Ruchira's Ramblings

Happy New Year

2012-01-10T01:23:00.000-08:00

©Photograph by the Author (Peling, Sikkim, India. Dec 2011)

I’m not much of a new year’s resolution person, you know, so I really don’t know what to say here. It’s not like I can’t think of anything to say- there are in fact a thousand promises I could make to myself, like I’ll try to be a little more organized, I’ll try to follow a routine, I’ll try to do this 2nd Tuesday blog every month (because I did such a splendid job last year) and of course, the usual suspect, I’ll try and exercise regularly and get fitter. But I’d rather not because my new year’s resolutions tend to fizzle out as the year gets older.
That is not to say that I’m not going to try all those things I mentioned above, I shall of course try to update my blog and write and study and do all those things or rather I am already trying to do all those things but I would rather not call them resolutions- they are changes I have been attempting to make for several months now and I would rather not use January 1 as a marker of any kind. It kind of feels like I jinx, you know.
Instead what I do say is I’ll try to take this year as it comes, embrace the good, learn from the bad, and not lose faith at rejections and losses. I had a good year in 2011. Perhaps all my wishes didn’t come true, but I also got dreams I hadn’t dreamt realized. Therefore in 2012 I just want do the best I can with myself and take everything that comes. And just randomly, I’ll end with a quotation that I like:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi
And this blog, by the way, is part of the 2nd Tuesday Blog-hop.

©Ruchira Mandal

An Ether Author's WishList

2011-10-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it’s not Christmas yet it’s Halloween. I’m just impatient like that. So here goes my wish list in my capacity as an Ether Author (and other Ether authors are welcome to add their own suggestions).
For those who don’t know what an ‘Ether Author’ is (seriously, where have you been?) the term basically refers to a human individual who has a story/poem/essay etc. published as a free or paid (with a minimum)as a on the Ether App which is like your very own personalized pocket library available as a FREE download on your Apple gadgets. And if you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth:

Ether Books is a new and innovative mobile publisher, providing the very best short content direct to your mobile phone. We publish short fiction, articles, poetry and serials from both bestselling and emerging contemporary writers.
To enjoy your own personal library of ‘byte sized reads’ right now, go to the Apple App store to download our FREE application.
If you are a writer, you can submit your work directly to us through our online submission page. You can submit your work to us free or through our fast-track Silver Membership for only £25. Click here to find out more.

So now that we have settled that, can we finally start on my list? Thank you.
1. I know they’ve only just given us a content section, but as I am ever-greedy, I wish there was a separate page for each author with separate links we could tweet and put up in our blogs. Right now, if I click on the catalogue tab, it takes me to the feedback page, and then I have to keep hitting the ‘R’ button in the dropdown menu for writers, sort through a couple of Richards, three or four Rachels, several Rebeccas (no offence to you guys, by the way) and a Roy and a Ramola and a Rowena before it comes to my name which is 14th on the list of names beginning with ‘R’. So a separate author’s page with a list of stories with their summaries and genres, an option to download and a form to submit feedback would be kinda nice. And may be, if you don’t think it’s overkill, some of the feedback could show up too (not that I have any to flaunt, but still…)! Now to my 2nd wish…
2. This one is long overdue. It would be great to have the Ether App available on other gadgets, because with all respects to Steve Jobes) and may his soul rest in peace), not the whole world uses Apple, and that seriously limits our readership. So in the future I hope to see the Ether App on BBs & other smartphones, on PCs and laptops so that EVERYBODY can read our stories.
3. One gets three wishes, right? Well, what else does a writer want, except more readers? Please read my stories, people, I have three of them on Ether - & one of them is a free read (for a complete list, look under the ‘Read Me on the Go’ section on the right hand side of this page.) & send me your feedbacks.

