The spy who loved her country
Back in her room, Sehmat locked the door and placed the umbrella on the bed. She then carefully studied the handle and located a tiny press-button. Unscrewing the handle ever so gently, she exposed a cylindrical bottle wrapped in a small piece of handwritten paper. She read the note and recalled Mir’s words. “By pressing this button, you can inject tiny drops of mercury into the human body. Though the process would not hurt, the mercury would act soon and within hours the person would suffer a heart seizure.” Sehmat tore the paper into tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet. She waited till the bits of paper disappeared...
Excerpted from Calling Sehmat by Harinder S. Sikka
Price: Rs 400
Pp: 233
(With permission from Konark Publishers)
Lost in New York
My interview was at one o’clock, but I walked up to the zoo early to look around. I’d been there once, on a trip to New York with Dad when I was seven, but I didn’t remember anything about the zoo except that it was raining then and that outside the gate, a guy in a bright green suit kept wanting to wrap his python around my neck. I also remember Uncle Jacob, who we stayed with that week, telling me that the animals all looked “wretched.” But today, it was the sort of day when people talk about the weather without seeming like they have nothing to say, sunny with a few popcorn clouds, and even homeless people looking healthy, almost. The path into the park smelt like something sweet that could have been either pollen or pee. In a tunnel past the ice-cream vendors, a bald Asian man sat with his legs crossed on a stool, playing a bendy-sounding instrument that only had one string.
Excerpted from Zoology by Ben Dolnick
Price: Rs 295
Pp: 291
(With permission from HarperCollins)
The boy who never gave up
When Anand came to, Nisha was kneeling by him in the pale silver light of a moon about to set, patting his face. He tried to jerk upright, but she pushed him back, and he was too weak to resist.
‘Rest a moment,’ she said. Or you might faint again.’ He managed to force his stiff, disobedient lips to form a question. ‘Where’s the conch?’
‘Right here, on your chest,’ Nisha said. She guided his hand until it closed around the conch. ‘Did you put it there?’
Nisha shook her head. ‘You must have clutched it to you as you fell.’
But Anand knew better. The conch chooses to be lost or to be found, to stay or to go, he thought. He picked it up carefully and looked at it, his heart beating with joy.
Excerpted from The Conch
Bearer by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Price: Rs 295
Pp: 232
(With permission from Roli Books)
