Tell Me a Story , livre ebook

RAVINDER SINGH

Tell Me a Story
PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
The End of the Tunnel
Krishnasish Jana
The Smile That Said It All
Kamalika Ray
The Defender
Aparajita Dutta
A Daughter s First Flight
Vijay Kumar
And Then the Planes Came
Sanghamitra Bose
Breaking the Impasse
Shaily Bhargava
Clean Slate
Sukanya M.
Divine Intervention
Madhurie Pandit
Suicide (So Decide)
Prasanthi Pothina
A Chapter, Closed
Shalini J. Pillai
That Girl
Yamini Pustake Bhalerao
The Love that Made Me
Aaditi Dhyani
Pages from a Writer s Life
Shamita Harsh
The Untied Shoelaces
Dalia Jane Saldanha
We the People
Anjali Khurana
New Year and Daddy
Heera Nawaz
Unforgiven
Snigdha Khatawkar Mahendra
Bigger than a Bee Sting
Biswas (Buddh) Timshina
Giving Up or Standing Tall
Rupali Tiwari
A Love So Unconditional
Richa Talukdar
Garib Rath
Bhaswar Mukherjee
Editor s Note
Notes on Contributors
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN METRO READS
TELL ME A STORY
Ravinder Singh is the bestselling author of I Too Had a Love Story, Can Love Happen Twice?, Like It Happened Yesterday and Your Dreams Are Mine Now . After having spent most of his life in Burla, a very small town in western Odisha, Ravinder is currently based in New Delhi. He has an MBA from the renowned Indian School of Business. His eight-year-long IT career started with Infosys and came to a happy ending at Microsoft where he worked as a senior programme manager. One fine day he had an epiphany that writing books is more interesting than writing project plans. He called it a day at work and took to full-time writing. He has also started a publishing venture called Black Ink ( www.BlackInkBooks.in ), to publish debut authors. Ravinder loves playing snooker in his free time. He is also crazy about Punjabi music and loves dancing to its beats.
The best way to contact Ravinder is through his official fan page on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/RavinderSingh.official.fanpage . He is more frequent in his response to readers on his Twitter handle @_RavinderSingh_ .
Also by Ravinder Singh
I Too Had a Love Story
Do love stories ever die? . . . How would you react when a beautiful person comes into your life, becomes your most precious possession and then one day goes away from you . . . forever?
Not all love stories are meant to have a perfect ending. Some stay incomplete, and yet remain beautiful in their own way. I Too Had a Love Story is one such saga. It is the tender and heartfelt tale of Ravin and Khushi-two people who found each other on the Internet and fell in love . . . until life put their love to the ultimate test.
Romantic, funny and sincere, this heartbreaking true life story has already touched a million hearts. This bestselling novel is a must-read for anyone who believes in the magic of love . . .
Also by Ravinder Singh
Can Love Happen Twice?
When Ravin first said I love you . . . he meant it forever. The world has known this through Ravin s bestselling novel, I Too Had a Love Story . But did Ravin s story really end on the last page of that book?
On Valentine s Day, a radio station in Chandigarh hosts a very special romantic chat show. Ravin and his three best friends are invited as guests to talk about Ravin s love story. But, surprisingly, everyone apart from Ravin turns up. As the show goes live, there is only one question on every listener s mind: what has happened to Ravin?
To answer this question the three friends begin reading from a handwritten copy of Ravin s incomplete second book-the entire city listens breathlessly, unable to believe the revelations that follow.
This highly anticipated sequel by Ravinder Singh is an emotional rollercoaster that bravely explores the highs and lows of love.
Also by Ravinder Singh
Love Stories That Touched My Heart
Love -only a four-letter word, yet it s so powerful that it can conquer anything in this world!
We ve all experienced the first flush of love and remember the lingering fragrance of it. For ages, love has remained one of the most cherished experiences that everyone wishes to live through at least once. Humanity, time and again, has coined many definitions to describe this beautiful emotion, but this small word is a feeling that can t simply be defined. It has to be narrated . . . in the form of stories-love stories.
Love Stories That Touched My Heart is a collection of such stories from readers who have a tale to tell; stories that they would like to share.
Selected and edited by Ravinder Singh, this anthology-made up of the stories that touched Ravin s heart the most-will make you believe that someone, somewhere, is made for you.
