Joe Xavier's powerful and contemporary style of writing is sure to take your breath away. One thing it won't make you is sleepy!

Sisyphus Reborn - Part 5 (5th September 2002)
Long nights staring at a blinking cursor offset by trips to the small lawn outside the lab. Sometimes I treated myself to a candy bar and if I was in an indulgent mood, a small box of glazed donuts...

Sisyphus Reborn - Part 4 (22nd August 2002)
I toy with the idea of faking jet lag and getting out of dinner at my aunt's house. I decide that coming up with a cure for rabies with a toothbrush, a bottle of ink and an absent-minded iguana is more in the realm of possibility...

Sisyphus Reborn - Part 3 (15th August 2002)
An ice-cream seller's strident bell clashes horribly with the soothing sound of the waves. I look longingly at his cart but can't get the rest of my body to get up off the sand...

Sisyphus Reborn - Part 2 (8th August 2002)
My mother holds the door open looking at me curiously while I trudge in dusty, sweaty and competing with the Cheshire cat. She'd predicted that I couldn't take the heat of an afternoon in Madras in May and as usual she was right...

Sisyphus Reborn - Part 1 (1st August 2002)
One of the boards was barely held in place by a single screw and dangled precariously over a snoring bundle of rags topped by an oily head that could have ended the fossil fuel shortage. A one-rupee ticket and you were Damocles for a couple of hours...