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as he proudly termed it. They are commonly known as the Orang Bunian or elves, often translated as the hidden people or whistling people in their folklores. An existence she completely disbelieved as a foreigner, but acknowledged Azmi’s beliefs about them with utmost respect. She was amazed to hear their mention for the first time in Azmi’s depictions which made her google as well as inquire with her other colleagues about the details. The elf-like entities are said to exist in the deep forests and high mountains away from human contact. They have supernatural powers and can be seen or befriended only by Dukun or magicians and Pawang or shamans. And yes, even her other colleagues believe in the existence of the elves. She found that quite fascinating and intriguing. Azmi used to narrate her stories from history about the Orang Bunian along with the ones of royals and their family battles. According to him, there were intermarriages between humans and Orang Bunian. Their offspring – half-human and half- elf – had extraordinary powers and hardly used to age. They were capable of juggling between the two worlds but there would come a final moment when the children would decide which world they want to return to forever. This sounded so mystic to her as much as she enjoyed being part of the magical fairyland in Azmi’s depictions. Being from a totally different culture and traditional ethos, she still disbelieved his stories but acknowledged with respect as she learned more about them. There was no mystical encounter with her so far but yes, Azmi did demonstrate some weird but interesting traits at times. Unusual of any other colleagues ever, Azmi used to sing local and English lyrics with so much passion, rhythm and patience, and with ease. He indeed had a great voice. In between their discussions or those songs, he would start speaking in a language she had never heard before. A language even he did not know how and when he learned as he claimed. It sounded creepy at times though, but she would never interrupt his speech. “I have got something for you,” Azmi came to her office on a quiet Friday morning – much before their usual breakfast 185

time, “Open your email please.” His eyes were twinkling with excitement, some sort of achievement she assumed he gained. As she opened it, there was a PDF attachment from his official email ID. It was a manuscript of fifty poems that he composed in the last three months as he explained. He took his sweet time to recite ten poems from it that he said were his favourite ones. Those were indeed great verses, she felt. “I have something to say,” he spoke softly. As she found him staring at her admiringly, she got curious to know. “I sincerely dedicate this manuscript to you, my teacher!” She felt overwhelmed with the gesture. But he had more than that to say. “I have an honest confession to make.” This time he sounded a bit serious. “I have written these poems for you,” he began with these words leaving her wonder and amazed at the same time to know the details. As she sat silently, he continued. “I was looking for a soul mate, and I believe I have found one…in you.” She did not understand. “Just hear my words first. I belong to a lost kingdom… and a prince from the Orang Bunian.” She looked at him in disbelief not knowing how to react. But she waited for him to complete his words. “I know it is hard for you to believe. But what is true is true. I am an elf-prince. And this is my moment of making a final decision if I want to be in this world or return to the other one 186

forever. I need to make the choice, now. And you, my dear as my soul mate, are my final decision. I want to settle down with you somewhere in the quiet, or wherever you agree. We can keep our own religion, have our own faith, and enjoy a beautiful life together. I want to leave everything aside and be with you for the rest of my life. Can I expect an answer from you soon if not right now?” He looked at her with a stare helpless yet hopeful. She could not believe any of what Azmi said wondering why and how these words were for her from an old and respected individual who is happily married and surrounded by grandchildren. Did she ever give him any such impression? She could not think of any such moment. Azmi was always different, but not to this extent. She regarded him as a source of pure knowledge which he was. But never in her moments or discussions with him did she ever realise or feel anything this romantic, let alone the thoughts of being a soul mate and settling down for life. She was engulfed in a silence she never knew of unfolding. She said No in the politest manner she could. That was probably their last discussion which could take the shape of another depiction of life, may be in the form of a longer short story. Months after it, Azmi resigned from his position. He was already on his retirement years. He did not meet her, but she heard from other colleagues that his car is sometimes seen near the mystic woods, his favourite spot. He never contacted anyone after his retirement, nobody knew where he had gone or if he joined work somewhere else. But she occasionally received his emails with small attachments of his verses. Until a point when those emails stopped coming. She visited the woods many a time after that. It indeed was a mystic but calming experience for her. The woods of thick greenness, the window to a magical fairyland, probably the elf-prince had a reason and logic of his own to frequent his favourite spot. It has been almost a year since she left her job and that place. But the stretch of uneven trees, the woods still stay fresh in her mind. Just like the words of the elf-prince from the lost kingdom. 187

Dr Dipima Buragohain is an academician with more than ten years of academic and industrial experience in India as well as abroad. Hailing from Gargaon, Assam, she has earned her PhD in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2011. Apart from academic research, she has published her collections of short stories and poems. She enjoys exploring new places, meeting new people, and making new friends. 188

HOROSCOPE Dr. Bishakha Das Ananya’s father did not believe in horoscopes. He would get irritated when Ananya’s grandmother offered fruits to house idols. He considered such offerings spoiled the nutrients of cut-fruits. Too much of exposure to oxygen, light and heat cut short their retention life. His profession was research-oriented, while he took to reading during his leisure. The household responsibilities were taken care of by Ananya’s mother. She was, at the same time, a caring wife and a loving mother. Her motto in life was the well-being of her family. She tended not only her children but also her in-laws and their extended family. She could not only solve the equations of advanced maths but also minister to her mother-in-law during her intense asthmatic bouts. She could diagnose from the symptoms any physical discomforts and advise on how to deal with them. She could set everything right with her mere presence. Her father would also praise her meticulous nature, and held her in high esteem. He freed himself from worldly burdens by handing over his monthly earnings to his dutiful wife. He kept his pockets clear and did not bother about household affairs. He counted on her for every little thing in his life. Ananya’s mother made it a habit to spend some time every day meditating before submitting her offerings to the house idols. She had great regard for astrologers and took care of the horoscopes of every member of her family. Ananya’s father had a friend who was a learned man. He was a regular visitor to their house. Ananya was fond of him and addressed him as Jethu. Though he was a historian by profession, he knew a thing or two about astrology. Ananya’s mother believed in his interpretations of horoscopes. 189

