Upon a Bright Red Bench

Imagine if the bench you’re sitting on could read your mind. What if it had a voice? What if it knew that you lie daily, in your marriage, in your job, to the mirror, to the world?

Upon a bright red bench, there is guilt, confusion, stupidity, and even the desire to commit a crime and get away with it. The bench knows you are here to seek wisdom and calmness and all those virtues that you observe and admire in the lives of others. In this story of stories, there are bankers, artists, engineers, journalists, designers, dreamers and doers, who roam the world in search of attention and approval. When their ordinary lives bring them to a bench, they find life-altering realisations. There is a journey inwards into the present, the bright red present―how often do you take it?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pallavi Rebbapragada is a print journalist in the Indian media. In 2010, she started her career as a correspondent with The India Today Group. In 2013, the falcon of her dreams landed in Dubai. Here, she worked as features editor with Forbes. Her next stint was with The New Indian Express. She has recently started writing for Firstpost. She has reported on culture, travel and business from India, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.

From the vibrant worlds of fashion, food and luxury to the dark alleys of death, drugs and homelessness, her pen has journeyed across human realities.

She earned her Master’s in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, where she was also awarded a National Scholarship. Her love for prose grew in 2014 at the Yale Writers’ Conference.