Everyone was happy when the Thief died. It was the postman who had found her, sitting in her armchair behind the unlatched main door, eyes closed as if asleep. In that peaceful tableau, a reign of terror had come to an end. For sixty years, the Thief held sway over Bijliya, a little hamlet of barely a hundred houses. Over the greater part of three generations, shopkeepers learned to put locks on their cashboxes, dhaba owners chained their plates and tumblers to the tables, watchmen prowled the orchards and families took care to not let on that they had money and valuables to spare. This was not easy. Firstly, the Thief operated in broad daylight, her identity known to all. Secondly, you couldn’t keep her out. In a place as tiny as Bijliya, she was practically family. Her name was not Thief-like. Shehzadi. Princess. Unless you remembered that it was…
It was another evening of heavy traffic, dust, fumes and noise in this metropolis. Yet, glowing above it all were the splendid colours of…
‘Are you sitting down?’ ‘Yep,’ I reply. I have no idea who I am speaking to, but from the pitch of his voice it…
Along the river banks of the Mekong River, cluttered along the edge of the jungle that looks to overtake them at any time, are…
At the T-junction where the exit lane from Hosea Kutako International Airport extending left and right seemed almost too slender to be the main…
The last priest of the Fengche village descended up the dry village path overgrown with wilting pigweeds, briskly walking past the mighty old Haitala…
I am waiting for my parents. It has almost been a year since I have seen Ma. Baba visited me every four months. I…
“Ma’am, the ceremony will begin in a short time. We are waiting for the chief guest.” The event manager informed her. “OK. I’m almost…
“Two shots in the crotch. Two more in the heart. One last in the head,” Carter murmured to himself. A man laid dead in…