On the day when Ananya’s father suffered a mild stroke, Ananya sought Jethu’s advice. He arranged proper medical care for Ananya’s father, and himself remained at the sick man’s bedside. By way of diverting Ananya’s father’s attention, he said, “Don’t you worry about your condition, you are already on the road to recovery. You surely will live long, even longer than Bhabhi.” Even though Ananya’s father was not a believer in astrology, his friend’s last comment took its toll on him. Ananya was also astonished. How could her father believe that his life would depend upon what had been foretold in the horoscope? After all, horoscopes only forecaste a person’s future, typically including a delineation of character and circumstances, based on the relative positions of the stars and planets at the time of that person’s birth. Her father knew this more than anyone else in the family. During the next few years, Ananya’s father suffered three more mild strokes. After the fourth encounter, his right side got partially paralysed and he became bedridden. For almost two years, his life became stagnant. He tossed and turned in the bed to get up on his own, but in vain. Someone had to prop him up to make him sit. Ananya’s mother was not strong enough to do so from time to time. As Ananya lived several hundred kilometres away in Delhi with her husband, her mother had no choice except to seek professional help. Sometimes, while she was feeding him, the food would slip out of his mouth as he had no control over his facial muscles. She spent sleepless nights, trying to minimize his discomfort. His malaise was, however, relentless. While Ananya visited her parents on and off, she would feel for her once-potent father. At the same time, she could also relate to the intense stress her mother had to endure. The small town where they lived had no shortage of relatives or friends, and news used to travel pretty fast. Bad news travelled faster. Three of their relatives passed away within just one year. Those incidents also caused a great deal of worry for Ananya’s mother. Her already thin frame moved from one room to the other like a zombie. She often panicked over the phone to 190

Ananya: “These constant deaths scare me. I am getting all the more concerned about your father.” Ananya’s father also was not making her life any easier. He was irate and aggravated all the time. Ananya’s mother tried to help him execute his signature with his left hand on financial documents from the bank, this did not work. Fortunately, they could convince the authorities in the bank and Treasury Department to accept his thumb impression in place of his signature. His life, he realised had come to a standstill. In the past, he had loved watching all kinds of sporting activities and movies on television. Gradually, he stopped watching television totally. It was as if he had lost all interest in life. Ananya could pay visits to her family only once or twice a year. Ananya’s father had started believing that his days were numbered. He was always waiting for Godot who never turned up. The condition of Ananya’s mother was deteriorating day by day. She began to suffer from anxiety issues too. Knowingly or unknowingly, she also was waiting for something to happen. One evening while Ananya was having a conversation with her mother over the phone, she sounded low. She complained of breathlessness. At night, she got admitted to the hospital. The next day, Ananya rushed home from Delhi. When Ananya arrived, her mother was under intensive care. Among other things, she was also diagnosed with nephrological issues. Leaving her father alone with the home nurse, Ananya took her mother to a hospital in the city. During one of her infrequent visits, when she had tried to tell her father about his wife’s condition, he had not appeared to care. After remaining in the city hospital for nearly two and a half months, Ananya’s mother passed away one rainy morning. While the last rituals for Ananya’s mother were being performed, her father was brought in a wheelchair to have a last glance at his wife’s lifeless body. Sitting in the wheelchair he appeared relaxed without exhibiting any emotions. Ananya was shaken witnessing her father’s indifference. 191

On the wall facing her father hung her mother’s photo within a teak wood frame. She was wearing a sari and a gold chain around her neck. She also wore a vermillion bindi on her forehead. Her eyes were lively. Her eyes spoke of her concern for all of them, whom she had left behind. Her main concern had always been her husband. However, an old friend of her father who came to visit him at the death of his wife told Ananya that her father believed his wife was still around. One morning, Ananya received a phone call from the home nurse who looked after her father. “Please come, it looks like your father’s end is near.” By the time Ananya reached the hospital, her father was on ventilator support. He looked at her and tried to raise his hand, perhaps to bless her. The next morningAnanya found her father at peace with himself. As if a veil before her eyes had been lifted, she saw an angel sitting at the foot of her father’s bed. The angel was speaking to him gently, and unusually though he was responding in kind. The angel told him, “You can ask me more of your dumb questions because I have all the answers.” Her father said, “I don’t have any left. I love you, and I have always loved you. All I want is to come with you. Please take me.” He was oblivious of Ananya’s presence in the room. He stretched out both his hands towards the angel. Then only did it strike Ananya that the angel’s face appeared exactly like that of her mother. The angel too stretched out her hands towards him. In that fraction of a moment when their hands made contact, Ananya saw her father gasp for a split second. In helpless dismay, she watched the last vestige of existence flowing out of her father’s body. Ever since Ananya started believing in horoscopes. Dr. Bishakha Das (Sarma) is a linguist, specializing in the documentation of endangered languages. She composes both prose and poetry, and is a regular contributor to anthologies by The Impish Lass Publishing House. She is also a musician and plays the Mohan Veena. Dr. Das hails from Silchar, Assam. Currently she currently resides in Delhi. 192

CHANDRAN’S DAUGHTER Biju Vasudevan Chandran moaned pitifully, as he tossed and turned around on the pile of rags that was his bed, in the damp and filthy shack, which was home, and also his entire life’s accomplishment. The prevailing lockdown and liquor embargo on account of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that it was getting increasingly difficult for Chandran to lay his hands on country liquor, which was for him both a palliative and a sedative. It was also the bootlegged spirit that brought him respite from the woeful series of heartbreaks that life had blessed him with. It had been one continuous sad story of endless sufferings for Chandran, since that eventful day, when armed with an ITI certificate in welding, he had decided to venture out of his small village in Kerala, and come to Odisha, where a construction boom was happening, thanks to the establishment of India’s first Public Sector Integrated Steel Plant in Rourkela town. It had been forty long and painful years ever since that fateful day when Chandran, under advice of some well-wishers, had packed his bags and boarded the Alleppey-Bokaro Express’s unreserved compartment, with starlight and daydreams in his eyes, and a song on his lips. He wanted to get away from the mediocrity, the hum-drum, and the uncouth life of an interior hinterland village in Kerala. He yearned for refinement and dreamt of modernity. He was totally enamoured by the loud modern clothes and flashy lifestyles being peddled by Tamil and Malayalam matinee stars in the ramshackle movie hall of his village. His life was vapid in comparison and he urgently needed to make amends. Coming to Rourkela, where a distant 193

cousin had found employment and prosperity was like a dream come true for him. He swore never to return to his village with its crude lifestyle, infested with backward bumpkins. But he would definitely be sending back money-orders to his old parents and his only sister who now needed to be married off. But Chandran himself never wanted to get himself personally entangled or associated with the dreary and the gross. He was meant to be different. And alas, and woe upon him, his oath was to prove to be prophetic in the future. The sun did shine brightly, however briefly, in Chandran’s otherwise desolate life’s cheerless landscape, for a short interlude, during the days when he had landed in Rourkela from Kerala. He was immediately picked up as an overhead welder by a multinational company, Gammon India, and for quite a handsome remuneration at that. His cousin had found him a very nice and cosy shack, in the railway colony shantytown that had mushroomed under the railway over bridge. He now had the bright iridescent clothes and the disco trousers, the flared up types that were popularized by South Indian film stars. He feasted on exotic delicacies like goat feet and hooves soup, which he washed down with copious amounts of country liquor which were plentiful in supply and easily available. There were no strict regulations on liquor in Rourkela, like it was back in Kerala. No more standing in serpentine queues for the daily tipple for Chandran. The bootleggers were only too happy to home deliver the hooch to his hovel for a negligible premium. He was now even the proud owner of a Philips radio set, which he would tune in to Radio Ceylon every evening, after a day’s gruelling and back breaking work, to listen to the latest Malayalam hits, while he wolfed down forbidden at home non-vegetarian delicacies like offal of swine, and entrails and feet of chicken. These delicacies were easily available in the slum food kiosks, and they were always served piping hot and spiced and dressed up with most appetizing and aromatic condiments. Needless to say, a bottle of country liquor would complete and round up all the meals and side dishes for him. 194

