RainDrops

Kuttanad, late monsoon. The rain had thinned into a steady thread, like someone pulling a white cotton wick through the sky. At the cooperative hospital, the backwater slapped the mossy steps and brought with it the smell of silt and coconut husk. Dr Ajayan reached for the metal gate and felt it cold against his palm. He had been on duty for sixteen hours. The ward slept in uneven breaths. From the postnatal room came the hiccuping cry of a new baby and the soft persuasion of a tired nurse. A feral cat stared in from the verandah, eyes narrowed, tail writing things in the damp air. Just before dawn, a woman came in with a breathless boy. The boy’s face was pale and tight at the lips. The woman had tied her hair in a knot that had loosened into a tail of frizz. Rainwater clung to the end of her sari like a shadow. Asthma, Ajayan thought. He did not look at the file first. He crouched near the boy and spoke in a simple way. Tell me where it is tight. The boy pointed to his chest with ...

There are some rains that do not belong to the sky alone. They fall inside you, quietly, long after the clouds have left. It was one such afternoon when the sea itself seemed tired of its own noise. The rain had just begun, slow at first, like hesitant thoughts. Arun sat by the window of his rented house in Vypin, a cup of steaming tea beside his laptop, lines of code and test cases staring blankly at him. The wind brought in the smell of the sea and wet earth, that faint scent that always carried a hint of home, of something unfinished. He was in his late forties now, with a streak of grey beginning to show near his temples. Life had moved through its seasons. A long career in tech, the hum of meetings, the quiet company of his child's laughter echoing from another room, the careful plans for tomorrow that always came before sleep. His wife, Anitha, was kind and composed, the sort of woman who believed that life was best lived in quiet balance. They shared the same roof, the sa...

I started noticing her in the way you notice the first raindrop on a hot Trivandrum afternoon-without meaning to, and then not being able to think of anything else. Every morning, after the security scanner scanned my badge and I did the little dance with the turnstile, I would take the same spot on the wooden bench near reception. It was my "transition area", where coffee met courage, where I pretended to read emails on my phone and absolutely did not watch the glass doors. At 9:41 on the dot-give or take the vagaries of the Kazhakootam traffic, she would appear. Meera.   Shoulder-length hair tucked behind one ear , laptop bag, Saree draped on as a Friday Casual. And each time I saw her coming, my stomach would flip like a gull catching a thermal. The gut knew before the brain; she's here. The sunlight from the atrium would follow her inside, turning the scuffed floor into water. She walked with that quick, quiet purpose of people who don't waste time, and I watche...

Prelude: Khamoshi Memories (Class XII, 1996) Khamoshi had not yet released, but it's songs was already playing inside my head: a medley of skipped heart‑beats and badly timed lab experiments. I was 17, perched on a high stool in the Biology lab when Miss A walked in - transfer student from another school in Jaipur, blue‑eyed hurricane in a bottle‑green salwar. From that moment my internal syllabus read only Love 101 . I did everything our Physics teacher warned us not to do with delicate equipment: I stared, I daydreamed, I forgot Ohm's law. Eventually I handed her a rose and a diary of love songs (90 rupees, Archies Gallery) and whispered the world's most nervous proposal. She said "No" - of course and the rumour ricocheted across campus faster than sodium in water. By dusk my mother greeted me at the door with a Malayalam monologue that made even the neighbourhood boxer (the other guy who liked her) look gentle. Exams arrived, Miss A disappeared, and I learn...

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...

Ravi was on his third cup of chai that evening, huddled by the small, open fireplace in his family’s old stone cottage. Outside, the mountain town of Manali lay still, bathed in moonlight, each street corner covered in a pristine blanket of fresh snow. He could hear the faint sounds of holiday cheer wafting up from the distant marketplace, where vendors sold roasted chestnuts, fresh apples, and handmade woollen shawls to the few tourists braving the winter chill. He hadn’t been back to Manali in nearly five years. His world now was in Delhi, where he worked as an investment analyst, living a life of constant deadlines and traffic snarls. But here, surrounded by his childhood home’s familiar smells of pinewood and burning embers, his heart felt like it could finally breathe. And tonight, he needed that peace more than ever. Ravi sighed, his breath fogging in the chill of the room as he remembered his recent breakup. He’d been with Neha for two years, a relationship filled with promises ...