The half-moon beach is manmade – I found out. The house used to be a boathouse belonging to a hotel, perched on top of a cliff, overlooking the majestic lake encircled by lush foliage. It started with a vision of a rich man. A railway was laid, the beach was made. The hotel was eager to meet the whims and needs of the most privileged class arriving in carriages and cars. I once lived near the water. Not this close. But you could see a sliver of the sea from the top of the hill behind the house. The backyard of the house was filled with orange trees. My sisters and I would pick and pick and fil ..read more

Kennedy sniffed himself. ‘Hot dang, I stink like dog meat.’ Where the stink had come from, Kennedy couldn’t say. Nor could he say how he knew what dog meat smelled like, exactly. Did he mean that he smelled like dog food? As if he was confusing the thing doing the eating with the thing being eaten? Like that riddle about what cows drink and how everyone always said ‘milk’, just, like, on instinct? Were those the same? A dog eating dog meat and a cow drinking cow milk? Something in Kennedy’s head made him think they totally were, even if he couldn’t make sense of it right in that moment. Probab ..read more

At the beginning of the summer of 1986, my parents separated. My mother and I left the flat on Gurusaday Road where I’d lived all my life, to stay with my grandparents on the opposite bank of the Hooghly River in the district of Shibpur. As we sat in the taxi, Ma told me that at the end of the holidays, I wasn’t going back to my school. ‘You’re only eleven,’ she said. ‘I think a bit of change will be good for you.’ ‘So won’t we live here anymore?’ ‘I need to figure things out first.’ She offered me a mint from her handbag. I didn’t really feel like it but took it anyway. Ma hadn’t decided what ..read more

She had trouble recognising her son when he visited. This wasn’t entirely accurate, he acknowledged; Bernie was either known or new. When he arrived at the nursing home, a carer would greet him and indicate if it was a sunny or cloudy day; it referred to his mother’s powers of recall, but those were now permanently altered like some form of mental climate change. He’d walk through to what was laughably called the lounge. He thought they should just call it the television room, as any conversation had surrendered to the stream of information pouring from the massive screen. It looked like a pie ..read more

Her head spins, her feet ache, and the ‘Idle’ icon counts the seconds since her last call, while the on-screen graphic transitions from green to amber, about to turn red. With a sigh, she rolls her neck and stares at the blue icon that says ‘Free’. In her last review, concerns were raised about her performance statistics. She can’t delay. Her mouse twitches, and she’s back in. ‘You’re through to Sandra, how can I help?’ she says, answering the call. Mr Jones is annoyed that he’s waited twenty minutes to get through. After apologising, she completes authentication. ‘What’s going on with my Dire ..read more

As in life, the dead also showcase their inequalities. When I say the dead, I mean the dead bodies, the cadavers. I became aware of these inequities in a strange way when I joined medical school. It was on the stone tables of the anatomy dissection hall that I first noticed these differences. In elementary, middle and high school I don’t remember lagging in studies or sports. I was not one of the top students; you could say that with confidence. I was average, probably, or perhaps slightly above average. There were a few students who were highly talented and excelled in whatever they did – whe ..read more

I was in the air when she died. Gliding over the Black Sea, too far above the clouds to see the glistening blue breaking up hours of land mass beneath my feet. Struggling to sleep with a deflating neck pillow and a restless mind. I was three hours into my first leg when she drew her last breath. The air stewards emptied my uneaten meal into the grey bin as her soul emptied her body. I wouldn’t know this until I connected to Wi-Fi in Dubai and my phone started vibrating. A beating heart in lieu of the one growing cold in her chest. I realised before I opened the messages. Dad answered on the fi ..read more

I get Math and English. History. Even Music. But teaching grade 8 Science needs a PhD. I’m scanning phrases like, ‘Water is critical to life’, ‘Water systems influence climate’, and ‘managed sustainably.’ Why don’t I have a cat to hug at times like this? I clearly need one. Maybe I should see my friends more. Or try dating. But who has time? A sample issue jumps out at me: (c) The Protocol for Safe Drinking Water in First Nations Communities addresses drinking water concerns. Various government agencies and interest groups have different perspectives. Oh, I bet there are different perspectives ..read more

The first time I realised Maami had her own voice, could make her own decisions without the help of my father, was the day Bami brought home a new wife, and Maami kicked against it with such vehemence that surprised me. This happened a day after Aunty Suliya came from Iseyin to seek Bami’s financial assistance to start all over again having suffered devastating flood on her farmland. I had sat down that night in our sitting room to watch NTA news as Aunty Suliya narrated her loss to my parents. ‘Egbon mi, you will have to help me. The frequent rainfalls in recent years have been a surprise to ..read more

It was a foolhardy thing to do, indicative of the brothers’ lack of experience with high volumes of water. Indicative of hubris, too, if boys that young can be accused of hubris. But perhaps it would be more accurate simply to call it innocence. It had been a long winter followed by a rainy March, and I suppose an adventure felt overdue. Most likely they’d been out exploring the fields at the edge of town, clear now after months of being covered with snow, and had become mesmerised by all that fast-moving brown water. One of the brothers – I can’t remember which – had discovered an old canoe a ..read more