Sitting by the rocks, his legs half-dipped in icy waters, he stared into the distant horizon. When had he done this before – escaped from life’s madness – and watched the sun paint colours on the sky?

That pleasure was now just a distant memory. Like everything else including the things he once loved and was excited about.

He splashed a stone into the placid waters. The sharp plop sound rang into his ears, triggering an avalanche of memories to break through the battle-scarred rocky landscapes of his mind.

There he was; a young boy, barely twelve, all excited on getting his first bicycle; Dad’s birthday gift…unable to sleep all through the night and then getting up at the crack of dawn, edging past Mama and Shilpi, his spindly legs hitting the mosaic floor softly, and then,  edging past the front door, and tiptoeing past the front gates, deftly  manoeuvring his sports bike  past the small gate and then pedalling past the colony and its sleepy inhabitants.

Continue reading: How blue was my sky