By Selma Carvalho
The Friday they leave for a weekend in Belgium, Anju discovers Freddo is cheating on her. She doesn’t share her knowledge with him. What she should have said was, ‘Freddo, I’m tired of this shit. This time, I’m leaving.’
Her heart feels like it is going to stop breathing all on its own, distinct from the rest of her. The pain is so intense, she realises it is possible for the rest of her body to survive the carnage, while her heart, expelled from her being like a refugee, would simply die.
By Nilankur Das
The rains had passed, the earth no longer drank but let the water fester in shallow pools, the smell of rot rising, clinging to the air, to the walls, to the skin of those who moved through it. In the village of Assolna, between the rivers Mandovi and Sal, the people had learned to accept what was given to them, the meat in their curries…
By Rochelle Potkar
Excerpted from the novel “The D’Costa Family” by kind permission of the author.
Rita was soon back into the realm of daily grind: the insurgency of spices for the sorpotel and vindaloo, the crisp frying of rechado rava-coated prawns, the bubbling of rice that let out a briny foam from its handi.
By Brenda Coutinho
Our ancestral house, a little away from the meandering river along the salt pans, bulged with inmates of all ages. My parents, seven paternal uncles, their wives and children, and my grandparents made our household buzz with activity at all times. It was especially during the monsoons that all of us remained caught in the house, owing to continuous showers for days.
By Nilankur Das
The village had already begun to anticipate the rain long before the first cloud gathered, as if the sky had entered into a conspiracy with the earth, and with those few houses whose windows remained half-shut even in the heat of May, because it was known, in that way knowledge settles like fine dust in small places, that when the rains arrived the newly dug road…
By Nilankur Das
You had to be mad to take the pills and the syrups the way they did, deliberate madness. They weren’t chasing a high, they were trying to fall off the edge of the world, strip after strip of Spasmo Proxyvon, swallowed dry, Corex syrup guzzled warm and metallic, a haze of Benadryl and the white pill, Nitrazepam.
By Rita Chhablani
Palm trees swayed gently in the December breeze as Maria, the household help, lit the candles on the veranda. The aroma of roasting chorizo, their favorite and special pork meat sausage, and bebinca wafted from the kitchen, mingling with the scent of frangipani. It was Christmas Eve in Fontainhas. The streets were alive with Konkani carols and laughter.
By Selma Carvalho
Christmas Day arrives—sounds muffled, hands mittened, necks sunk in scarves, the air crisp as a ciderapple. Mother returns from morning church service, singing softly to herself, ‘Joy to the world, the Lord is come…and heaven and nature sing.’ This being their last Christmas at the manor house, Anju has put up the Christmas decorations. The house smells of pine, its telltale needles leading to a green spired-tower
By Saachi D’Souza
Before the city, there was a village: one long road, mango trees, and a house made of clay bricks whose red bled in the monsoon. Ira’s father had called it a home; her mother, a waiting room. When the water overflowed, it came not like a beast but like a large, gripping silence. The water climbed walls, then memory. Her sister’s anklet was found wrapped around a broken window. Her mother’s last word had been “run.” Ira did. At seven, she learnt that not all losses are loud.
By Nilankur Das
He had never planned to go to Belgaum, not really, not in the way that one plans things with intent and purpose, rather it had arrived like all unwanted things arrive, suddenly and through someone else’s mouth, a colleague had said, you should come, it’ll be good for you, it’ll build confidence, and he had nodded the way people do when they’re afraid of disappointing others or more accurately afraid of being seen for who they are, soft and brittle and full of doubt…
By Caroline de Souza
Antonio sat on the edge of his canoe, grey, grizzled and tired from the day’s fishing. He had been at it all morning and the noon-day sun beat down upon him relentlessly. Sweat glistened and shone and poured down his forehead and arms as he wiped himself with his bare clothing. He gazed far out at an endless grey ocean and an endless grey sky that hovered just above it and at a grey line that divided the two. Sometimes, the sea was blueand the sky would change its mood to match the new hue.
By Selma Carvalho
The Friday they leave for a weekend in Belgium, Anju discovers Freddo is cheating on her. She doesn’t share her knowledge with him. What she should have said was, ‘Freddo, I’m tired of this shit. This time, I’m leaving.’
Her heart feels like it is going to stop breathing all on its own, distinct from the rest of her. The pain is so intense, she realises it is possible for the rest of her body to survive the carnage, while her heart, expelled from her being like a refugee, would simply die.
By Sahib Nazari
Issue no 20
An APWT publication
‘We’re vampires,’ said the young barman when I asked if he had a day job, ‘we work after dark and sleep before sunrise. My wife work day time.’ He brushed his black whiskers as thin as his eyelashes. ‘I work night time.’ His slim eyes enveloped dreams and hope, said he had three children, and his parents share their tiny shack with them.
By Steve R. E. Pereira
Issue no. 17
‘You have to find a cock, a big, black cock. It has to be black. A very big, black cock. Unaelewa?’ Mai looked fierce as she wagged her finger vigorously in Annie’s face.
‘Naelewa,’ Annie said, trying, not successfully, to hide a smirk as she wrapped her kitenge around her house-dress.
