| Pravin Vemuri | April 2026 | Short Story |
1.
There were dark pools of water on the road, the pavements slick from morning rain. Twice, Sameer nearly slipped and was forced to walk on his toes or with his arms afloat, taking the longer path to avoid being splashed.
Because Sameer had left home earlier (and more anxious) than usual, he reached just as Subbu Sir was wiping off what was on the board. Surprisingly, despite the weather, there were only two unoccupied desks in the room: His and Nina’s.
In the two months since the tuition began, Nina had never missed a class. And if that weren’t ominous, not once during class did Subbu Sir call on Sameer. Didn’t even look his way. Subbu Sir had been battling a cold all week, and it seemed to have gotten worse. Gone were his easy laugh and his anecdotal asides. He looked irritable, out of place.
Finally, when he ended the class (mercifully cut short), Subbu Sir motioned Sameer to come and sit closer, and announced to the students gathered at his desk that he would see them on Monday. The converted living room where Sir had been tutoring kids in maths, physics, and chemistry for nearly a decade could fit twelve single-person desks, and as the students shuffled out, Sameer walked up and took the one closest to the door.
– Nina’s mother called this morning. Subbu Sir leaned back and removed a sheet from his desk drawer. She found this inside her bag.
He laid the sheet down on Sameer’s desk, not that he needed to read it. The poem it held was written in Sameer’s best cursive. Twelve lines long, signed by ‘e r same.’
– Did you know Nina’s family is very orthodox? All Goswamis are, but Nina’s family is especially – Subbu Sir put up his hand and began to sneeze with such violence that Sameer’s arm shot up in reflex.
– God, Subbu Sir moaned, red around the nose, winded enough to lean against his desk. When he spoke again, his voice was low and gruff. She was very upset. She said Nina won’t be attending tuition anymore. It wasn’t safe. That’s what… Sameer?
Subbu Sir straightened, crossed over to close the door, and rested against it.
– Sameer. Are you listening?
– Yes.
– Did you write that here?
– No sir.
– At school?
– Yes.
– While you were in class?
– No sir. During P. E.
– How?
– I told them I wasn’t feeling well and went to the library.
– You don’t play any sports?
– No sir.
– How about extracurriculars? You participate?
– No sir.
Subbu Sir crossed his arms and sighed.
– I’ve taught so many kids over the years who had real potential but were too shy for their own good. Nina’s like that too. Both of you needed a place like this to shine. Subbu Sir stepped closer, took the sheet of paper, and shoved it in his trouser pocket. Sameer, I don’t like to shout or scream. I hate drama. You understand?
– Yes sir.
– Good. Because I cannot allow you to continue here – Subbu Sir covered his eyes and nose and began to sneeze again. It was deafening with enough force to make the windowpanes shudder. He paused for breath and walked back to his desk. So take a minute, calm down, then gather your things and leave. Subbu Sir sank into his chair, closed his eyes, then opened them and removed the sheet from his pocket. Here, he said. Take this with you.
Back in April, at the beginning of summer break, Sameer had borrowed a collection of American love poems from his sister and had labored through it till he was drawn, skewered, and flayed by the grandness of emotion (not gestures!), the ecstasy, the pain, the transformative power of love. In the weeks leading up to the start of tuition, he carried the book everywhere, quoted from it constantly, and dreamt in free-flowing verse.
In a roundabout way, Sameer’s friends at school (there were two who came close) had cautioned him against being too adventurous at this time. They had talked (and whined and moaned) about how intensely, almost insanely focused twelfth-grade girls were. All they cared about was getting into a good college, and nothing and no one could stand in their way.
And in fairness, Sameer tried. In the shower, at the library, or lying in bed sick with longing, he willed himself to abide by that wisdom, but every evening at the end of tuition, he wound up at the entranceway to Subbu Sir’s apartment, waiting for Nina to walk down the road and out of his view.
‘Quiet as a page. Pretty as a rhyme,’ was how Sameer had described her in his poem, which didn’t do enough justice. Nina was tall and striking and difficult, though it was to admit, beyond his reach. In the two tortured weeks Sameer spent at the park when his parents believed he was at tuition, when every night he pleaded with them till they relented and let him ‘drop out,’ Sameer sat on a bench and listened to Dylan and Floyd, worrying and despairing about, among other things, how far he’d been misled. From the time he could think for himself, he had believed (no, been given to believe) that if he were an ideal student and a model son, then the good things in life would come easy, unhindered. Prosperity, love, joy, even greatness? Now he wasn’t even sure if he belonged to this place, if he was at a remove from these times.
