Perfume – By Ashokamitran
“You want me dead!” he shouted at his wife.
“Eat something and go. Your lunchbox is ready,” his wife said. But he was already halfway...
Enemy – By Appadurai Muttulingam
Translated by V. Ramanan
He had not known anything about rearing hens, neither were the hens elated in his captivity. He knew that it was...
The Dying – By Vaiyavan
Translated by E. Annamalai and H. Schiffman
Boothalingam's bristly beard brushed lightly against his bony chest and tickled him. He sat up and closed his...
Exultation – By T. Janakiraman
That was a local shuttle train which ran from Tiruchi to Mayavaram. Its life began every morning at 10:30 and ended at 3 in...
A Room of Her Own – By G. B. Chathurbhujan
Translated by Geetha Jayaram
“Why doesn’t he understand whichever way I try to tell him?”
“Why doesn’t Raghav pay any heed to this one wish of...
The Lifting of the Curse – By Pudhumaippithan
Translated by Ka.Naa.Subramanyam
1
The stone statue of the woman stood by the wayside. It is the statue of a grown-up woman, her flesh distilled into stone...
The Cart Track – By Ayyanar Edadi
Translated from the Tamil by Padma Amarnaath
The sun began to rise. It slowly ripened, warming the east with its heat. Velu and Chellaiah worked...
Kaanchanai – By Pudhumaippithan
Translated from Tamil *
I just couldn’t sleep that night, for no apparent reason. My mind was neither troubled, nor was it overflowing with happiness...
Fruit with its flower – Vannadasan
Translated by N. Banumathy
When I asked Dinakari ”shall we buy from this shop?” she was busy picking up the flowers of a vaagai tree...
“The Plastic God-Box” – By Ambai
Translated by Vasantha Surya
`Krishna, raa…’
Ladling out some rice-and-ghee on the window sill and tap-tapping it once with the back of the ladle, Amma called...















