The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

(Written in 2005, a few days after the floods of 26TH July. The garbage collectors are often blamed for inefficiency.)

“We collect garbage, we are not garbage ourselves.”

These are the words of the Solid Waste Management Department (SWM) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The SWM, with 24 centres spread across 24 wards across the city is responsible for Mumbai’s garbage disposal and maintenance.

Tuesday, July 26. The rains had paralysed the Mumbaikars but the…

Kartikey Sehgal

An ill man doesn’t want a temptress around him and he may turn down an offer to go out with two pretty women. He would want a woman to take care of him; someone who can comfort him in his ill health. Not all temptresses are known to be nurturing.

So an insecure man would want to marry a non-temptress. And the societally defined sexy woman would wonder what went wrong in her relationship.

When a man…

Kartikey Sehgal

St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

St. Stephen’s (Delhi) contribution to India is commendable. It has given Her bright students and more importantly, girls who like to drive their father’s car. In fact, it is believed that Stephen’s girls have never stepped on a road.

My friend and I ventured into the empty Stephen’s college—sans people but with green gardens, healthy flowers and neat pathways and corridors. The buildings don’t have a name. You’ll have to ask around if…

Kartikey Sehgal

“Mother I want to be gay”.

Mother stopped doing her work.

“The last time I held Sheetal’s hand and walked on the road, everybody gave me a funny look. But the gay people are celebrating so freely and nobody is objecting”.

“I also read that gayness was no big deal in Indian culture and many Gods also turned into women at times. I think Krishna and Vishnu”.

Mother was shocked to hear such blasphemy.

“Sure, there were sages…

Kartikey Sehgal

(Also published in the Hindustan Times, 2008)

The author encounters a Miss India contestant on a train journey. The experience makes him feel like he is both, the villain as well as the tragic hero of this tale.

A young and attractive Miss India contestant sat down opposite my seat on our way to Mumbai from Indore. My relatives, some twenty or thirty of them, decided to ‘glimpse’ at this light eyed beauty and took turns to…

Samata Agrawal

A Red-vented Bulbul has built a petit nest on the sleeping fig ficus bush that grows from a pot in the balcony. There are three or may be four babies of that bulbul lying like some chunks of meat in the nest. They vigilantly guard their home day and night long and feed the new-born from their beaks – which is all they pretty much do. Hard, soiled and pointed beak; it traps minute bugs which it transfers…