Life had never been so good to Chandran. He had found his little piece of paradise on this temporal earth. He felt as if he was living in a dream. All this was what he had ever desired, which was complete freedom, modernity, contemporariness, and indulging to his heart’s sinful content, all of which were next to impossible while living under the watchful eyes and strict regulation of the village elders in Kerala. All of this was too good to be true for Chandran. And like all good things that are too good, even this too good thing was definitely not going to last for very long and had to come to an end. It is said that lightning never strikes at the same place twice. But Chandran’s wretched life was a mournful landscape where lightning struck again, and again, and yet again at the same location. If there was any epitome of human suffering in this world, it was Chandran himself. The first lightning struck when his young wife, Gita died during childbirth, and their beautiful baby girl was still born. Chandran’s world had collapsed like a house of cards around him. A despondent Chandran had stopped eating, drinking, and working, but then hunger and thirst had driven him back to the Gammon India construction site. This was where the second thunder bolt had struck him. His safety harness had given way and he had plummeted a full thirty feet into the hard concrete ground. The fall had broken his left hip, and knee, along with many other bones. The third setback in quick succession in his accursed life happened in the form of termination by Gammon India for working unsafely and thereby putting one’s own life and also the lives of others at risk. While it was true that he was melancholy and extremely depressed, he was certainly not the type who would intentionally commit suicide. The safety harness had indeed developed a glitch while Chandran was making his way from one pylon to another, over a make shift structural bridge. Infirm and weak with both hunger and grief, Chandran had put undue trust into the faulty harness, like an infant would put in his mother, and had tried to support his weight on it as he gingerly made his way like a 195

circus acrobat. But there was some succour even in desperation for him and the ESI Hospital had somehow nursed him back into some semblance of health. But the fall had rendered him unemployable as a welder as he was now crippled, an invalid who retained only vestiges of the use of his left leg and arm. A kind factory canteen owner who knew Chandran’s cousin had taken him in as a helper cum bearer cum scullery worker, and this had been the doleful story of his life for the next forty years. At least, he now had a source of food, and some money to buy him country liquor. Life continued stubbornly for Chandran, for the simple reason that it would not go away, and Chandran was not the kind who would contemplate or commit suicide. Chandran tried to will sleep back into his empty eyes, but the amount of country liquor that he could manage to get hold of was clearly not enough to sedate him fully. He groaned and whimpered like a wounded pup. That was all that he could do to divert his mind from his cruel fate. But soon, he noticed that his whines and moans were being answered at regular intervals by wails that were equally plaintive, if not more. After a while, Chandran decided to investigate. Sleep was anyhow not going to happen with just two glasses of country liquor. He stepped out of his hovel and into the moonlight and almost stepped on a whimpering, shivering and cowering little puppy. The puppy and her mum had probably been attacked by feral dogs that prowled the slum. The little puppy had somehow got separated from her mom and had taken refuge in a corrugated sheet piece placed outside Chandran’s shack. Although, famished, bedraggled, and scared to death, there was something enticing and fascinating about her eyes. They reminded Chandran strongly of Pinky, his pet pup, whom he had left behind in Kerala, more than forty years ago. The pup’s soft, endearing, and entreating eyes had triggered a deluge of memories in Chandran’s brain. One by one, the memories of those tranquil days in his life revisited him after nearly half a decade’s interlude. For a small moment in time, he wafted in and out of a stupor where he saw visions of his home in Kerala, his parents, 196

his sister, their dogs Pinky and Pappu, their cow Ammu, their fowls, and so many other things that he had foolishly spurned more than forty years ago. His umbilical cord that linked him to his roots had been severed, thanks to his impetuousness and arrogance, and now there was no way that he could go back to the sacred place where he really belonged, or reclaim all that he had lost. An overwhelmed and sobbing Chandran took the puppy into his hovel and gave it some milk that he had stolen from the canteen. The outpouring of long pent up grief did a whole world of good to Chandran. Incessant sobbing had made him feel better, and soon, he was sound asleep. The puppy had also now calmed down, its hunger now satiated, and its fears now allayed. It nuzzled its muzzle against Chandran’s bare and hairy chest and dozed off, while Chandran slept like a small child, for perhaps the first time in more than forty years. The damp stillness of the morning air was sliced open by the loud cock-a-doodle-coo of the giant rooster which lived in the hovel next to Chandran’s. It scattered and startled the morning calm out of the wayward fowls and partridges of the slum. The sun beat down upon its earthly subjects and with vigour. It invaded every house and shanty it could find and its rays encroached and captured every orifice or transparency in sight with a radiant vengeance. Chandran’s hovel was not to be spared. In streamed the hot scorching rays through the wide cleft in the makeshift window of the shack and caressed Chandran’s face in a steamy embrace. Chandran woke up with a start. He had just enjoyed his best, most restful, most reinvigorating, and deepest slumber in a long time. He had had some pleasant dreams about a family and him having a beautiful daughter while asleep. He then looked down and almost jumped out of his skin in fright and astonishment. His mind responded with a smothered whimper. Consciousness dawned upon Chandran with a dull sensation of aching and revolting of the entire body, and also an inexplicable warmth to his chest. And snuggled against his small hairy chest was the 197

