Living Diagonally In My Parallel World!

Every death has a reason. The guy sitting up in the sky decides who lives and who dies. When ordinary people inflict death upon others, they get punished by law but people like me who have His blessings get to enjoy life even after snuffing it out of others. As I am going through these thoughts, it’s an hour past midnight and it is total silence apart from the stridulation of the odd cricket. I am contentedly smoking my favourite cig along with sips of vintage JW and looking at the silhouetted figure of a sleeping Ranjana, her bosom heaving with her breath. As I think about the past year and the speed with which events took place – my transfer into Crime Branch, fights with my wife Sujata over Ranjana, Sujata’s demise and promotion that I got. All in a matter of 12 months. I am living my best phase of life!   “Yadav, we are in demand. The state police are not able to resolve this and have given it to us. Let’s finish of this serial killer business.” This was where it all s...

It was one of those lazy Saturdays when the rain gods had decided that they would complete the season’s work in a day. It was pouring incessantly since morning. My Boss Rao had planned a get-together in the evening at his plush new duplex and had invited us friends with families for drinks and dinner. I was alone and was looking for some opportunity to get out of my lonely house. Ten years ago, Ruchi had ended her marriage with me and walked out leaving me wondering about love, commitment and shallowness of it all. Everything appeared fake in life. It took me almost two years and lots of Blue Labels to start life afresh again and Rao had been very supportive of me through that phase. When I reached the Rao residence the party had already started and I found almost all of the familiar faces. As I was filling up my glass Rao asked me to create a playlist of ghazal’s for that evening. “Arey, don’t ask Shekhar to make the playlist. He will select Jagjit and all of us will start ...