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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of desi short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

430+ Desi Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Discover the magic of Desi stories in this directory of short stories, curated by our panel of judges.

Desi Short Stories – Page 8 of 29

Paratha

Nibras Mirza

Submitted to Contest #183

Aftab huffed on the bicycle as he reached Gulmohar Lane. The flyover opening onto the National Highway stretched python-like to his right, deserted. In the fifteen kilometers he had cycled, he had seen two hawkers who stood under the blaze of the July sun on empty roads to sell fried peas, water chestnuts and pakoras to the occasional passerby, and one other cyclist. Four months of the pandemic lockdown following close on the heels of a seven-month long political shutdown had turned the city int...

6 likes

Fragment of Fragrance

Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #182

CW: Domestic violence, Child abuse I set the date. And get to work. I pack two lunches. Put one in my bag and leave the other on the wobbly table next to the stove. I don’t bother to wake him up on a Monday morning. If he is too hungover to make it to work on time, it’s on him. I lock the door and hop over the puddle bordered by soapsuds. My neighbour is crushing her laundry on a slab of stone a few feet away. I lower my head and scoot down the alley before she looks at me. She hurls, “What a racket last night. Is he dead yet!!” at my back. ...

28 likes

Dawn-lit, Forever

Suma Jayachandar

Shortlisted for Contest #179 ⭐️

Like a camphor box closed with a cracked lid. That’s how I feel right now. An amorphous lump at the core.There are strangers in the living room. They have not stopped coming since morning. Brother is dealing with them. All I care about is our baby in my arms.“Men from the plains are nothing but trouble,” Ma had warned me while she combed my hair.“Even the ones in uniform, like Brother?” I had countered.“Especially the ones in uniform,” she had pulled my hair tight and tied it into a bun.It didn’t stop me from offering you red tea when my bro...

50 likes

Magnet in the Air

Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #178

Sheila tapped the right heel of her brown pump on the cold floor of the corridor outside 6B. Her hands were freezing. It was five minutes past the bell. The cacophony inside the classroom with the young art teacher shouting, “Okay, that’s enough. Wind up! Those who have not finished, please complete it at home!” refused to subside. The 11-year-old marauders continued to work with a frenzy on their masterpieces by snatching the supplies from each other.Sheila glanced at the second hand on her watch ticking away for another minute and took a d...

19 likes

The City of Shadows

Nisha Ramakrishnan

Submitted to Contest #177

Something sinister infused the air. It oozed out of cracks on the pavement, dispersed from the generic, flickering-tube-light lit shops – Raju Xerox, Prabheem Dry Fruits – and gathered momentum with the rapidly fading light, which cast a gloom over the whole city of Chhayapur, India (noteworthy attractions: non-existent), marking the end of another disillusioning day, indistinguishable from yesterday. The stranger walked on, wearier with each footstep. The road looked just like the one before. A `'Stick No Bills' sign on an empty wal...

9 likes

A King, His Brother, His Wife, A Potion, and An Evil Plan

Isa Hasan

Submitted to Contest #176

Palace intrigue has always fascinated me, but ultimately, there's no way to verify the veracity of the stories. Did King Arthur really exist? Lancelot? We'll never know. But one summer, I learned of a story of palace intrigue that was as true and real as anything you have ever known. And far more morbid. I'm here to tell it to you… My family visited India for two weeks last summer. We stayed in one of the family houses, called Machli House. My parents spent their days visiting relatives, reliving their childhood memories,...

31 likes

The anchor of my life

Antara Srikanth

Submitted to Contest #173

I have heard this phrase often that love makes you do impossible things. Whoever said this must have had a personal experience of doing something unfeasible for that special someone. When love enters our lives, we are not even aware of it. By the time we realise, it has already taken a course of its own to overpower all our senses. The heart behaves strangely, and the hormones never cease to fluctuate! Two decades back, when I was a fresher in college and had decided that love was not meant for me, I was brought face to face with this tall, ...