most beautiful, angelic and cherub like girl child that he had ever seen in his life. She was as pretty as she was petite. She was delightfully dressed in a colourful frock and had colourful ribbons holding her winsome hair in neat little braids. Chandran was at a loss for both words as well as intent. He was stupefied into a kind of delirium that was mixed with a hint of ecstasy. He was ecstatic because the little girl was the spitting image of the very beautiful girl child that he had just seen in his first pleasant dream in eons, and who he had believed was the little girl child that he had lost tragically, long back. He was now habituated to waking up shrieking and yelling at imaginary ghosts, as every night he would be visited by horrendous nightmares, so much so that he felt that something was amiss on a day that he was not terrified by a dream. Now he was dazed as all he could recall was letting a little puppy into his hovel, who he had fed with some left over milk, and which had crept up to him for comfort, At least, that was it, to the best of his recollection. Maybe the booze he had had was spiked with some toxic substance that had made him go mad. Maybe, he indeed was mad. Maybe, it was still a part of the same dream which he had been seeing. He slapped his own cheek in disbelief and winced from the pain. What was happening was real. It was neither a dream, and nor was he dead. They both sat staring into each other’s eyes, for what seemed like an eternity. The impasse and the ice between the two were finally broken by the little angelic one. “Papa, I am very hungry. How can you let your lovely daughter, Pinky, cry with hunger? I need something to eat. NOW!!!” Chandran was rudely awoken from his reverie, and into action. Words failed him. But somehow, he dared not disobey his darling daughter, now the lone love and light of his life, and whom he had apparently regained only a few moments ago, after forty long years. He hurriedly put on his uniform and tugged in his Gate Pass and rushed to the Factory Canteen. He begged the owner for some milk, biscuits, and bread. The 198

owner, Mr. Swain, was a kind man, and he knew that in spite of all the setbacks in life, Chandran was an animal lover, who loved to feed stray dogs, cats, and animals of all kinds. “Must be one more stray dog that he has adopted. Poor Man! He has absolutely no one in this whole wide world to call his own. The animals are his only companions and comfort”, murmured Mr. Swain, as he handed over a packet containing the food stuffs to a nervous Chandran. A grateful Chandran dashed back to his hovel, heaved his precious little daughter into his lap, and fed her with immense love and affection with his own hands, lest the beautiful little hands of his darling daughter get dirty. He still had a few nagging doubts about the infant pooch which he thought had come into his shack on the previous night, but Pinky was obstinate and adamant that it was she, and only she, who had come yesterday night when Chandran was half asleep. In between the morsels, she recounted to Chandran as to how she had been restlessly seeking her father since the last forty years, and how she had finally found him in here. It did not make any sense to a befuddled Chandran, but he was today the happiest that he had ever been in his entire life. And happiness needs no reason or logic! Soon, Chandran was regularly carting home packets of food, sweetmeats, baked items, and leftovers, to feed his daughter. Mr. Swain never objected, because another employee of the canteen who lived in the same slum as Chandran, had told him that Chandran had once again adopted a stray and homeless dog, and that he had had a close look at the pup, and the pup was a female. Mr. Swain, who was a philanthropist himself, was satisfied and happy that yet again, a stray pup had infused some joy into luckless Chandran’s ravaged life. There were few more changes in Chandran and his lifestyle. He began cutting down on booze so that he could buy nice dresses and trinkets like ribbons, and imitation ornaments, for his beloved daughter Pinky. It was not that Pinky was short on any of these things. She was already loaded with two suitcases 199

full of pretty clothes, toys, and other such trifles when she had arrived at Chandran’s ramshackle hovel. She had claimed that her mother had packed all these items for her when she had set out in search of her father. But still, gifting little Pinky with these little indulgences became the greatest joy in Chandran’s otherwise sad life. So he cut down on his own excesses so that he could see the glow on Pinky’s face, the gleam in Pinky’s eyes, and the smile on Pinky’s dainty little lips, as often as he could. He wanted to meet his wife too, but Pinky confided to him that she had lost touch with her after these forty years of searching for her father. She had promised that she would reunite her father and mother as soon as she could re-establish contact with her now estranged mother. Life continued for the father-daughter duo, and for a change, life was now both good, and kind too, and Chandran was relishing every moment of it. But the cycle of misfortune interspersed with brief interludes of happiness, much in the way that comedians provide comic respite in an intense tragedy, would not cease even now, even after the coming of this mystery child in his life, for Chandran. It had all started like a mild case of cough and cold and Chandran had never thought too much about it. There was no disease or illness that a few well timed shots of country liquor could not cure, according to his philosophy. And till date, the illicit brew had not failed him even once in his life. It had stayed with him, stuck with him, and supported, comforted, consoled, and cured him doggedly, as would the mistress, or the muse, or the concubine of a struggling and miserable painter or writer. He did try out his patented medicine, but it was of no avail. And then came the next thunderbolt from above. On a fine sultry morning, the father and daughter duo woke up to the realization that their ghetto had been encircled by troops, and was barricaded in with concertina wire, and was now reminiscent of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Yes, that was exactly what it resembled. Gun-toting troops everywhere, men and women clad in some strange looking spacesuit like apparel scurrying around nervously, people cowering out of fear and 200

shivering from hunger and thirst, as loudspeakers forbade them from even stepping outside their homes with threats of dire consequences if they ever dared to disobey. There were barricades, roadblocks, check posts, and even a bamboo wall that had suddenly sprouted and sprung over all around the shantytown perimeter. The only things that were missing in this forebidding and ghastly landscape were the gallows and a gas chamber, which would have nicely rounded up and completed the whole eerie picture. Chandran’s slum had been declared a ‘containment zone’ overnight, without even the hint of a warning to the residents so that they could stock up on essentials. The local administration had been swift to react to the Covid 19 Pandemic. There was some news of a couple of slum dwellers having tested positive for the Corona Virus at the BPUT Corona Care Centre, but nobody had anticipated that this would lead to such an arbitrary, heavy-handed, dictatorial and totalitarian kind of response by the administration. After all, the slum was a major vote-bank for the local politicians, and this had led to a false sense of invincibility among its inmates. The politicians were conspicuous by their stark absence in this grave hour of crisis for the slum. A couple of ‘spacemen’ had entered Chandran’s hutment and pointed a few instruments at his forehead. They had then forced his fingers into some kind of contraption, and had shaken their heads disapprovingly at the readings displayed by the gadgets, while Pinky cowered in a corner of the shack. The ‘spacemen’ did not bother to even look at her and appeared to be completely oblivious to her presence. They handed a prescription to Chandran after taking a throat swab and putting it in a portable freezer. “You have the Corona Virus. You now need to get these medicines immediately by yourself, if you want to live! Our government supplies are awaited, but it will be too late for you. Better procure these somehow and start the course the way 201

