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It’s strange. To the other tenents in my flat I was ‘nice’. I was a bit quiet, quite polite, considerate and gentle. I was just, to them, ‘nice’. But suddenly, one day, I was a manifestation of evil. Someone to be ignored and hated. No more patronising “Oh, you’re so good”s when they found me [...]

I wanted to hide away And be anonymous. I wanted to hide away: Delete my face. I wanted to be hidden, I wanted a private world, I wanted to be in my world. I wanted to hide away. I wore a black hat, Though the sun was hot, For it covered my head And I [...]

Two years ago, I sat in a concert hall in Grenay, northern France, while the mayor of the town used our performance as a backdrop for his political speech. According to him, our orchestra was ‘a fine example of how the youth of today were the people who would break down barriers and share their [...]

I read the graffiti on the wall. In big, bold letters, scrawled a foot high, it said “APNI MARZI KARDHI!” I didn’t understand. Next to it, written in white correction fluid, the words, “THE POOR CAN TAKE NO MORE: RESIGN”. My conscience was jolted and I took a pen from my pocket and wrote, “The [...]

It is when you feel down that you really realise that the friends you have are worth more than anyone else in the world. It should be obvious that the friends you have are worth more than the ones you don’t. I was so, so down one evening; I had hurt someone in a desperate [...]

When Vijay sat down next to her and she felt happy inside, she knew that it was wrong. Thaira knew that she wasn’t supposed to think like that, but she did. For weeks she let it go, knowing that she could never let anything become of it. There were days when it got too much [...]

The war was over, but the scars remained. Pushed together, the people lived in compounds scattered across the vast landscape. It was better like this; not much better, but better than the urban squalor that faced the returning refugees. The compounds were a sanctory from the ever threatening outside world: The minefield hell holes. The [...]

I looked him in the eye and he said no. Good. I needed that. I asked him why and he just smiled and winked his eye. That wasn’t an answer. I wanted an answer, not a smile and a wink. I turned around and saw a hole in reality. A huge gap. A gap where [...]

I couldn’t understand what he was talking about, but it sure sounded cool. I knew he had all my money in his future and that was red. Red like a London Bus. Did he understand me? I shouldn’t think so. Give me a pint of petrol I said. He didn’t understand that. Well why would [...]