This collection began not with an idea, but with a noise.
The clanging of steel cups at a roadside stall. The yawn of a bus braking too hard. The furious whisper of a politician's denial. The deadpan bark of a watchman who speaks five languages and is invisible in all of them.
These stories were written in the cracks - between headlines and footnotes, in auto rickshaws and overheard conversations, and in the spaces where people are seen but not always noticed.
They do not seek to represent India in its totality (what madman would?). Instead, they shine a light - sometimes mocking, sometimes melancholic - on the absurdities, resilience, ambition, and quiet defiance found in its shadows.
There's satire here, yes, but it's satire that hurts because it's too close. Humor that laughs while standing knee-deep in floodwater. Characters who are fictional, but whose situations have been lived a thousand times before by real people with real stakes.
If you've ever bribed someone to fix a leak faster, if you've been promised power "within 24 hours," if you've laughed at your own despair - then this is for you.
Fazal Abubakkar Esaf
August 2025