Tag _urbanwriters
I. Before the Borders In the year 1938, Karachi was a port city without the word Partition attached to its future like a wound. It was British India, certainly, with its signs in English and its clerks in dull khaki files, but for the children playing in the narrow lanes of Kharadar, it was just home. Sakina, twelve … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
There lived a man named Iqbal Singh, who collected regrets the way some people collect postage stamps. In every cupboard of his mind, there were old quarrels wrapped in newspaper, mistakes preserved like pickle jars, and a few embarrassing memories stitched neatly into cushions — so he could sit on them daily. One day, while he … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
The old man sat on his usual bench outside Jama Masjid every evening as if the sun was waiting for his permission to set. People thought he was a retired professor or a forgotten poet — because only such men can afford slow lives. But the truth was simpler. He was once a clerk who … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
By late October, Delhi had turned into glass. Not just the towers, which had long ago risen with their tinted façades and sleek, mirrored lobbies, but the city itself: every surface reflecting some fragment of another life. Billboards mirrored Instagram posts, Instagram posts mirrored billboard poses, and car windows held faces half-remembered from... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
On the outskirts of Old Delhi, not far from the sluggish bend of the Yamuna, lies a modest neighbourhood called Gulmohar Lane. It is a place without grandeur, but also without pretense. The houses bear their peeling paint with nonchalance. The lanes twist in ways that suggest neither intention nor apology. And the shops, family-run … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
By the time the call ended, the rice had stuck to the bottom of the steel pan. Rehana turned off the gas and lifted the pan anyway, setting it down on the counter with a careful clink. The voice on the phone—her mother’s, measured and fatigued—still floated in the quiet of the kitchen. “Bas itna … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
Delhi is a city that never whispers. It hums, argues, and flirts with chaos. By seven-thirty every morning, it smells of ambition — mixed with exhaust, incense, and last night’s regret. Among its restless millions lived Rafiq, an urban planner with the face of a poet and the posture of a man used to waiting. … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
She did not wear the Mekhla to look beautiful — she wore it the way people light a lamp for someone who may never return, a quiet act of faith. The fabric did not flatter her, it remembered her — like a river remembers every village it has ever fed. It was not obedient like … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
In certain cities, dusk does not fall; it gathers. The lamps along the avenue learned long ago to wait for the hush that precedes power. That evening, the hush came first. She arrived neither early nor late. Time, obedient as a well-trained bird, perched where she wished. Those who watched her never said so aloud, … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
The metro slowed with a tired sigh, its carriages clattering into the station. Leila leaned her head against the glass, watching her own reflection dissolve into the blur of strangers on the platform. Everyone seemed to have a purpose—earphones in place, bags tucked close, screens glowing like fireflies. She alone felt adrift, as though she …... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
In contemporary Indian cities, the café has become what the addas of Calcutta once were, or the press clubs of Delhi in the 1960s: places where ideas take tentative shape, where ambition rubs shoulders with uncertainty. It was in such a café—wedged between a bookstore and an art shop in South Delhi—that Mira, a young … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
The stage lights were blinding, the auditorium vast. Riya adjusted the sitar on her lap. Its familiar weight should have steadied her, but tonight, it pressed heavier than usual. The audience was silent — waiting, watching. Her palms were damp. Her throat dry. Fear, old and stubborn, sat in her chest. She closed her eyes, … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
The rain had come to Thanjavur like a returning pilgrim — gentle at first, and then insistent, washing over the red-tiled roofs and courtyards as if reclaiming an old promise. In the large ancestral house on East Main Street, the monsoon meant many things: damp prayer mats, the scent of sandalwood paste, the gleam of … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
Cities are sly creatures, and none more so than Istanbul, which has learned over millennia to hide its true face behind a dozen masks: the Roman, the Byzantine, the Ottoman, the Republican, the tourist-brochure city and the smoky-backstreet city, the city of call to prayer and of cocktails, the city that flirts across continents like … ... mehr auf sumitajetley.wordpress.com
