There’s a puddle of ice and lemons. We jump through it, rubber slippers and such, making a rather pleasant smelling mess. Nobody seems to mind it, which is rare for a room full of serious looking, no-nonsense people. By the time we are done, lemon seeds are stuck between my toes and the exposed part of my foot feels numb.

We eat cake directly from the box. It’s funnily liberating and full of guilt. We are adults, we say over and over again, but we behave like children left loose. In the end, someone pours a bottle of dark liquid into the cake box and it’s a heavenly mix of all the good things.

I fall asleep on my front, hands tucked under the stomach, with my mouth a little open. In the morning, it feels unreal. My head doesn’t hurt and the floor is clean. That is slightly odd, yes

Crows took away his food because he was too distracted by his own imagination – where he saw errant spaceships and machine guns. When he told his mother that the food she gave him was consumed by birds, she wasn’t sure if she’d need to applaud his imagination or scold him for lying. Either way, she didn’t believe him. He promised us that it was true though.

He was so taken by the concept of gravity, that he threw things one by one from the window of his living room. It started small – pieces of plastic and paper rockets and then progressed to slightly bigger things like chairs and vases. As the birds flew, not very far away, in tight little groups, the little boy stood at his window, tossing away whatever he could lay his hands on. He watched the pillow drop onto the ground with a dull thud, his cape fluttering dramatically. Some days, he was his own superhero.

As she came back from work, his mother found furniture from her home strewn across the building compound. She looked up confused and saw a grinning seven year old who was just about to discover that when things are thrown from an adequate height, you get slapped across your bottom by a parent.


Happy Birthday Ashish! I hope the year ahead is as eventful as the stories you tell us!