Allison stood in line with the rest of her class, waiting for the school doors to open. Usually first thing in the morning was a quiet time, but today kids were talking happily—and loudly. This was ... [+]
Ramesh Avadhani lives in Bengaluru and has a background in natural sciences and work experience in journalism and marketing. His writings have appeared in over 30 paying periodicals worldwide. He also has a feature length screenplay optioned to a British production house. He is presently looking for representation for a domestic suspense novel set in India of the '60s. "Route 13" is in Short Circuit #15, Short Édition's quarterly review.
On his first day at the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation, twenty-five year old Masti Govind Swamy, named after the village of Masti, where his father, not he, was born, found to his dismay that he was assigned Route 13—from Banashankari in the south of Bengaluru to Shivajinagar in almost the center of the city. Coming from a family of astrologers, Masti believed that the number signified the very nadir of inauspiciousness. Didn't the ancients warn that 13 people should never assemble at any one place? Didn't tradition demand that one should avoid houses and streets given that frig