co za Today he slapped Yamini, his daughter.  She was arguing with her mother, at the dining table, then suddenly stood up from her chair, raised the plate in which she was eating with half-eaten food into the air and dropped it onto the floor. The fork and the spoon slipped out of the plate, hit on the tiled floor making a shrill sound and shards of plate flew in all directions together with the food.  And she stood there, without having any shame staring at her mother. He was coming to the dining room; he stretched his arm with a force he could muster and slapped her across her face.  She turned to face him with a hostile look and ran into the kitchen howling.  Shalini, his wife, sat stunned on her chair for a second, then shouted at him: “have you gone ma

The Third Woman On the right-hand side of her Facebook timeline, the notification tab beckoned Malu.  She dragged the cursor and clicked. An extensive list of birthday friends unfurled before her.  She found them boring and scrolled down. She noticed, someone had tagged her onto a post. The scene of a gruesome road accident, with a telling caption: “somebody’s morning trip turned fatal.” She never found accidents eye-catching, but something made her stick at it.  A white Maruthi, and what remained of it after being devoured by a construction truck. The driver’s side sat huddled inside the front grill of the giant truck. One end of the mudguard detached from the body stood in the air waving at the world. Two dark holes held where the lights were. Their splintered glasses crystallised in the crimson pool on the ground. The inward bent number plate rendered its figures unreadable.  Malu’s wondered, who could be that unlucky driver whose morning trip turned fatal?  She added a sad emoticon

From Long Island Express Highway, Kailas turned north to enter Spring Filed Boulevard.  His visit to his home, he wasn’t sure to call it home, would have impacted who were close to him, had the events happened recently taken another turn.  The Boulevard was chock-a-block with traffic; his laziness didn’t allow him to check the traffic level before entering the Boulevard.  The road ahead stretched in two lines.  A tall advertising vehicle in front prevented him seeing anything beyond its flat back. He switched on his car radio and tuned on to the SyriusXM channel.  The announcer went on and on about all routes busy, he got angry and turned off the channel. Twenty-three minutes than usual he took to reach the turning from Spring Field Boulevard to 53rd Avenue.  There he turned south and joined street no. 216. Street 216 too was busy, but traffic wasn’t stagnant, moving.  Parking spaces on both sides were taken up by all kinds of vehicles, some flashing names of media houses and some adve

It was a mistake happened in a split second.  The lamp shade, I just removed of a table lamp slipped off my hand; fell onto the floor and crashed in a jingling. How I watched sadly, the shade was turning into a white net of shards. The dust that had gathered on its surface had rendered the lamp a dead, fearsome look.  So I was prompted to give it a facelift.  I was also earnestly trying to help my aunt in secret.  But, if my aunt got a clue of what I was intending, I was sure, she wouldn't have allowed me. The lamp, my uncle told was his family heirloom, so had lots of sentimental values attached to it more than its material value.  His great uncle got it from Vas co Dagama's yacht; his story went like that. I never believed him. My point was, how could he discard a thing of much sentimental value in the corner of the passageway to gather dust? Only when visitors came, he got my aunt to dust it and display on his table.  The following week, some guests were coming, and my aunt

The car screeched into the parking lot at a high speed and stopped haphazardly. Not straightening its position for fellow drivers' convenience, she stepped out of it and walked in the direction of the building close by. The building wasn't causing any interest in her. Not because of its dull quaint appearance, but because it was a police station. She had been lucky so far. Never had to step inside a police station, that brutal world, only  seen the outside of one or two standing far away.  That brought us to the point that her fears were not drawn out of any firsthand experiences. But the tell-tale stories were all over. Just read the newspapers and the Facebook posts. Men not officially charged with any offences were beaten up within its four walls, and women reporting offences were raped even using bayonets and guns. Her feet thumped hurriedly on the dirty path to the building and at its end, she climbed up a flight of  cement steps to reach a narrow open space. Two flower po

How did it all start? I just grabbed my little pencil and started scribbling the first line of a story, I was seven.    I don't remember its lines now, but the story was about our dog.  Our watchdog of my age and my playmate. We loved and pampered him, taking advantage of that he did naughty things like chasing after cats and birds, once he snatched a ball from my hand tore it open with his jaws. I only appreciated him clapping hands. We called him Nelson, I abbreviated it to Nel.  Nel was friendly with our chickens, in numbers, my mother cooped them in a big hen-house in our backyard. It was part of my mom's home management to add protein to our meals from the eggs and occasional meat. And Nel had a significant role to play in that to guard the chickens, especially in the nighttime.  As time went by, Nel began to be adventurous in his endeavours with the chickens. He would pretend to sleep in the open yard for them to march past by him clucking and crowing. When they reached