Also by Ravinder Singh
Your Dreams Are Mine Now
It can t be love . . . he thinks and immediately his heart protests.
They are complete opposites!
She s a small-town girl who takes admission in Delhi University (DU). An idealist, studies are her first priority.
He s a Delhi guy, seriously into youth politics in DU. He fights to make his way. Student union elections are his first priority.
But then opposites attract as well!
A scandal on campus brings them together, they begin to walk the same path and somewhere along, fall in love . . . But their fight against evil comes at a heavy price, which becomes the ultimate test of their lives.
Against the backdrop of dominant campus politics, Your Dreams Are Mine Now is an innocent love story that will tug at your heartstrings.
The End of the Tunnel
KRISHNASISH JANA
Honestly, I had never imagined I would be opening this leaf from the book of my life ever again. It was presumably buried deep beneath the thick misty veils of what everybody calls memory . But there are some incidents that, at the sudden mention of certain words, shoot back as colourful kaleidoscopes right before your eyes, and then change, very slowly, to calm and clear images. The images I saw were not so clear, but for a moment I could smell the strange aura of grievance around me, which was an extraordinary case of d j vu. The smell brought me tears.
I was a fourteen-year-old kid then, and I barely knew anything other than my parents, my home, my school, and the ice-cream man at the gate. It was just another dull afternoon. My school van halted by the lane to my house, and I sprinted towards the newly painted gate, and saw my mother waiting for me. I opened the gate, but she hardly noticed the sound. That was something I experienced for the first time in my life. She could never have been so preoccupied. What was that she was so deeply absorbed in? For a moment I stared at her blankly, and the next moment, it struck me like a massive lightning bolt. I walked towards her. She suddenly turned around. Her eyes were swollen. I managed to ask, Is it about Uncle?
She did not reply. But I saw the terrible confirmation of my fears trickle as a callous teardrop down her cheek.
So, it s over. He s gone. Forever . . .
She took my bag from me, offered me a dry smile, and said, Come upstairs, your lunch is ready.
I did not ask any more questions. As I entered the house, I felt a weird silence all around. Even the leaves of the trees seemed to hustle with utmost caution. I tried to have a peek into my grandmother s room, but my mother pulled me up the stairs. My father was nowhere to be seen.
I had my bath. I was not very surprised, because I had actually been praying to God for this. When the imminence of death stares right into one s helpless eyes, it s better to leave early than to stay a little longer and bear more pain quite unnecessarily. My uncle s cancer was terminal. He never touched a cigarette in his life, and yet it was lung cancer.
Fate really knows how to mock itself at times.
I wasn t allowed to visit him in the hospital. He s no longer the uncle you know, was the rational answer that was supposed to satiate my uncontrollable curiosity. But from their conversations I realized very well that my uncle was going through a lot of pain, unavoidable pain perhaps, while we all knew what the end would exactly be. I was too na ve to understand that the weakness of consanguinity was the only solid justification. Hope was everything then. Everything.
And now he was gone.
I ate quietly, and so did my mother. When I was going to bed for my regular afternoon nap, I mustered courage and asked her, Where s Father?
He is returning from the hospital. They are bringing back your . . . she paused and paraphrased, . . . the body.
I did not know what to say. He would be ashes by evening. And yet I can hear his voice, fresh and alive, still ringing in my ears . . . calling out my name, with one hand behind him, hiding a story book, for me . . .
After a few hours, I heard a couple of cars screeching to a halt at our gate. But what I heard next shall always keep reverberating in the corridors of our house-I heard a mother howl helplessly, calling out the name of her son who would never respond. I rushed down and watched my uncle covered in a stretch of white cloth, and my grandmother screaming and trying to shake him up furiously. It looked like a big pot of suppressed sorrow had suddenly burst open.
I had seen this scene a hundred times in movies and TV serials. But seeing this right before my own eyes, with my own family members instead of unknown faces, was a horrible experience. I could feel my mother s grip tighten around my wrist. She was crying, and it was no longer under her control. Come back! You don t have to see this! She kept on pleading, but I did not budge. I had to see .
My grandmother was gradually slowing down. Her shadow seemed to relentlessly pull her back on the ground, whispering in her ears that no matter how much she shouted, her son was too far to hear her. Her swollen eyes seemed ready to close any moment, because of the tempestuous deluge they had been suffering. She slowly stopped thumping on her dead son s chest. Gradually, her voice los