we have written it down in our prescription.” Saying this, the ‘spacemen’ left in a huff, leaving behind a dazed Chandran, and a thoroughly terrified Pinky. A sense of déjà-vu enveloped Chandran, as his world collapsed around him, yet again. There was nothing left to eat in the house let alone medicines. Chandran was feeling distinctly feverish and his chest was now heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. His throat was sore and his head felt like it was going to explode. This was surely going to be the end for him and perhaps for Pinky too. He could not venture out as he would be arrested and sent to jail the moment he stepped out of his hovel. And Pinky was just a small and defenceless little girl child. The curtains were now finally closing on Chandran’s miserable life. The furrows on Chandran’s gnarled and pock-marked face grew deeper as he grappled with the realities. Hot tears of despair tinged with grief, drained his eyes. His life was fast slipping away just when he had thought that he had reclaimed at least a part of it. Then a pair of petite and dainty hands wiped the hot tears away from his cheeks as they tried to comfort and console him. “Papa! Please do not cry, when your daughter is here. It makes me very sad. I am here to help you tide over all your problems.” As his daughter’s reassuring words fell on his ears the grown up adult sagged into the arms of the little one and broke down sobbing. Chandran was now crying inconsolably. Pinky was patting and petting him and trying to make him feel better. \"Papa, papa, papa, just tell me about all your worries, and then pretend that they do not exist anymore, because I’m going to take care of them. If you do not do that I’ll be upset and will not forgive you.” Pinky was adamant while Chandran was still unsure of what to do. “But you are a little girl. How can I let you out alone to face the wicked cruel world?” Chandran voiced out his concern. “Have you not heard, Papa, what our honourable Prime Minister says? Girls are in no way inferior to or weaker than boys. That 202

is why he gives importance to sending daughters to school to study. Please have faith in me. Trust me just once and allow me to show to my Papa what a strong and determined little girl can do.” Chandran was pensive for a moment and gulped down all that his little daughter had said to him. He finally made up his mind. He brought out a piece of paper and scribbled down a few lines on it. Then he turned to his beloved and incredibly beautiful little daughter. “My beloved child, Pinky, you now need to somehow get this letter to my employer and hotel owner, Mr. Swain. I really have absolutely no idea as to how you will do it. There are armed sentries outside. Besides, the factory where Papa’s canteen is located is surrounded by high walls and is again guarded by armed guards. They will not let anybody inside who does not possess a valid gate pass. Moreover, you have never seen the factory, or the canteen, or met Mr. Swain. But somehow, my heart says that my daughter will save this poor old Papa. Take my Gate Pass with you, if you need. And please, please be very careful.” Pinky grabbed the letter, pocketed it immediately, and put on her shoes. “Don’t you worry about me at all. I will be perfectly alright, dear Papa. And I won’t need any Gate Pass or anything. I have better ways.” Saying this, Pinky ran out of the ramshackle hovel leaving behind a slightly bemused, bewildered, and also thoroughly apprehensive and nervous Chandran. The armed guards posted at the periphery of the containment zone did not even notice a small she-puppy fly past them clutching on to a piece of paper gingerly held between her jaws. The trail of Chandran’s scent was fresh and the pup had absolutely no problem in following it and tracking it right to the factory gates. The armed guards there were busy measuring temperatures of incoming people using laser guns and asking them to sanitize their hands before entering the factory premises, to notice a small bitch go past them. In fact 203

nobody noticed, and nobody bothered. Soon, the puppy had correctly tracked Chandran’s scent trail right into Mr. Swain’s canteen, and dropped the paper before him and whined out most plaintively and dolefully. Mr. Swain understood that something was amiss and that whatever the matter was, it was of a most urgent nature. The pitiful moaning of the pup was eloquent enough to convey this to him. He picked up the piece of paper and began reading it, and suddenly became very pensive and concerned. “Hey, Raghu! Our Chandran is neck deep in trouble. He has the Corona Virus and he is now trapped in the Railway Shantytown Slum Containment Zone. We need to send food, water, and also Hydroxy-Chloroquine, Vitamin C, and Vitamin B to him urgently. Send someone to the Chemist. Raghu, you pack enough food and rations for two days, the most that this little pet pup of his can carry on her back. Hurry! Time is running out. We need to save Chandran’s life.” Once again, neither the guards posted at the factory gates, nor the sentries posted had either the time, nor the patience, or the perseverance, to note a small female pup dodge past them with a nondescript bag containing some random goods clenched between its tiny jaws, though the bag appeared to be bigger than the puppy herself. Chandran was both overjoyed and relieved to have his daughter back. Both father and daughter quickly settled down to a very wholesome breakfast, after which Pinky brought Chandran a glass of water so that he could take the medicines and the vitamins as prescribed by the ‘spacemen’. Soon, day turned into night, and night turned into day. Time crawled on at a leisurely but steady pace. And soon enough, the cops posted to guard the containment zone got used to the sight of a small female puppy darting in and out of the camp with various articles clenched in its petite jaws. They had express orders to prevent any human beings from either coming in or going out from the containment zone. An occasional cow, or goat, or dogs were always moving in and out and nobody paid 204

any attention. At least not until one day the pup appeared with a bottle of liquor safely ensconced in its muzzle. This had led to both bewilderment and also amusement, as the sentries had never before seen an ‘alcoholic puppy’ before. They had had a hearty laugh, while Chandran got a much needed drink and also a good night’s sleep. He was fully recovered the next day. Soon, the containment order was vacated and Chandran was back at work. It was Raghu, the canteen bearer, who broke the news to Chandran. “Chandran, look here, you are in the newspaper. You are now a celebrity!” So had he exclaimed after reading the morning paper. Chandran grabbed the paper from Raghu. Indeed, his miraculous escape from the jaws of certain death, and the heroics of Pinky had been captured in detail by the correspondent. Then Chandran saw something which made him seethe with rage. A cloud came over his face as he trembled with pious rage. “How dare they call my daughter a bitch? They say Pinky is a dog! Idiots, they do not know the difference between a human and an animal and they dare to call themselves journalists? I will make them pay for this. I will ask my cousin to help me find a lawyer. I will sue them and make them pay for this!!! I swear in the name of God!!!” Chandran was hollering at the top of his lungs and everyone including Mr. Swain shrank away in fear. On the appointed day of the hearing at the court, Chandran decked up little Pinky in the finest clothes and jewellery he could lay hands on. Then both father and daughter marched into the courthouse and waited patiently in the Plaintiff’s Box, while the offending journalist was brought to the Defendant’s Box. Chandran pointed defiantly at Pinky and then addressed the judge. 205

“Your Honour, Please tell me and the world as to what you see here, standing beside me in this witness box?” The judge adjusted his horn rimmed spectacles and had one long and hard look at Pinky. “I see a most beautiful, angelic, cherubic and fetchingly engaging little girl child, perhaps the prettiest and most gorgeous little girl that I have ever come across in my full sixty years of life. A little angel with a heart made of pure gold, indeed! Why, what is the matter?” Chandran bowed down courteously and humbly before the judge and smiled and winked playfully at little Pinky. He bowed again before the judge. “That is all, Your Honour.” The court awarded Chandran a princely amount of rupees ten lakhs as damages for libel and slander and wrongly portraying his daughter as a dog, a bitch to be more precise. Now, Chandran could really afford to send Pinky to the fancy English Medium School which he had always dreamed of for her. He clasped his daughter’s tiny, fair and beautiful little hand, and led her out of the courtroom. The dumbstruck audience in the galleries watched in disbelief, as the old man walked out of the courthouse with a frenzied, wildly joyous, and deliriously happy little pup trotting behind him, its little tail wagging so fast and so furiously that it turned into just a blur of frantic movement. Biju Vasudevan is a critically and internationally acclaimed author from Rourkela and has seven books to his credit so far. He is a graduate mechanical engineer, and is currently working as General Manager in Coke Ovens Department of Rourkela Steel Plant. He is married to Jyothi Kishan, and has two children, Arundhati, and Venugopal. 206

