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TATA Literature Live! 2015 Creative Writing Contest’s Special Mention: Meant For Someone Else

By Sharon

16th October 2015

It was half past noon and I was lost in Fountainhas. The Goa Tourism

brochure urged me to ” explore the historic Old Quarter of Panjim on foot”

but I wanted to get out. I ducked into the nearest doorway and stopped

short at the macabre display of funerary crucifixes,memorial plaques and

thick gravestones propped against the floor. A girl approached, smiling. ”

These are for someone else” she said. Pointing towards the deeper gloom

at the back she spoke again, ” For you”. I saw it then – the marble cross

listing my name and date of birth. Below that, freshly carved letters

announced my date of do. – today’s date.