Well, just tried my hand at writing a short story. Don’t know how it is, lets hope those who read it do like it. And those who don’t well, there are still the poems ;)

Dikrit was a 7 year old boy. He lived with his family in a small town, Kettinad. Like other kids his age, he went to school, he fought duels with his studies, he liked roaming around out in the wild chasing butterflies, climbing trees in hope of a rendezvous with the birds that dwelled there and of course, plucking the occasional Mango that the tree bore. Dikrit was the warm little centre around which the Universe crowded.
One day Dikrit’s father bought him a kite from a far town.Kites were not available in his own. Dikrit had always wanted to soar high amongst the clouds and the kite somehow gave him an avenue to realize his feelings. So for days together, he and his kite adorned the likes of Kettinad. High above the yellow sunflower fields, high above the hyacinth stricken ponds, higher still in his eyes that gleamed every time the kite would scare the birds away that had captured the freedom the skies had to offer. Life went on calmly, till one day, one fateful day, the string snapped, breaking the little boys heart as it itself shred to pieces and away went the kite, disappearing into the horizon where the sun had spilled out its 
magificance lending a orange hue to the low rise clouds.  For a week, Dikrit did not speak with anyone. Not his parents, not his friends, not even with God who he thought lived in the little brown wooden box that adorned the room of his grandmother.
His father, concerned about his son’s goodwill, brought him a tennis ball. Dikrit wasn’t excited though. To him, the kite epitomized all he ever asked from life. He decided to search for the kite he so loved lest he should find it someday. And so each day, he set off looking for it as soon as he returned from school. And each day he would take the tennis ball along with him. He searched far and wide. He searched the meadows where he had seen large four legged animals with horns and humps that looked like cows but were’nt actually cows. He turned upside down every stone, every leaf that lay hoping against hope that the kite be there. And for all this while he took the ball along with him. He learnt to catch it, throwing it high up in the sky till it looked like a dark little sun. He dribbled it, he hit the cows with it, he threw it at stones and see how it changed trajectories. He took it to the pond, he made little boats in which he sailed the ball ,amazed at how even when the boat capsized, the ball never drowned. He took it to the same sunflower fields and tried to match the balls colour with the velvety petals. It amazed him how a yellow coloured round thing could delve itself into any role he liked and yet stay with him always.
A month passed, and one fine day, as he was playing catch and throw with his friends, the gleamy eyes saw the sight they wanted to see. Lay there the kite alongside the moss stricken boulder. To Dikrit, it meant heaven. Tears rolled down his cheek, a smile erupted that revealed his two missing front teeth. He ran back home with the kite to show it to his parents, who couldn’t be happier at their son’s triumph.
Next day, after getting new strings attached, he ran for the fields. It was a beautiful day, gentle breeze that carried with it a promise to make the kite soar to heights never before imagined by him.But something was amiss. Something that made the little boy think like he had never before.
The Tennis Ball.
He looked at the cows who in turn were staring back at him wondering why a yellow coloured un-hurting stone was not being hurled at them. He looked at the boulders that looked dull and worn out, the very boulders that had amazingly, looked so full of life and vigour when ball used to be thrown at them.The ball had been his companion all along. In rainy days, when flying kites was incomprehensible, in those rooms indoor he had spent hours together catching the ball as it rebound from the algae stricken patchy walls. Dikrit did not want the kite anymore. He loved the ball more than anything else in this world,it was there with him always and he did’nt realize it.


How many of us keep looking for answers when all the time, they are right there, staring at us in our face. Answers that have been there always, answers we do not even realize exist. And because we don’t know where to look for them, because we are so entwined in the illusion of what we think we want, we fail to recognize them. We become Dikrits too late in our lives, it almost fails the point. Lets learn to let that which does not matter slide. Look around, life is beautiful!...and its never been any other way.