RainDrops

Night had folded itself over the sleepy hill town of Marayoor, muffling its cardamom-scented air. In a hollow near the old forest check-post sat an abandoned government bungalow, once used by botanists who mapped the shola groves. Over thirty years the roof tiles had slipped into crooked smiles and the verandah planks had sprouted white mushrooms that glowed faintly after rain. Local tea pickers swore that the place breathed on misty evenings, but nobody bothered to prove or disprove that claim because the front door was chained shut with a rust-eaten padlock. Nobody, that is, until Amala reached the gate one September afternoon. She was a postgraduate researcher from Ernakulam, tasked with cataloguing archival field notes rumored to be languishing inside the bungalow. Those notes belonged to Dr Varghese, a vanished botanist whose last expedition never made it back to town. The department had sent three interns in the past decade to retrieve his materials, yet the gate had always def...

The south-western sky over Kakkanad was smudged lilac when Dr. Anand Menon finally peeled off his blood-flecked gloves. A Saturday that had begun with a factory fire, lurched into a bus collision and fizzled out with the usual parade of chest pains left him feeling like a dishrag wrung dry. At thirty-three he was already the unofficial lynch-pin of Lakeshore City Hospital's Emergency Department; solid, unflappable, and so often on call that his mother joked the automatic doors recognised his gait and whispered "Welcome home." He stepped out of the staff gate, stethoscope coiled in a pocket like a tired snake. The air smelled of damp tar and jackfruit leaves; bus headlights cut silver across puddles. Anand was thinking only of the reheated avial waiting in his fridge when he noticed a powder-blue Scooty stalled beneath a fizzing streetlamp. Two women were stranded there. The rider wrestled a stubborn kick-start; the pillion, legs swung to one side, waved cars around with...

Today, I stumbled upon the news I wasn't prepared for! CreativeLive - the platform that had once been a vibrant, inspiring corner of the internet - is shutting down. And as I read the announcement, a wave of sadness and disbelief hit me harder than I expected. It's more than just a website closing. It feels like the quiet end of an era that once held a special place in my heart. I've been a regular visitor of CreativeLive for years. It was more than a place to learn; it was a space that felt alive with passion, purpose, and creativity. Some nights, I'd find myself diving into hours of photography sessions, completely lost in the lessons, scribbling down notes, pausing to absorb a concept, rewinding just to hear a profound insight again. It became a routine, a sanctuary; my own little virtual classroom filled with light. Names like  Sue Bryce ,  Ben Willmore ,  Lindsay Adler , John Greengo and so many others weren't just instructors to me. They were mentors, gu...

When Anvitha first met Rithin, it was in the hum of fluorescent lights and the fragrance of jasmine garlands at a small temple on the outskirts of Alappuzha . Their parents spoke in excited overlaps about horoscopes and train timings; the young pair spoke scarcely at all. She stole a single curious look at him; enough to see the mild confusion behind his polite smile-then lowered her long lashes and turned the look into silence. In that instant, Rithin felt as if a cloud had crossed the sun; the world dimmed yet became mysteriously more vivid. Anvitha was unlike anyone he had seen in the cafés of Koramangala or the glassed-in meeting rooms of his software firm. Her beauty was quiet, almost secretive; A heart-shaped face, all soft angles and sudden mischief, is framed by a river of black hair that never quite behaves; some days it pours straight past her waist, some days it loops into loose waves, and often two rebellious curls slip forward to kiss her cheeks. Wide almond eyes edged w...

Long before dawn the backwaters of  Kuttanad  lie like a sheet of ink beneath a sky still deciding whether to be night or morning. On the verandah of the old Nalukettu house, its laterite walls breathing the night’s final coolness, Devassy Kurian keeps first watch with a brass lamp and an enamel mug of  chukku kaapi . The lamp-flame draws fireflies; the coffee draws memory. His grandson Adithyan will arrive before noon, the first visit home since joining an aeronautics programme in Bengaluru. The boy’s phone calls are full of jet engines and software internships, yet each end with the same Malayalam lullaby Devassy once hummed to him beside a cradle fashioned from a rice-sack and coir rope. The old man whistles the tune now, soft enough not to wake Ammachi inside, and watches the river darken into indigo, then blue. Across the water a country boat appears. Raman the ferryman stands aft, the bamboo poles a metronome against dawn. He nods; no words are needed. The villa...

(The story is set in 2025, but in the slow heart-beat of rural Kerala where the seasons still start with a sigh of rain. Adapted from the Malayalam cult classic 'Thoovanathumbikal', scripted by Padmarajan.) I. First Mist - Kuttanad, Dawn of Monsoon Long before the sun had chosen a colour for the sky, Ani Nair  unlocked Akshara Offset , the little print-shop that still smelled of his late father's linotype days. A hush lay over the paddy flats; only the oars of an early fisherman knocked the canal water into soft syllables. Then, as if God remembered to breathe, a spray-fine drizzle fell. It was the kind of rain Kuttanad calls mazha manam - you don't see it, you only feel the air getting colder and the earth giving up its perfume of wet chilli leaves and river-silt. Ani closed his eyes, soaked a moment of quiet into his lungs, and kicked his ancient Bajaj Chetak to life. The scooter coughed, grumbled, then decided to be loyal for one more day. He rode to Mariya...