Short Story: The Bard of Kabini

Biswajit Chatterjee shares a poignant story blending elements of psychological suspense and the surreal, set against a contemporary Indian backdrop, and explores the fragile boundaries between reality and the unknown.

Dressed in khaki pants and a black vest, he arrived at the guest house gate about eleven in the morning. Hair, beard, and moustache, all white as snow. Skin dark and deep. A silver earring hung in one ear, Rudraksha beads around his neck. He was beyond sixty. Of average height, wiry build, veined and sinewy forearms. In halting Hindi and gestures of the hands, he explained that Nagaraju, the proprietor of the guest house, had sent him.

I welcomed him inside.

“What is your name?” I asked in Hindi.

“Thimma. Thimma Nayaka.”

“Do you speak Hindi?”

“Yes, a little bit. Just enough.”

“Where do you live?”

“In a little village inside the forest.”

“They let you stay inside the forest? There are wild beasts inside.”