Book Excerpt: Never Forget the Crows by Supriya Bansal

An exclusive excerpt from Never Forget the Crows by Supriya Bansal (Om Books International 2026).

Makhan wandered into the cramped bylanes near his shanty.

The alleys crisscrossed with drains choked with soapy, washing-up water. White foam floated in the grimy gutters like silvery clouds in the stormy grey skies.

“Hey, how are you?” Makhan patted a goat tied to a tree outside a brick-walled house. A flock of golden chicks scratched around the mud, strewing the yellowed hay everywhere.

“Stay away,” a voice thundered from inside the dwelling. “I don’t want the likes of you hovering around.”

Makhan grimaced; it wasn’t a good sign. All the yelling and screeching could alert his folks. Suppressing an immediate urge to flee, he peered over his shoulder and slid into a sharp angle towards the corner. He wandered through the shabby pigsties, hencoops, and dumps of rotting vegetables moulding for days in the overfilled metal bins. Women swung from the terraces, hanging their laundry on the clothesline to dry,

He trod around the open gutters. As humongous as bandicoots, brown furry rats scuttled in the open sewers, that stretched lengthwise along the tapered back alley. Clumps of excreta, cigarette butts, and coloured pamphlets hemmed the margins of the central sewer.

Makhan pressed his palm over his mouth and nose to block the awful reek. He spun towards the main roadway, avoiding a cow standing at the junction of gullies, swishing its tail to ward off flies. A blur of dirt rose and settled. Makhan ambled along the sidewalk, dodging the bikes and cycle rickshaws. He would have walked only a few strides when his stomach started doing somersaults as the smell of food bopped around him like gold confetti.

His belly growled. The luscious scent of slow-cooked meat pulled him toward the food stall like a moth to a dying flame. At the end of the street, a tiny booth displayed an array of offerings—nihari, tandoori roti, khameeri roti—and a winding queue of rickshaw pullers, labourers, and hawkers waited patiently to begin their day with a warm meal.

Makhan stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes dulled; his face turned crimson as he rammed his hands into his pockets. Makhan jabbed his finger through a hole in the inner lining of the pockets, twiddling the cloth around his forefinger.

Stray dogs emerged one by one from their early morning doze, circling customers’ feet and licking up stray crumbs. Occasionally, someone would toss a tidbit to the dogs, enchanted by their wagging tails and hopeful eyes. But nobody spared Makhan a glance.

The cold air pricked at Makhan’s throat, and he felt parched. Makhan stomped on an empty soda can until it flattened. He jerked his feet and snapped at the metal hard; the can flew off the concrete and settled with a soft clink on the other side.

A neighbouring bakery deposited a heap of stale bread in the garbage can. Makhan went down to the canister and filled every one of his pockets. He squatted down on the pavement.

He closed his eyes as a memory unfurled: Jagat escorting him to Dilbahar Delhi Restaurant one joyful evening. Surrounded by plush blue cushions, Makhan had felt like royalty. Jagat had ordered a feast—haleem, nihari, biryani, and galauti kebabs so tender they dissolved on the tongue. Makhan could still remember gravy running down his chin and Jagat’s laughter as he washed it all down with gulps of velvety milkshake rich with chopped khajoor.

Makhan nibbled on the dried bread, imagining the sweet taste of Shahi Tukda, a deep-fried bread plastered with condensed milk and nuts, swirling on his tongue. He watched a dog rubbing its tail against a hawker’s legs. Without his eyes faltering from his stall, the hawker kicked backwards. The dog yipped as it skittered.

“Worthless pests!” The hawker shrieked. Makhan’s thoughts raced to the previous evening when he had received similar treatment. His stepfather had punched him in a drunken fury, hammering him with his foot. Makhan had wailed like a wild dog, begging for mercy. As usual, his mother had remained by the door with her eyes cast downwards. Impervious.

Indifferent.

That morning, at the break of dawn, sitting in his bed, Makhan had heard the familiar drunken stagger outside his room. Dead drunk again.

Trembling all over, he had slipped out the back gate before the first kick could come.

Makhan’s stomach growled again. He couldn’t remember when he last ate a filling meal. Since returning from the police station, his mother had acted like a robot, scarcely looking at them or hearing them. It had been over a week since her visit. But they were as good as invisible to her. It reminded him of her behaviour just after their father died.

Shhhhh!” Makhan edged closer to the whimpering dog and stroked its ribs, poking from its sparse, shaggy coat. “It’s okay.” Makhan shushed the dog and stacked the bread from his trousers before the starving brute.

Excerpted with permission from the author and the publisher of Never Forget the Crows by Supriya Bansal (Om Books International 2026).

About the Book

A city on edge. A killer without a pattern. A truth no one wants to face. When a series of murders grips Delhi, ACP Bhuvan is drawn into a case where the evidence twists into contradictions and every suspect tells a different story. At the heart of this tangled web is Jagat—a boy cloaked in shadows, shaped by suffering, and carrying secrets that could shatter lives. As Bhuvan wades deeper, each revelation forces him to question who the real victims are. Haunted by his own past and hounded by a frenzied media, he realises this is no longer about just catching a killer—it’s about unearthing a story buried for a reason. Dark, layered, and deeply human, Never Forget the Crows is a psychological thriller that explores fragile innocence, hidden trauma, and the monsters we create without meaning to.

About the Author

A doctor and an award-winning author, Supriya Bansal, considers daydreaming her superpower.

When she is not at work, creating art, or being silly with her kids, she delights in spinning stories with a twist. Her work has been featured in over 30 anthologies.

She received the prestigious Orange Flower Award for short fiction for two successive years. Her website ‘Supriya’s Banter’ won the best website/Blogger award from a renowned forum for 2023. She has written two comic books, A Feast for Ganesha and Bhima’s Ladle and was awarded the ALS Sagar Memorial Prize from the esteemed Asian Literary Society.

You can read more about her at her website-https://supriyasbanter.com/