Many of his books like ‘The Molecular Slaves’, ‘The Next Door Raghu’, and ‘Yakshipuram’ have won him critical acclaim. Kirkus Magazine, compared his ‘The Molecular Slaves’ with that of satirist and humorist, Kurt Vonnegut. His book, Yakshipuram, has been described as Kafkaesque by the Australian writer-critic, T O Smith. The Molecular Slaves, has won him the NE8x® Litfest 2019 Book Of The Year award. More about the author can be found at www.amazon.com/author/bijuvasudevan 207

SADGATI Sameer Khasnis The thatched roof let the first rays of the sun filter through into the house. It left the boy with no other choice than to wake up and embrace the day. He stared for a while at the frail body of his mother still sleeping in the corner. There was a water pitcher in the house. In a way it was the source of their eternal joy. The boy, Nirgodha, slowly came close to his mother and in a soothing voice whispered, “Maa, I am going to fetch water for us.” He was looking at the mortal remains, at the skin and bones of his mother. Nirgodha tried to remember the days when she was all life, laughter and beauty. That was before his father went to war beyond the mountains and did not return. He could still hear distinctly the supplication his mother made to his father, who was dressed in his armour, the glittering sword concealed under the scabbard. The sword was a thing of fascination to Nirgodha, all he did at every possible instance was to touch the blade and feel like a soldier, full of valour, who was ready to embrace death in the battlefield, a traditional way to achieve the subliminal journey to heaven. Now the path leading up the mountains was visible and he had to rush before the other villagers arrived looking for water. Nevertheless, the village was almost empty as most of them had already left. The Village Head had advised his mother to go along with them, but she was adamant and refused to leave. It was arduous for her to leave this house as most of her pleasant memories were associated with the four thatched walls of the enclosure. 208

Nirgodha had rarely seen his mother arguing with his father. But the day his father had left, she squabbled with him about what the war brings forth; blood and death. During her debate with her husband, his mother referred to the Buddha, desire and peace. He wondered who Buddha was. Nirgodha took the pitcher and was about to start his journey, when his mother said, “You stay back, let me go and bring the water before the others drain out the water holes.” The boy said, “No. I will fetch the water. You have grown too weak to even make an effort.” The mother gave a faint smile: though she was bony and undernourished, her smile was radiant. She told him even though she was not sure whether his father would come back victorious from the Kalinga war, there should be someone at home to greet him upon his arrival. Nirgodha was old enough to realize that most people believed his father to be dead. Then why would his mother still consider welcoming him back to the house. But during the last several nights, Nirgodha would dream of a unicorn with a single straight horn on its forehead. Was the unicorn a harbinger of something good coming his way? After his mother had agreed to stay back home, he started his maiden voyage in search of water, the elixir of life. During my search for water holes, I can step further beyond the mountains to search for my father in the capital city, thought the boy. The boy believed that his father was still alive. Nigrodha was walking barefoot down the dusty street, the village lay abandoned by men and cattle; the old and unworthy were the only ones left behind to perish in this extreme drought. Nirgodha still retained in his imagination the story of the beast from the caves of the Saka Mountain. Walking past the village Nigrodha wondered about the blind story teller's apocalyptic chronicle of annihilation and the celestial being bringing redemption. 209

Nigrodha came near the place of his worship; the fragrance of frankincense filled his nostrils. His imagination was real as he could see the feasts of the harvest season and his companions playing hide and seek. Then everything was gone. The withered dry grass, shredded leaves, dropped branches and bald trees were what the boy could see now. Suddenly Nigrodha felt an inexplicable feeling of being in unknown territory. So far the path was trodden with dusty marks of men and animals. The boy noticed that all the footprints were leading towards the forest with no signs of returning to the village. A sudden bout of fear caught him. Those footprints could not be of his father as he was a brave warrior and would surely have returned to the village. Nigrodha was now in the thick forest with no signs of trespassing by humans. Suddenly he heard a hollow sound emitted from close range; bewildered, he looked around. There was no else, yet he could hear some unfamiliar sound. He waited patiently to find out from where the sound originated. Nigrodha found a cavern, from which the sound was coming. With great difficulty the boy started to climb up the cliff. Hunger, bruises, cuts and fear did not deter him. Half way through, Nirgodha realized that the sound was more like a call inviting him to know the unknown. So far he had trudged holding the pitcher in one hand. But the circumstances were such that Nigrodha either had to keep the pitcher and retreat from his climb, or leave the pitcher and continue his upward trek. The moment he let the pitcher go, it went down the cliff rolling and shattered into pieces. With tremendous effort he eventually made it to the top of the cliff. The magnetic resonance of the sound made the boy restless. Before he entered the cave, the floodgates of memories of his past rushed in like the gushing of torrential rain sweeping the plains when the storm came. 210

Nigrodha spoke: “Who is inside?” After a pause came the response: “I am inside everything, living or dead. It is I and only I”. Nigrodha spoke once again: “Be gracious and present yourself.” There appeared a glowing light which he felt was that of wisdom. He could now see things as if in a mirror. The voice spoke compassionately, “I am the beginning, I am the end, I am the sun, I am the moon, I am the overflowing river of life, and it is I who am inside and outside of everything because it is I who move the circle of life. I am Tathāgata.” Sameer Khasnis is an English lecturer in Shri T.P.Bhatia College of Science kandivali for Last two decades. During his boyhood years radio and cricket were all the friends he had. Discussions in his family lounge hovered around Vinda Karandikar to Ernest Hemingway and Brecht to Tendulkar's Ghashiram. He also had a short stint with theatre and films. Never at any point in life he felt mundane or dreary as countless stories remain unsaid and a few to be written. 211