Although Sameer’s parents weren’t convinced (he claimed the tuitions had gotten too tiresome and taxing), they agreed if he promised to work harder. Sameer’s father drew up a week-by-week study plan. His mom secured synopsized notes so that Sameer needn’t spend much time on the languages, and his sister stayed up with him every night of the exams.
That summer, after the exams, they spent a week in Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar. Hit all the twenty-something ‘points’ as their guide called them, hit the pool in the afternoons. Sameer’s parents, in turn, told him how proud they were of him, that Sameer was going to burnish the family’s name. Keep working hard, they said, and keep your wits about you.
The college Sameer got into was out of state. A sprawling, leafy campus peopled with students from all over the country and labyrinthine hostels where Sameer smoked his first cigarette, tasted his first beer. His mates called him Sam and sometimes Sammy Boy. This was before Sameer began to eat only one meal a day (the most he could partake of what they served at the mess) and lost a fourth of his body weight.
Unlike most of his batchmates in their second and third years, Sameer didn’t grow out his hair or drink cheap rum or listen to grunge, but he shared their fascination for Counter-Strike and serial killer movies and anime. Mostly, though, he slogged through hundreds of problem sets and a million hours at the lab, not exactly life-altering (as had been advertised), although there were a few exceptions. Like the time when all four CS batches travelled to Rishikesh to raft in the Ganges, then drink and dance through the night. The party went on till four in the morning when Sneha Karmarkar, Sameer’s junior by a year, sidled up to him, put her arm around his shoulder and asked to be kissed before passing out.
For graduation, Sameer bought a suit. His first. Dark blue jacket with fine black stripes. A maroon tie with gold borders. Their chief guest was a former Chief Minister who spoke for too long before the degrees were awarded in order of GPA. Among the two hundred odd students to graduate that year, Sameer’s was the fifth name to be announced.
He was hired on campus by a cloud-ware multinational who posted him to Bangalore, where, grown wary of indifferent roommates, Sameer rented a tiny apartment with a west-facing balcony, and in lieu of flatmates, he built himself a tidy little garden and rescued a cat with almond-shaped eyes and long pointy ears.
2.
Sameer’s at the lift when he spots the cat, crouching under the guard’s table in the foyer. Then, outside the entranceway, trying to sneak in. Scampering in the grounds with kids running behind. Some nights, from three stories up, Sameer can hear it mewing. When he brings down a bowl of milk, the cat follows him back home.
He names the cat Bonobo because of the way he bobs around the house and because Sameer has been listening to the artist of the same name. You put Bonobo on in the background, his new work colleagues tell him, you’ll be upbeat in minutes. For a Seattle-based analytics startup that values, even boasts of, enlightened individualism, the engineers he works with have surprisingly similar tastes. The firm hires Sameer away at the beginning of the year with a massive raise and ESOPs. And because they don’t own or rent a physical office, he enjoys the convenience of working from home and owning a pet. We believe, Sameer is told during orientation, we are not just inventing the future of tech but the future of work.
Prophetically, in mid-March, the WHO classifies COVID-19 as a pandemic, and Sameer’s parents urge him to come home. But he’s been working crazy hours and weekends too, and he’s convinced that he won’t be able to focus as much at his parents’ home. They won’t let him. My plants will die, he tells them. I need to take care of Bonobo, too.
The startup keeps piling work. They lay off some of their American employees to account for the pandemic impact and offshore their work to India. Some of Sameer’s plants do perish. But Bonobo can’t be as easily ignored, laying siege to Sameer’s desk or burrowing into his lap until Sameer is forced to play fetch or fire up a motion-activated toy. When tired (finally!) Bonobo wraps himself around Sameer’s feet and, on some nights, even drags him to bed.
– The first of many role reversals, Sameer’s sister says when he mentions this to her.
– Many?
– Duh. Mom and Dad? Dad will be 68 this year. And they have all these comorbidities.
– What are those?
– Aren’t you following the news?
She sends Sameer links to articles that he pulls up but doesn’t read until the following Tuesday, when the confirmed Covid cases breach five hundred and the lockdown is announced.
