Every day, at nine in the morning, Mr. Ghosh got his mustache trimmed while waiting for things to happen. Betel juice dripped from one side of his paan-stained lips, his backside comfortably lodged on a rickety chair in the middle of the busy pavement at the crossing of Chowringhee street in Kolkata. Here, an enterprising mind, Motilal had set up his makeshift barber station. An overhead sky-blue tarpaulin stretched across four loosely balanced bamboo poles reined in the rain and sun. Layers of cheap pamphlets, tied to the poles with a fraying twine, fluttered in the air offering essential life advice. From phone numbers of real estate brokers, life-insurance agents, astrologers, masseurs, and henna parlors—each advertisement was rife with potential. Mr. Ghosh read them with interest, but nothing stoked his curiosity these days.

  Mr. Ghosh stared onto the road, filtering Motilal’s complaining voice away. He was convinced it was a flat day like most other days—when a minor inconvenience caused by a woman in blue sneakers brought the barber station down and changed the nature of things.

           A sharp thud! And then a piercing scream, as the jagged edge of a bamboo pole gnashed the thin papery sleeve of Mr. Ghosh’s khadi kurta.

            “Ouch! Young woman, don’t you see where you are going?” Mr. Ghosh shouted.

           “Sorry!” the woman replied, attempting to erect the bamboo poles again. Next, she fortified her handiwork by placing four thick orange bricks at the foot of the poles. She then pulled out a roll of crumpled posters from her bag.

Was among the top 10 shortlisted writers for IWRITE 2020 hosted by Jaipur Book Mark. 

I also occasionally blog at https://mehfilbarkhasthui-amrita.blogspot.com/

and pen my two cents on art, gender and culture at https://medium.com/@ade1