MORE MAGIC TALES THE MIRROR SAID N.S.A. My romance with eavesdropping had begun long before I was born. When grandmother came to take her home, mother was well into her seventh month of pregnancy with me. Perhaps her daughter's condition was a pretext — the poor thing had been living all by herself in our ancestral home with two loyal maids since my grandfather's death over three decades ago when mother was hardly six. COVID-19 had only made matters worse. Driver Kurup had been with the family since my grandfather’s time. I’ve heard my mother tell my aunts that he drove our car as though he feared hurting Mother Earth. The maids Paru and Ammu formed part of our ancestry through three generations. From the conversation between them, I realized that by the time we arrived at grandmother's home it was nightfall. Mother had an OCD for hygiene and never missed a body wash before dinner. Grandmother didn’t eat anything solid after sundown, only warm water, and a glass of milk, that contained more water than milk in it, right before she went to bed. Mother too was not much of an eater. She would have some papaya-cuts with berries and a good thirty minutes later, a small bowl of porridge that she called supper. Mother and grandmother were inseparable; they even shared the same bed. When both were settled into the luxury of their comfort zone, grandmother returned to where she had left off in the car. When she fell back on one of the many legends accredited to Vyasa’s epic, I thought, what the heck, didn’t these women have at least some gossip to share before they fell asleep. I felt helpless because 212

I couldn’t speak up, and grandmother appeared to be in her elements that night. “Rumour has it that Bhim had a magic mirror”, was grandmother's opening gambit. “When someone even as much as takes a peek, instead of showing the reflection of the person in front of it, the mirror would engage in a heart scan and project the image of the person he/she loved most, which was why it was unique. Discovering the truth hidden deep within a person's heart was real magic, although doing so did break many a beholder’s heart most of the time, if not always.” Despite his prowess as one of the greatest warriors of all times, Bhim found himself hurled down the ravines of the heartbreak ridge each time Arjun's image appeared in the mirror when Draupadi looked into it. If only Draupadi were aware of the ordeals he had to overcome during his adventurous journey to fetch her the Kalyan‑Saugandhik. Bhim had been a helpless bystander when Dharma failed to protect her and Draupadi was subjected to the greatest humiliation a woman could ever experience, in the Kaurava court, only because he had staked them all and lost. The vow of revenge he made at the time was redeemed at the battle of Kurukshetr where he summoned Draupadi to the battlefield to wash her tresses with her humiliator’s blood and braid them after more than thirteen tough years. Woefully, Draupadi neither recognised nor reciprocated his love. To her, love originated and concluded with Arjun. Even from my fetus posture, I couldn’t help but lament: falling in love was easy; reciprocation, however, was demanding. The magic mirror, more or less, was a metaphor for retrospection of lost love — the inevitable parting, the lingering residue of pain that grates at the hearts of those in love, those about to

fall in love and those merely surviving with memories of lost love. Like the messages-in-bottles washed up on the shores from ship-wrecked sailors seeing on the horizon the dawn of eternity, Vyasa might have floated his anguish in a time-warp that calligraphically materialized in Tennyson’s elegy as ’Tis better to have loved and lost! Each individual wielded a magic mirror within himself; a mirror that revealed the image of what or who one held dearest. The cast of it, or who it was, might be insignificant and might be ever-changing. We see people walking around all the time, but what we do not see is everyone fighting his own battles. In my case, little did mother or grandmother realize that I would be born, instead of on mother’s calculated delivery date, on the birth anniversary of my grandfather, as an old infant, but of the same age as him, had he been alive in the present. Curiously enough, I will age in reverse, descending through the years from an aged newborn to a mortal infant, if lived long enough. I will be at once innocent and ancient, seldom who I will appear to be. My past, present and future will merge into one another, as my past will be ever-present and the future will appear as if it has already happened. As a result, my mindset and behaviour pattern will be in contrast to all the other newborns. Once Bhim gifted the magic mirror to Hidumbi, and when she looked into it, she saw Bhim's image before her. On the other hand, it was Draupadi’s image that Bhim saw when he looked into it. Hidumbi felt like a wounded deer and returned the gift to Bhim — the man she considered everything in her life, did not love her, but Draupadi. Bhim gave away the magic mirror to Draupadi. He was desperate to confirm whose image would appear when Draupadi looked into the mirror. Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Bhim asked Draupadi to look into the mirror. Bhim was devastated to find Arjun’s image instead of his own. He realised that Draupadi did not and perhaps could not return his feelings towards her. 214

During phase two of their Exile, known as the Agyatvas, the Pancha-Pandavas would constantly relocate to avoid being identified. Keechak was drawn towards Draupadi during this time and wanted to possess her as had many others in the past. When Draupadi got wind that Keechak was targeting her, she asked him to look into the magic mirror. Keechak obliged, and surprisingly, the mirror did not reflect any image. He realized that he had never truly loved any woman until then. However, this revelation was the decisive point for Keechak as he fell for Draupadi hook, line and sinker. Meanwhile, Draupadi revealed to Bhim the varying equation. She invited Keechak to her dwelling where Bhim sat in hiding. When Keechak arrived, Bhim showed up, and a head-to-head brawl ensued. During the scuffle, Keechak got hold of the magic mirror and tried to smash Bhim's head with it. In that brief moment, Keechak saw Draupadi’s image in the mirror. “O my God, theirs is absolutely no difference between me and my opponent. Both of us love Draupadi, but our love remains unrequited”, moaned Keechak. The confrontation between the warriors culminated in the latter’s death. With a loud cry, Bhim flung the magic mirror shattering it into fragments. Throwing down the gauntlet, grandmother looked at mother. “Now tell me, who is the winner?” Mother had fallen asleep mid-way through grandmother's storytelling; however, I kept making a similar kind of sound that mother made while she was following grandmother's chronicling. Grandmother caught me in the act this time! She lifted her head from the soft pillow and sat up. She then bent sideways towards mother, pressed her warm, dry lips over mother’s tummy and with great fondness whispered, my naughty little darling, being overly cautious not to wake her daughter. Tears welled up in my tiny eyes without being able to roll down my cheeks. What makes our lives memorable are the moments we never seem to grasp long enough before letting go. It also waggles the idea in front of us 215

that everyone goes through the same gaieties and frustrations, just not in the same way. In more ways than one, life offers its largesse disguised in tapestries of quandaries. All things begin and end as stories. Keechak certainly deserved communion, didn’t he? But then, what about Bhim? N.S.A. is a wayfarer who likes to walk roads less travelled by. He lives in Ernakulam, Kerala.   216