Happy Reading, & Happy NaNoWriMo to those who are doing it this year.
©Ruchira Mandal

Meera

2011-09-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

-Why are you here?
-Why am I here? Is that all you can say? After all these years?
-I do not wish to remember.
-But you haven’t really forgotten, have you?
-
-Meera, please-
-Don’t call me Meera. I don’t have a name.
- … I’ve looked for you for so long—believe me, when you disappeared-
-You didn’t look for me.
-Oh yes I did. Listen, Meera-
-I’m not Meera. The girl called Meera died years and years ago- that wasn’t me. I didn’t disappear, I just wasn’t ever there. You searched for the wrong person- she’s dead, you hear me?
-I searched for you. You aren’t dead.
-I’m not her.
-Of course not. You are you. And it’s you I’ve been looking for, it’s you I want.
-Yes, as a replacement.
-No, as a sister.
-Sorry to disappoint. I’m nobody’s sister. I’m not the daughter of anybody’s parents. You, of all people should know that.
-You are my sister. That-that house you left, it’s as much your house as it’s mine. Let’s go home, Meera.
-You did so well till the last word.
-What do you- I- well... Look, if you don’t like that name, we can give you another. You can choose another name for yourself.
-You think rechristening me would change everything? I’ll truly become your sister? A true third daughter of your parents?
-But you are-
-No I’m not. I’m a clone created by a scientist named Meenakshi Sinha- the clone of her dead sister Meera who died at the age of ten in a laboratory accident.
-Don’t-
-Remind you? Don’t remind you of what, Meenakshi? That it was you who killed Meera?
-DON’T! I didn’t kill her… she-she walked into my lab when I wasn’t there. I should’ve locked-
-She went in there because you told her you had work to do in the laboratory.
-I… She wouldn’t ever leave me alone, always asking me questions, running after me, asking me to play with her… I was sixteen! … I think I locked the door, I always did, she must’ve found the spare key… I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t kill her.
- But your mother thought you did. Even you think you did, don’t you?
-Don’t remind me.
-But you haven’t really forgotten, have you?
-Stop, please stop- Meera.
-There’s no Meera here. There is no Meera anywhere; it’s time you understood that, Dr.Sinha. Making a genetic copy of your dead sister doesn’t bring her back. I’m not Meera, I’m just her clone. You had me fooled for all those years, you made me believe that I was really your sister, your mother’s daughter and it used to hurt when she would shirk away out of my presence, but I believed you when you said it was only because she was ill. That she was grieving over the death of our father- your father. But I know now- she was grieving over the daughter she lost as well as the husband who died from the shock. I know I’m not her daughter. And your mother knows that too and that is why she hates me so much. Even you know that- that’s why you sent me away to boarding school.
-You’re…
-Don’t you understand, Meenakshi? I’m eighteen years younger than Meera, I went to school with different people, I played games with different people, I’m a different person! I can’t be Meera, I can’t make your mother forgive you for your sister’s death, I can’t help you in making her sane and normal again. You may be a brilliant scientist, Meenakshi, but it’s time you gave up on me. Your experiment failed. I’m a failure. Forget me. Go home to mother. She needs you there. Stop wasting time on me.
-… It’s gotten dark. I’ll take the morning train. Can I spend the night?
-...
I suppose you can. I’ve got a spare mattress. And I’ll see if there’s something to make for dinner…it’s quite late! I didn’t notice.
-Yeah, funny how swiftly the dusk passes in the mountains- it takes you by surprise. In the plains, it’s slower; you can notice the change of light.
-Oh please, you notice the change of light? Did you ever look from your books out of the window?
-C’mon, I’m not that boring. We went to the water park once, remember? And another time we got on that giant cartwheel and… Umm, shall I help you with dinner?
-No thanks, I can manage… Doesn’t Mum take her medicine before going to bed? Did you tell the nurse?
-I…
-Well you can call home now, very poor signal up here though…. You shouldn’t have left her alone.
-Meera, umm, sorry, I don’t really know what to call you. I’ve called you by that name all my life…
-I better start with the cooking.
-She died last month.
-
-It was peaceful. She went in sleep. Towards the end, she would sometimes talk normally- for little spells, may be… and she wouldn’t talk much, but, still, she could recognize people, recognize me. She- forgave me. And once, a few days before… she asked me about ‘the little girl who looked so much like Meera’… I tried to find you, but-
…
-Minnie?
-It’s nice to hear you call me that.
-Did you look for me before that?
-Before when?
-Before she asked for me?
-Yes I did, I’ve been looking for you since the day you left, but-
-Why?
-Sorry?
-Why did you look for me? Why are you here?
- Because I missed you. Because I knew Mum missed you too, even if she couldn’t express herself. Because you are my sister.
-Am I? Really?
-Yes you are. I still miss the sister who died, but I came here to find you, not her. Believe me, Me-oh, sorry…
-Oh forget it. It’s weird getting a new name this late.
-We’ll get used to it. I don’t mind, you know, if you want a different name.
-It doesn’t matter. Not really.
©Ruchira Mandal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't written anything since I tumbled headlong into the mad, bad world of M.phil studies - Oh, yes, did I mention that I got through the admission test for an M.phil programme at quite a good Indian university? Ah well, I've done my happy dance and all that, but now I've got no time for writing. I tried to force myself back into practice by picking up some incomplete pieces but that didn't work out. So here am I again, back to the Fiction Friday prompts at Write Anything. This week's prompt was:
Write a scene using purely dialogue. Nothing else is allowed ( no attributions, narration, description, scene setting etc)

