In my cupboard I have eighteen cans of jalapeno peppers that cost 11 cents each. There were twenty, but I have eaten two in the last year. I bought them because they were 11 cents each, you see. You never know when you might need jalapenos. I bought the twenty cans of mushrooms at the same time for the same price, but those I ate. Most of them, anyway.

I want to write a story about the decapitation of glorious women. A story about the mighty falling. A story about heads tumbling in baskets. A story about the mouths that posthumously moved and eyes that blinked even after the head was severed. A story about the wigs that flew. A story about the heads that rolled.

On a cold February morning, driving solo through dense fog on a narrow potholed road from Amritsar, Panjab (the land of five rivers) in North India to a recently not-so-quiet hamlet of Dera Baba Nanak, umpteen thoughts clouded my mind.