Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Anton Chekov, Lakshminath Bezbaruah, Premchand, to name a few writers have always fascinated me from childhood and drawn me towards the art of storytelling. Like any other literary form, storytelling needs much acumen so that the storyteller has to be an acute observer of sights, sounds and experiences of everyday life as well as of people’s manners. The first short story I wrote was when I participated in the literary competitions held during Varsity week. I remember receiving the 3rd prize for the short story I had written. It was poetry which I dabbled in more frequently and had actually quit writing stories for years. My penchant for writing short stories revived a few years back. Once I started, the interest grew and led me to write one after the other. A few of them were published in newspapers and online magazines. These small accolades were encouragement for me to write more. To talk about the sources of my stories, these were personal experiences of encountering people from all walks of life that gave me food for thought. The short stories in this collection are woven around the themes of issues relating to superstitions, natural calamities, issues of women’s lives etc. As for the setting, most of my stories are based in small towns and villages of my native state Assam. There is a lot that my storytelling practice is yet to pick up to achieve perfection. This volume also includes a few of my personal essays written at different periods, which I believe, were the result of my musings on places, people and objects of deep interest to me. For me, a personal essay is one of the most wonderful media to pour out our feelings and views without the constraints of conventions and formality.