So, you know the rule. If you liked this- do comment- it will inspire me to write again. If you didn't like it, comment anyway. I t might teach me to write better. Thank you for reading.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank You MiM

2011-07-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: This blog-post has got nothing to do with my writings, so I would like to request those who are here for my Friday Flash and 2nd Tuesday posts to please check the other posts. Thank you.

I'm making a break from my usual blog subjects in order to express my feelings about something that has been part of life in a big way the last few months- the Magic is Might roleplay organized by the Wizarding Life website that made me...made all of us relive the magic of Harry Potter once again.
So alright - I haven't been the most prolific of the MiMers. I haven't been able to stay up when the action happened (3 in the morning for me) and I almost always ended up at a Hogwarts party after it was over. In all these months, I haven't been able to attend a single DA meeting, nor have I ever submitted homework on Muggle Studies or any other subjects.
Nevertheless, MiM has been a big part of my life. It was in fact, like a routine, a habit...going to bed at night wondering if some official roleplayer I had been talking to would reply to my post, waking up in the morning thinking about getting on facebook as soon as I could... MiM allowed me to do all those things that Rowling's books- amazing and wonderful and magical as they were- didn't. It allowed me to talk to Tonks and Lupin and to root for them during their epic exchanges with Voldemort (yes, I said the name. Well, he's dead so the taboo can't be still working)or Greyback, it gave me a chance to insult utter douchecanoes (sorry, roleplayers :P) like Umbridge and Pansy Parkinson to meet all those characters who had sort of remained in the periphery in the books (the books being written from Harry's PoV)like Neville and Michael and Ernie and Hannah and Parvati and Lavender and the shillelagh-wielding Seamus and of course, Astoria Greengrass who wasn't in the books at all. I think the latter turned out exactly the way I had imagined Astoria to be, and I'll have a hard time adjusting if Rowling now makes her a rather different person. And speaking of things MiM told us that the books didn't about the characters, whoever thought Voldemort liked manicures and pedicures?:D And of course, it was great bothering Percy Weasley and try to keep up with Gred and Forge's pranks and talk with the ever-so-wonderful Weasley family.
Oh by the way, thank you Madam Pomfrey for patching us all up and for letting us help in the Hospital Wing. Thanks to Prof.s McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout,Firenze, Hagrid, Trelawney and Slughorn for being by the side of the Rebellion, thanks to the Carrows for handing out those detentions, thanks to our dear departed Headmaster and his International Federation of Fangirls for being extremely entertaining, thanks to every official MiM-er for working so hard-for living on facebook through these months and make it all happen for us.
Thanks also to the person, or persons who came up with the mad, bad stories at the MiM website. They were so outrageous I hardly knew whether I was supposed to laugh or whether I was supposed to strangle whoever came up with them in-character. And also, there were a few people who regularly commented over there- Athena Kemsley, Gates, Ike Dawn are some names that come to mind, but all of you were equally good. I would ahve liked your pages if I had seen you on facebook but I didn't.
As for the unofficials- especially the really devoted ones who always (unlike me :shifty look:)attended every meeting in time- you were the ones who made this experience as huge as it turned it out to be. The official MiMers gave us a chance to live in the wizarding world, but you guys- with your own back stories, your own stories of love and heartbreak, of friendship and betrayals- you made this world real and concrete by filling it in. So Liv, Stephanie, Piper, Arielle, Michelle, Kemsley, Leona, John Holmes, Chelsea, Leslie (Merlin I don't even know how many of you to name, and how many of you aren't the same person!!!)!
I bow in respect to all those of you who managed multiple pages. I mean, SIRIUSLY!!!
All of you were amazing, brilliant and you made my life magical! Thank you.

