Garuda

The smell of Indian rose incense crept into his home, almost like a morning alarm blaring punctually day-after-day.

Vikram sat on the rickety wooden bench at the tea shop near the Lanka Police Chowki. The sweltering May summer had been interrupted by a few days of sparse rain.

Vikram waited in the meeting room at the Central Prison in Varanasi. Being suspended meant he couldn’t go to the chowki.

Vikram came back home, feeling a crushing urge to have a drink and ease the pain running through his body. He looked in the kitchen and found a fistful of rum left