Despite the rumours, there’s universal panic. Sameer’s neighbours, who have only ever acknowledged his presence with the occasional nod, leave their kids with him and bring back bagsful of supplies bought at twice the going rate. In Sameer’s case, it’s not about being prepared (he’s been hoarding a stockpile, one useful habit he hasn’t given up), but it’s the paranoia and, as the cases multiply, the punishing guilt of not being with his parents.
We are fine. Nothing will happen, they tell Sameer, and then try to distract him like they did when he was young.
– Your father wants to kill all the dogs, Sameer’s mom says, seated next to his dad in their little Zoom panel.
– All I said was they should be vaccinated, Dad counters.
– You said vaccinated and neutered. Which is the same thing. Sameer’s sister, stuck in Delhi, has a panel of her own.
– What about cats? Sameer asks.
– We talked him out of it!
– He won’t say this himself, his sister adds, but Dad loves Bonobo.
They all do. To every picture Sameer shares on the family group, they tag hearts, hugs and kiss emojis. Bonobo, for his part, always makes an appearance during the family calls and often joins Sameer’s office meetings, too. He’s always there, lurking to steal our IP, Sameer’s colleagues joke. Sameer laughs along to be polite, but the fact is, the house has begun to reek of cats.
There’s hair all over the place. Paw prints on neglected surfaces. The day the lockdown was announced, Sameer had locked and secured all the windows. But now claustrophobic and mildly asphyxiated, he goes around, opens them all, and the moment he returns to his desk, Bonobo pops out from under and dashes into the kitchen, jumps onto the counter and out the little window under the exhaust.
For a minute, Sameer sits unblinking, paralysed. Then he rushes to look out the window, bounds downstairs to check the foyer, and the grounds outside. He alerts the guards, the neighbours, and posts desperate messages on the apartment WhatsApp group.
He repeats all of this every day, multiple times a day. Between meetings, or sometimes he skips a few entirely.
His messages turn increasingly alarmed, but there are fewer and fewer reactions to what he posts. A week passes. Then two and three. Every passing week, the cases multiply, the curfew is extended, and Sameer finds a whole new low to sink into.
But he’s not the only one losing his mind. His sister, over an ‘emergency’ Zoom call, announces her engagement to the man she’s been seeing for the past ten months. There will be another wave, she declares, and I’m not dying before I get married!
Sameer’s parents, having failed themselves, go to the extent of enlisting uncles and aunts, but no one is able to dissuade her. She’s been stubborn from birth, the aunts tell his mom. The uncles don’t even get a word through. At least the boy is not terrible, is all they can say. Finally, that’s what tilts the scales. The fiancé is not of the same caste, but he is educated, works for a multinational and is from a good family, so when the curfew is finally paused, Sameer heads to Mumbai to help with the preparations.
All I want, his sister says matter-of-factly, is a simple wedding, which Sameer soon realizes is a bad joke. Every day there’s a new atrocity. Caterers, florists, designers, and musicians have to be arranged and negotiated with. Sam, Dam, Dand, Bhed is his father’s advice. Mostly, though Sameer pleads with the vendors, the best he can do after ferrying his mom and sister for hours from one shopping ‘area’ to the next. He sleeps – fitfully and very little – on the living room couch because his room has become the dumping ground for wedding supplies.
On D-Day, he’s woken at five. He showers, chugs an energy drink on his way to the wedding hall, and is on his feet for eleven hours straight till the baraat arrives. By sheer force of will, he manages to touch the right feet, hug the right shoulders, then sprints away to get the music going and the photographers too, scrambling about the place like a manic ringmaster.
The mahurat is at nine twenty-four pm. The bride and groom are eased into the orbit around the pyre, and Sameer finds himself a chair next to the awning at the back. He’s borrowed a cigarette from a guest, his first in five years. The acoustics are not too bad, he thinks. The lighting ought to be dimmed, though, and the servers aren’t spread out enough because up there in the corner… That unmasked woman! With the makeup and tattoos. Sameer bins the cigarette, tears through the crowd and stops at what he hopes is a respectful distance.
– Nina!
– Yes?
– Sameer, he points to himself, checks to see if he’s wearing a mask (he isn’t).
– Okay?
– The bride’s brother.
It could be the weight loss. Or the haircut. Has to be the haircut.
– Friends of the groom, Nina places her hand on her chest.