©Ruchira Mandal

Inspiration: From where do you get those stories?

2011-06-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

The first serious attempt I made at writing a short story was about three years ago, though I had enjoyed writing long before that. The story that happened was entirely out of my own experiences, tweaked here and there to make it fictional. For a first attempt, it turned out reasonably well and was published in the Sunday Literary pages of an Indian newspaper. I had praise from my teachers and my friends and my family. The problem began after that.
Once you are published, you want to do it again. But for that, you need to have a story. I did not have a story. I mean, okay, I wrote one story out of my own life, but life isn’t exactly what you would call blockbuster material! My mother told me- look around you, read the newspapers…you’ll find your plots somewhere. Well, I looked around, and I read the newspapers, and I didn’t know what to write about. I read stuff in the newspapers, and thought- I don’t really know these people, how could I write about them?
Well, till then I had really believed that stories just happened to you. You had this brilliant moment of inspiration, and then the plot started forming in your head, and you would take out your pen and paper and voila! What I didn’t realize was that inspiration was around me already, that I only had to train myself to learn to recognize it.
But meanwhile, I had a few poems published here and there, and I wanted more than ever to have another story published, and so I attempted to carve out stories out of anecdotes I heard from friends. They were not very good, but they gave me some practice. And then, one day I learned about the 50 Stories for Pakistan anthology via facebook. They were looking for submissions, and I decided to take my chance. Trouble was, I still didn’t have a story, and the deadline was very close. So I just took my notebook and pen and started with the description of a hot, desert noon. I had recently visited Rajasthan, and my starting image was a character with a broken down car in the middle of the desert. I started asking myself questions. Who was she? Why was she here? Where was she going? What was going to happen to her now? I also had to consider a few other things- 1. The word-limit (which is why the natural description I had begun with eventually got shelved) 2. The story was not to have any sort of violence, disease or death. 3. It had to be uplifting, somhow. With these counters to play with, I worked my way through, and Promises was written, and selected for the anthology (incidentally it’s also available for free on the Ether Mobile App if anybody’s interested). Being finally able to write a story that had nothing to do with my own life gave me a lot of confidence. It made me take my writing more seriously, making it a more regular activity in my routine. And that helped me with getting hold of the ideas. As I’ve learned, ideas won’t come to you if you don’t look for them, hunt for them, toil for them. The newspaper could provide stories, but I needed to develop the eye to recognize them, because nobody was going to give me my plot ready-made. I had to pick up the images and expand them, I had to identify ideas and make them my own, I had to place myself amongst strangers and familiarize them through my writings. And these, for me, are the sources of my inspiration.

This blog post is written as a part of the 2nd Tuesday blogathon. The topic for this month was inspiration. So what would you say inspires you to write?

©Ruchira Mandal

Writing is...

2011-06-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I have been passed on this writing meme by CatWoman Patti Larsen who has this fantastic story about a crow called Henry (just go check her blog, okay?) and here's a quote I stole from her blog:

"A meme is a self-propagating unit of thought spread from one host to another, an idea-gene, if you will. For bloggers, memes can provide insight into the personalities of other writers that you wouldn’t necessarily find in their writing."

Well, I don't know how much of an insight this will provide, but I'll try and express what writing means to me.

Writing is a journey towards an unknown destination. Sometimes the path is easy,with verdant meadows and wild flowers dotting the road; sometimes it is rough, steep, difficult. Sometimes you may walk with fellow travellers, exchanging ideas, experiences and advices. And sometimes you must slog it alone. There will be times when the excitement of the adventure will keep you going. You will run, and run faster, thrilled to find a hidden world taking shape and the pull of newer discoveries will pull you onward. And there will be times when the constant journeying will fatigue you. You will want to give up, to call it quits, to turn your back on the endless road. There will be wrong turns, there will be bad weather and obstacles and you'll have to overcome them all if you want to reach the end. And when you do, you'll find there's a new trip waiting for you to somewhere else.
Writing is an odyssey, just like life itself.
©Ruchira Mandal