CUPID CAME CALLING Meena Mishra “This piece of art is bound to cast a spell over the connoisseurs,” announced the village schoolmaster. The exquisite Madhubani painting hung on the white‑washed wall. But it had no viewers. Every eye in the room was darting this way and that. When Sitakshi entered, all eyes found their sanctuary in her bewitching form. There was a collective sigh of pleasure. Sitakshi, the girl with eyes like those of Sita, lovely and enigmatic, moved close to her painting. She was the most popular girl not only of her village but of the entire locality. Her enchanting beauty and grace made suitors from far and wide come to the little hamlet of Pindaruch that nestled in the heart of Mithila. Judge Sahab’s Kothi, where she resided had become the cynosure of every bachelor's eye. Sitakshi had grown up with the three daughters of Judge Sahab, whose forefathers had been the landlords of the village and had built this palatial mansion with a pond in the front and a sprawling mango orchard behind. Sitakshi was his caretaker’s daughter and used to live in the outhouse until her father was alive. She was adored by everyone including Judge Sahab’s wife and children. She filled the void of the perfect companion for his daughters as they studied in the same village pathshala and shared a love for painting. All the three girls loved her for her merits and attributes. Judge Sahab would visit this place only on weekends and holidays as he was posted in Patna High Court. Judge Sahab’s eldest daughter Sunaina and Sitakshi were bosom friends as they had been in the same class from Grade One. Now they were eighteen and were in Grade Twelve of the Village High School. Being with Sunaina served as armour for 217

her as it kept the village lads at bay. But almost every boy in the village and the school had a crush on her. Sitakshi's Madhubani paintings had been sent for art festivals that had brought laurels to the school where she attended. During weekends when Judge Sahab would be home, the suitors would visit his kothi posing as art lovers and showing their interest in purchasing the paintings. Judge Sahab knew that these were only pretexts. Their actual target was Sitakshi's hand. Once the sale of the paintings was over, Sitakshi would appear before the buyers to sign dated autographs. She too was no fool, and was well aware that the buyers had little or no interest in her paintings, but only wanted to have a glimpse of her. Sitakshi had an invisible halo around her of chastity and limpidness that stopped these men from proposing directly to her. Becoming an orphan at an early age had developed in her a sense of detachment from worldly affairs. She would devote the maximum amount of time to reading books and painting. It created an aura of awe and veneration around her that left the pseudo-art-lovers in bewilderment and they would forget all their well-rehearsed dialogues and end up asking, “How many days did you take to paint this, Sitakshi?” She, however, would give her enigmatic smile as an answer. That was by far more than what they could ask for. Just before her Grade Twelve exams, Sitakshi fell sick. A rare disease that the doctors were unable to diagnose. Many medicines, herbs and therapies were tried but without effect. She grew pale and thin, she spoke little and hardly ever left her bed. Finally one of her art lovers got a plant for her. It was a very rare one that had been procured with as much difficulty as the Kalyan Sougandhik had given Bhim. The plant was called Kamdev as its pinkish leaves were almost bow-shaped and its flowers were like blunt red arrows. The plant was placed on the window-sill of the room where the afflicted girl lay. The juice of a leaf was given to her every day at twilight. The regular dose of the heart-shaped leaves worked wonders. Her condition 218

started improving. She grew less thin, less pale and started moving around the room a little. No visitors were permitted. As all the suitors were turned down, they stopped coming to the Kothi. Days grew into months and months into years. Judge Sahab and his family moved to Patna, and no one had any news about the young woman ever since. Despite the let-up in Sitakshi’s life, the magic plant stayed alive and remained within the confinement of the room where Sitakshi stayed all those years. The plant, however, had other ideas too. It now assumed the shape of a human being with wings on either side. The leaves of the plant had acquired the perfect shape of a bow. There was only one flower left that had become rigid and looked exactly like an arrow placed at the centre of the bow. Someone unfamiliar with the existence of the magic plant would most likely consider it as a sculpture of the Love-God made out of plaster of Paris. Sitakshi had never been intimate with any man and Judge Sahab’s family was fully aware of this. Yet there was no doubt that a child was growing in her womb. Was it possible that the herbal medicines had played a part in the events that were unfolding to everyone’s bewilderment? The most renowned astrologer in Patna was summoned to Judge Sahab’s residence. The astrologer spent much time talking to Sitakshi alone. When he emerged out of the room, he appeared to be in a trance. He told Judge Sahab something strange and unheard of until then. Cupid was infatuated by the enchanting beauty of Sitakshi and transformed himself into the Kamdev plant. Sitakshi resisted his advances for a long time and in the end, she had to succumb, the result of which was now in her womb. The child born out of this unreal union was destined to become the greatest painter of his time. “This is the finest Madhubani painting exhibition I have ever seen,” said Andy Warhol, the American curator and movie maker to Judge Sahab. 219

“Maa, what is my father’s name?” asked the five-year-old Ishwar. “Ishwar,” Sitakshi responded, all the while concentrating on her painting. “Why doesn’t he stay with us?” he shot his next question. “He is painting a masterpiece for us,” she replied. “Would you give me permission to shoot a film on the mother-son duo – the finest Madhubani painters in the world?”, interrupted Warhol, bringing Judge Sahab back from his reverie. “Sure,” replied Judge Sahab with his signature enigmatic smile. Meena Mishra, founder and CEO of The Impish Lass PublishingHouse is an out-of -the box-thinker, inspiring hundreds of students, teachers and working professionals across the world, turn into published writers and poets. She is an award winning author, poet, short-story writer, social worker, novelist, editor, an educator and a publisher. The Impish Lass Publishing House is her brainchild. Her poems, stories and book-reviews have been published in many international journals and magazines. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards. She is an active member of Mumbai English Educators’ Team and was invited by the Education Department of Maharashtra to be a part of The Review Committee for the new English text book. She has been invited as a judge for several literary competitions including the Lit fest of IIT Bombay and NM college fest. Her poems are published in many magazines, including the prestigious periodical Woman’s Era. She has been a contributing author and poet for more than 60 anthologies. Her contribution to the field of education and writing has received acclamation from the esteemed newspapers like Times of India and Mid-Day. Her articles published in Times of India’s NIE and a suburban newspaper and leading educational magazine of the country - Brainfeed Higher Education Plus. 220

She is on the mission of publishing the articles of students and educators of various schools across the globe under her unique project, ‘The Young Bards’. Her autobiographical novella, The Impish Lass, has been converted into a web-series and can be subscribed on YouTube. Under the banner of her publishing house ( The Impish Lass Publishing House- Mumbai ) she has successfully published more than fifty books in two and a half year’s duration apart from The Young Bards- book various editions for students and teachers .More than five hundred writers across the globe have received an opportunity of becoming published writers and poets under this banner. She was invited to share her views by Sony TV for their first episode of, Zindagi Ke Crossroads, based on needs of special children. She was recently invited by the “AajTak” news channel to express her views on the special episode on the PMC Bank scam victims. She had written an exclusive poem which was read and appreciated by the living legend of Bollywood- Amitabh Bachchan. She has been the recipient of Wordsmith Award- 2019 for her short story, “Pindarunch,” from the Asian Literary Society. She has received many awards in 2020 for her contribution to the field of education. As a publisher she believes that EACH SOUL THAT WRITES HAS THE RIGHT TO GET PUBLISHED. 221