14 likes

A Handful of Herbs

Suma Jayachandar

Shortlisted for Contest #173 ⭐️

Every time I visit you, which is roughly once a year, I notice, the sharp edges of the glass, cemented on top of the high compound wall have become fewer and grown smoother.The iron gate, on the threshold of which we grandchildren sat on those summer evenings, as you called out to the passing ice apple vendor and peeled the juicy delicate fruits on which we pounced and suckled like piglets, could use a coat of paint.There is still that pomegranate tree with its gnarly branches, guava with its mottled leaves, and bushes of plantains with thei...

47 likes

Another one walking beside me

Sutanu Mukherjee

Submitted to Contest #171

I think Hope is a bitch. Hope never left me or stayed with me. My mother, Asha Mann, spent most of her adult life snorting coke and doing odd jobs to fund her addiction. One such odd job brought me into this world. During an unprotected exercise of flailing her legs, she discovered the implications of "the odds are against you." I do not have much memory of my mother. But my neighbours in the slum where I live say that in her lucid moments, Ma used to call me Swayam. In Hindi, Swayam meant yourself. Maybe she hoped that, unlike her, I co...

8 likes

The Final Journey

Susheela Narayanan

Submitted to Contest #168

Reedsy Prompt: Start your story with someone looking out a train windowThe Final Journey Raghavan strode through the compartment of the Vellore to Bangalore train, ticket in hand, looking for his allotted seat. Thankfully, it was by the window. He sat down with a sigh of relief. His escort Ramu, took charge of stowing his small suitcase in the berth above his head.“I will come back and check on you a little later, saami,” he said, folding his hands together. Raghavan nodded, and Ramu went back to his seat in the third class carriage...

10 likes

Love Shackle

Sayonee M N

Submitted to Contest #168

The view from Pura Hill was unlike any other place in Bangalore. If the weather gods were willing, you could almost touch the clouds from the top. Cool breeze sweet notes, chirping birds returning to their nests, colorful hues of the evening sky, a guy kneeling down on his left knee with a ring in his hand…all wounded up in creating a magazine worthy shot.Seconds started to feel like an eternity when Samar’s girlfriend, Riya, stood in awkward silence without giving any response. Slowly, the fear of rejection replaced the hopeful smile on Sam...

7 likes

SALT

Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #163

Violence has a way of breaking you. Even if it’s the other guy whose bones are crushed.The food is all right. Mostly vegetarian. Suits me fine. It’s the sun and the wind; one splitting your skin open and the other rubbing the salt in. I am beginning to get used to that as well. It’s not for nothing I walked miles in the Mexican desert following a General. Or ran across the streets of London as the air raid alarms blared in 1917. After all, my muscles hold the miles they walked to cover stories along the length and breadth of Michigan as a yo...

24 likes

My Grandmother's Love Language

Antara Srikanth

Submitted to Contest #162

Love is one of the purest forms of human emotions. There are different ways of expressing love; however, the most creative is through food. So many beautiful memories are created over food. The art of making food as per someone’s taste requires not only skills but also time and patience. In India, mealtime is family time. It begins with the ritual of praying to the almighty, where we thank him for providing the food on the table. In most households, preparing the meal for the family falls on the mothers or the grandmothers. They take...

13 likes

101 Dosas

Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #162

Dosa has been a constant in my life ever since I got the first explosion of Andhra gunpowder in my mouth. It is steadfast, satisfying, and never leaves a bitter aftertaste. Today, I need to order something big. Like a 4-foot-long dosa, with a bucketful of sambar, a mound of mashed potato, and four types of chutney. To celebrate my release from the clutches of a salad-munching witch, who snorted gingerly every time she rode on my pillion to this hallowed hall. I look at the menu of 101 Dosas, even though I know it like the back of my hand by ...

28 likes

The Old Weight of Love

Brittany Mackeown

Submitted to Contest #162

A wrinkled menu from Punjabi Place sat out on the counter, tucked between a cutting board and the stovetop. In poor handwriting, a short list of ingredients had been written next to palak paneer, denoting the ingredients for homemade tikka masala sauce. Some of the ink had rubbed off from handling, but all of the ingredients were still legible. Navya squinted at the ingredients. They were all correct, and even though tikka masala wasn’t even close to her favorite “Indian” (tikka masala was more British-Indi...

14 likes