His thesis was stopped at the border. His future as a college student in America was on the line. But Komail gave border agents the slip with a little anatomy lesson.
Background music is Balkan's Joke by Jacques Pellarin. Check out Komail Aijazuddin's website. This story was created from outtakes of another story to air on Studio 360 in the coming months.
What happens when you try to say yes and no at the same time? Saurabh Tak tells the story of meeting Olivia one night at an art event, and then bringing her back to his apartment for an evening that got weirder and weirder.
How do you spend recess if you don't want to play kickball?
There are exactly two nylon sacks. Balls in the right sack. And jump ropes in the left. This is a choice that has already been made for Kabir.
Poor Kabir. Jump though he may, he gets "roped" back into the kickball game. Does he overreact? You decide. Hear the whole story.
A bit of fiction for the new year, set to Prashanti by Ravi Shankar. I originally wrote this piece for a open mic in DC last month organized by the peerless Regie Cabico.
Only one year after coming to the United States from India, Selvaraj was mugged violently. But when faced with a line-up of suspects and asked, "Who did it?" he reacted in a surprising way. It's a story about mugging, ragging, and the caste system as seen through the eyes of a guy that many Americans have a hard time figuring out.
"I walked a couple of streets and then I called 911." I remember seeing Selvaraj the night he was mugged. He was shaking and a wad of tissue was plugged up his bloody nostril. That same night, a police officer lined up four suspects and asked Selvaraj to identify the attacker. He was seventy percent sure he saw the guy.
He was doing his job: passing time watching people watch art. I wondered what that would be like, and how it made a difference that he was Sikh, that he wore a turban along with his museum guard uniform. So I wrote a fictionalized monologue from his point of view, based on the hour that I observed him.
My first day I had a difficult time putting the headset on over my turban. The metal band did not bend enough and my ear kept popping out from under the earpiece. Yes, I remember, I thought it was a huge problem. I even went and asked the curator what to do.
