Number Trap

From school days I struggled
Numbers making me feel strangled
Exponents, permutations, combinations
Triggering severe perspiration

The Voice From Beyond

"Hi honey."
The voice seemed so real that Priya jumped. Though she looked up instantly, she went back to reading the instruction for the pregnancy test.
"I thought you would have outgrown this behaviour now that you are older. Still behaving like a teenager!" the voice of her mother continued in that particular exasperating tone of amusement.
Priya had to look up and was startled to see her mother actually there. "I am seeing things," she told herself loudly and went back to reading.

Twilight - The Hour of Magic

The blazing sun
Showering light around
The dark night
The lights bright

When the Music Stops

"Very impressive singing," the message made her look at the sender a second time. The sender was a good singer himself.

So she replied, "Thank you. You sing very well too."

"That means a lot. I didn't know the song, but loved your rendition. Wanted to join your collab."

Possessed by Possession

"Do we really need this brassplate?" Suhas asked frustrated.

"It is ornamental and will look good in our dining room. And look at the price! It's a steal!" his wife Archana exclaimed. Suhas raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes, knowing any argument against that logic was a waste of time.

Embers That Start a Fire

Daya stared at the television and felt tears stab her eyes. The collective sigh of disappointment in the room revealed how much everybody was affected by the space mission's failure. She could hear her mother-in-law chanting, no doubt, hoping for some miracle to save it. Her husband Nitin loudly slapped the sofa as the headlines repeated the disappointing end - or hopefully, interlude - to this much awaited event. Her father-in-law shook his head and got up, clearly having expected some such fate.

But Daya herself felt as if it were a personal loss, a loss that had its roots fifteen years ago, when she gave up her pursuit of education to pursue Nitin and eloped to get married to him. Shalini, a friend she had reconnected with recently, told her, "I had expected you would be somewhere in NASA, working on some space mission! Never expected you to give it all up for marriage!"

The Square Peg

Raksha glanced up as she cleared the dining table. "Don't you think you are a little too much in love with your phone?" she asked Arun.

"I don't come here to be nagged," he said sharply, without taking his eyes away from the phone.

She shrugged. "Not nagged, but surely, I can tell you when it starts hurting..."

He looked up with a twinkle in his eyes, "Hurting whom, you or me?"