– Lovely wedding, Beta, says the woman to her right, who looks like her mother.
The women smile at him. Say something, Sameer tells himself. Anything, you miserable…
The rest of the wedding is a blur. Yes, his mom wouldn’t stop bawling, and there’s the endless photo-taking when Sameer and his father try to keep each other awake. More importantly, Sameer doesn’t find Nina at the buffet. Or anywhere else.
At the post-wedding drink-and-moan, the uncles and cousins pester Sameer for a story from when they were small. Chotu kids, they slur and indicate with their hands. Chotu. Sameer’s had three swigs of whisky. He never has more than two and never drinks it neat. When we were kids, he says, she was terrible. Horrible. Made me feel like shit every day. There’s a pause, the sound of a chair being dragged, then raucous, table-thumping laughter.
Sameer spends the night drunk-scrolling his socials. Nina Goswami disappeared from Facebook back when they got into college and reappeared two years later as Nina Sharma, married to a fellow dropout with whom she starts up and sells off two design firms. Divorced soon after, she has transitioned to an angel investor and a member of several women’s empowerment groups. For three years running, she’s been ranked as a top influencer on LinkedIn. A mere two degrees separates her and Sameer, i.e., the same LinkedIn distance between Sameer and Bill Gates, Sameer and Shah Rukh fucking Khan!
Sameer clicks through to her website and grabs her email. He types up a couple of lines thanking her for ‘gracing my sister’s wedding.’ He can feel the whisky slosh about in his belly. His cheeks pulse from the buzz, and a low-intensity nagging tinnitus rings in the back of his skull. He ploughs on:
For the longest time I’ve been meaning to say this, he writes. You may not remember, but if you do (and I do not want to presume), I’m afraid your memories may not be pleasant. If not worse. I should never have slipped you that poem. I was young and naïve, and I didn’t know what I was doing until I’d done it. I don’t know what pain I might have caused you, but I am deeply embarrassed and very, very sorry.
I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but the next day, Subbu Sir took me aside and told me something I must have known but never realized. He said you and I are very similar. Like peas in a pod. Which is probably why when I saw you at my sister’s wedding, I felt this real connection even after all these years. I don’t know if you felt anything. If you didn’t and still don’t, no harm, no foul. But if you do, I’ll be right here waiting for you (sorry! Cheesy, I know. But I really love that song).
He ends the email with a few notes on what he’s been up to lately, adds a short para on Bonobo and hits send. It’s nearly six when he staggers to the couch and five the next morning when his mom wakes him so he can make his flight.
Sameer reads his email en route to the airport and nearly throws up. Ditto for when he reads it again on the flight. Cringe. Absolute filth. And it’s already been twenty-four hours since he sent it. Too late to recall.
Sameer walks into his flat and collapses on the couch till his phone alerts him to an incoming message. It’s not Nina. Just one more to add to about three hundred unread emails in his work inbox. Maybe he should opt for a mental health break – a recently adopted corporate policy. On the other hand, what if all that backed-up work could serve as a distraction? His phone buzzes again. And again.
In the end, Sameer does a bit of both. Between meetings or for a few minutes every other hour, he slips under the duvet and curls up in bed. The naps are five or ten minutes long and often he wakes feeling worse than he did going in. By the weekend, Sameer’s exhausted, feverish. He runs a bath, orders soup and passes out on the couch halfway through an old comedy.
He dreams of being asked to ‘return to office’ by his previous employer. He walks into that giant edifice, but there’s no one in the foyer or on his floor’s reception. No one inside. The place smells of dead mice and kerosene. Typically, at this point, these dreams eddy into a fuzzy, unsettling distortion. But in this version, Sameer sits at his desk, logs on and finds a reply from Nina: I remember everything, you fucking creep…
Sameer sits up, his breath stale, his heart pounding. From the folds of the couch, he extracts his phone and pulls up his email. Nothing! The relief is so visceral that Sameer begins to laugh in the dark. He gets off the couch, makes himself a coffee and takes it to the balcony to watch the sun rise. Is it better, he wonders. No. Isn’t it better to be remembered poorly than not at all? Isn’t that the juvenile truism? The opposite of love is not hate but indifference?
Or perhaps it’s just a case of email etiquette. Granted, most of what we get is spam or worse, but Sameer clears all unread messages – work or personal – several times a day. How could one not? It drives him absolutely crazy that most people don’t. So much so that after another anxiety-ridden week, when Sameer receives a ‘real’ email, even if it’s from someone else and reads like spam, it feels like redemption.
Hey,
Heard you’re in Bangalore. I was hoping we could meet? Tomorrow?
Sneha
That junior girl Sameer almost kissed. They swap a few options over email and agree to meet for coffee in the morning.
Sneha’s already seated when Sameer arrives (on time). She looks downcast, eyes puffy, raw.
– Sorry, I’m a mess, she says and looks down at her shirt. And sorry that I already ordered. I am, she sighs. My boyfriend kicked me out. I caught him texting some girl, and he kicked me out. God. This is so…
– Where are you put up now?
– I checked into a hotel, she sniffs and cups her mug of coffee. I have friends here. Some relatives too. But I can’t, she sighs again. You know, I fought tooth and nail with my parents to move here? They were convinced that something was wrong with this guy, but I just… I don’t know.
– No, don’t do that to yourself. There’s no way your parents could have known.
– Yeah. Maybe. Mostly, they didn’t want me to leave. And I don’t just mean home. My parents have been in Mumbai for so long that they cannot comprehend why anyone would want to live anywhere else. And you know what – three horrible weeks here and I get it, she breathes, in and out, and looks up at Sameer. Why do you look so surprised?
– My parents live in Mumbai too!
– I knew that. No. Don’t be embarrassed. You barely knew me at college.
– That’s not entirely true, Sameer says, and looks out at the street, at the little park beyond. It’s not that bad a place, you know.
– Maybe, she says and brings the cup to her lips. At least they make good coffee.
She brings three massive Samsonites, a Ficus plant, and a yoga mat. Sameer doesn’t have a spare bedroom, so he moves a mattress into the living room for himself, clears some space in the balcony for the mat and adds the Ficus to his garden. When he proposes a bathroom schedule, it feels rather Sheldon Cooper-ish. Same when he offers a hot beverage when he finds Sneha weeping on his bed. I feel so stupid, she cries into his chest and shoulder. Sameer begins to carry tissues in his pockets. Keeps a bunch by the bedside. And makes several cups of tea. Sneha goes through an entire box in a week.
I swear this is not a rebound, she says when they kiss for the first time. One moment, Sameer is comforting her, and then they are locked in a kiss. She says the same thing again when they sleep together. I don’t mind one way or the other, Sameer tells her, but the next morning, he creates a cascade of sub-folders and buries the email he sent to Nina inside the deepest node.
Over the weekend, they carry the mattress inside and rearrange the living room furniture. They remove weeds from the garden, scrape grime off the windows, vacuum the flat, and exhausted, retire early.
– Why did you get a king-size just for yourself? Sneha rests her head on his chest, her hair prickling his neck. She moves her knee up between his legs. Sameer?
– I’m here.
– What are you thinking about?
– Nothing.
– Sooner rather than later, she stifles a yawn. You’ll need to learn how to share.
Sameer breathes in, runs his hand through her hair.
– This is going to sound stupid, he says, even though he can sense Sneha falling asleep. But I’m so used to being by myself that – I don’t know – all of this feels so strange.
Strange yet exciting. Sameer loves cooking together. Watching a show or the sunset together. He even loves that Sneha’s a bit of a slob. That a lack of order doesn’t bother her as much. At least he does in the beginning. But she likes making plans, which he definitely adores. For their first getaway, they drive to Mysore and tour the palace and the zoo. They surprise each other with gifts. A bracelet. A Tissot watch. They celebrate their three-month anniversary by checking into the Marriott and ordering up a bottle of champagne.
When Sameer tells his parents that he may have found the ‘one,’ his father nearly falls out of his chair.
– We never thought this day would come, his mom exults on video.
– I said, may have found Ma. And thanks for having so much confidence in me.
– Oh. Don’t be like that. I’m just happy, she says and begins to cry.
Of course, the wedding would be in Mumbai. Sameer arrives at his parents’ house to find it – much like when his sister got married – in disarray. Every corner is piled with wedding supplies. Then there are the guests. Friends and neighbours drop in. Aunts and uncles keep calling to wish him.
In the evenings, Sameer sneaks out to drive around and talk to Sneha.
– I’m beginning to hate families, he tells her.
– Such wonderful timing!
Because of their work schedules, they’ve booked a short post-wedding ‘holiday’ in Goa. But later in the year, they’ll have a ‘proper’ and much longer honeymoon. But no long flights, please, Sameer says. He can only distract himself for a couple of hours. Beyond that, he gets queasy. Ok, but I can’t do nature stuff, Sneha tells him. She is terrified of spiders and lizards, all sorts of creepy-crawlies and every reptile. She tells him about a horrific night she spent at Ranthambore with an ex-boyfriend. Is this the Bangalore guy? he asks. No. I’ve dated way too many losers, she says, and when Sameer doesn’t respond, which is I’m so grateful that I found you. You are the nicest, kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met.
Their muhurat falls on a Wednesday, and Sameer’s parents worry that many of their guests won’t be able to attend. They have invited more than two hundred of their friends and family. Sameer adds one guest to their list (mostly as a joke): his sister who, having exhausted all her leaves for her honeymoon, arrives two days before the wedding and hugs her mom, her dad, complains about the traffic, how marriage is ruining her figure and before anyone can get a word in, asks Sameer to join her in the kitchen.
– Nina might come to the wedding, she says before Sameer even steps inside.
– Who?
– Who?
– Yes. Who?
– That woman you creeped out at my wedding?
Instinctively, Sameer pulls up his phone but decides not to look at it.
– My in-laws and her folks go way back, so they had to invite them.
– Your in-laws sent a guest list?
– Of course. But that’s not the point. What’s the whole Nina thing?
– What Nina thing?
– Sameer?
– Yes?
– Are you sure?
– Yes!
She puts her hands up and moves around the kitchen. I feel like having some tea. You? She finds them a couple of teabags in the third cabinet she looks inside. She dips them in mugs of lukewarm water.
– Something else I wanted to ask you. Sneha’s the only girl you’ve been with. Right?
– No.
– You can’t count sexting. Or porn.
– God, what’s gotten into you today!
– Dude, marriage is hard. It’s icky. And complicated. You can’t go into it blind. Ok? I’m only doing this because I love you. Alright? Here. Can you take my mug too?
Sameer brings the mugs to the sink and washes them out. The more his parents insist that he ‘conduct’ himself like a groom-to-be, the more he feels obliged to do these everyday tasks. With the whole family teetering on the brink of wedding madness, these chores are a useful, calming distraction.
– I don’t think so, his sister leans beside him against the counter.
– Sorry?
– I don’t think you’ll ever stray. You, kiddo, you’re adorably loyal.
She may not have meant it as an insult, but Sameer has known her his entire life.
The makeup people arrive in the morning, followed by the photographer. Sameer’s mother has bought him an expensive sherwani that would have looked better in black, but apparently, black is ominous for weddings. Please don’t be picky, his mother says, even though Sameer has no such intention. But as the day turns to a weary evening, he gets his way. Traveling by car instead of atop a mare (my legs cramp up), listening to music on his headphones while others sit in uncomfortable silence (it calms me down), and downing a shot of vodka his sister offers as they get closer (also calms me down).
The wedding music which greets them is predictably shrill. Jarring. As are the colours, the smells, the awful, awful joy ruining everyone’s makeup. There are kids running all over. Strings of bright incandescent lights. An elephant. Why the fuck is there an elephant?
The women sit Sameer down at the mandap and take his shoes away. At the center is a large brass vessel filled with dried wood, and around it lie the various accoutrements of the ritual in shades of reds and yellows, scented with camphor and basil. Sameer stares down at his naked feet, then looks up at the priest. I need some water, he says. All in good time, the priest sighs and arranges Sameer in his seat. With Gods as our witness, he intones, through fire we shall transform and transcend. He picks up the kindling, coats them with ghee and strikes a match. Sameer flinches as the wood splits and sparks into a flame. The priest begins to chant, a nasal hum of twisted vowels. The music rises in pitch, builds to a crescendo and stops. A hush descends upon them. Sameer opens his eyes, and a thousand happy, shiny faces turn to look at him.
_________________________
Pravin Vemuri is a writer based in Bangalore, India. He works in marketing, employed at a company in the renewables space. He has been published in journals such as Out of Print, Mean Pepper Vine, and Spark.
_________________________
Photo by Danny Lines on Unsplash
Find MeanPepperVine on Instagram @MeanPepperVine