And now to pass this on- I choose:
Rebecca Emin

Tony Noland

Rachel Carter

&,

Lisa M Stull

Rebuilding Memories

2011-05-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Archaeologists say that the city of Mohenjodara was destroyed by flood & then rebuilt on the ruins for about seven times. What eventually destroyed that ancient civilization we do not know, but what was destroyed in the Indus Valley were not mere walls and garrisons and citadels and public baths. The earthquake, or the drying up of the river, or the invasions… or whatever it was- took with it lives, memories, untold stories- stories that experts are still trying to figure out from the undecipherable seals. The resilient, courageous people of Mohenjodara tried seven times- with each destruction something was lost, yet they strove to build up something new, till they faltered at the end.
Today when an earthquake strikes Haiti or when a cyclone ravages Bangladesh and the Eastern coast of India, when a Tsunami shakes Japan or a flood washes away the known contours of Pakistan, New Zealand or Queensland- humankind perhaps has better resources in its hand to pick up the broken pieces than did our ancestors by the river Indus. And yet- things are destroyed. Things are lost. Familiar places are changed forever. That little café by the street corner where Lucy met Andrew for the first time, or the bookstore where Susan first learned to love words, or the old oak tree underneath which Jake had slain dragons and fought demons at the age of five- they are retained only in memories. And like the people of Indus Valley before us, we must attempt to recreate and rebuild. And so Kate Eltham, CEO of the Queensland Writers’ Centre says in her introduction to 100 Stories for Queensland – “When so much was lost and destroyed, this was created.”
100 Stories for Queensland is a collection of a hundred beautiful stories, our stories- stories about events ordinary and special- that could happen to anyone anywhere in the world, even to you. It is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit, of its instinctive, creative defiance. Put together by the painstaking labour of Jodi Cleghorn and a dedicated team of volunteers including Trevor Belshaw, Marit Meredith,Maureen Vincent-Northam, Greg McQueen and David Robinson, the anthology has stories by renowned writers such as Ev Bishop, Sue Moorcroft and Anita Heiss as well as from new writers from all over the world, including one by me. All proceeds from the sales go to the Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal.
The book is available as paperback on Amazon, Waterstones, and The Book Depository & as an ebook from the official website.
We offer you our stories, & ask your help to rebuild Queensland.
©Ruchira Mandal

2nd Tuesday Flash Fiction

2011-05-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Choto pran, choto kotha
Choto choto dukkho betha
Nitantoi shohoj shorol
Shohosro bisriti rasher
Prottoho meteche bhashi
Tari du-chariti oshrujol
Nahi bornonar chota
Ghotonar ghonoghota
Nahin totto nahi upodesh
Ontore otripto robe
Shango kori mone hobe
Shesh hoyeo Hoilo na shesh [Little lives, little tales, the little simple sorrows & pains lingering beyond the thousand forgotten moments of everyday life, nothing too ornate nor heavy advices, it will leave you unquenched in the heart, knowing that the story continues after the end]–
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) on the short story.
Badly translated from the original Bengali by me. I did search for a translation, but Google offered all of Tagore’s quotes except this one.

Bittu’s Fairytale

Bittu was watching clouds, outlining winged horses and warriors amidst them, when a little downy bit began descending. It dropped right down to his window and squeezed in through the grilles, settling on the floor like oversized candyfloss. The room was suddenly filled with the fragrances of a garden. Then a girl no taller than his knee popped out of the fluff.
“Mummy-Daddy are at office. Please come when …” He broke off on spotting her wings. They were pale blue, the same colour as her dress.
He dismissed thoughts of shouting for his TV-watching nanny. He was dreaming. Lucky his classmates couldn’t spy into his sleep!
“Adi is a nasty boy,” the girl spoke in a tone that suggested she didn’t consider the manner of her visit anything out-of-the-usual. “You should stand up to him. I’m Gunja the fairy, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
She flew up to his study-table and sat down cross-legged atop the globe, wrapping the gossamer wings around herself like a shawl.
“You…you can’t be real!” Bittu said. How the hell did she know about Adi?
Gunja raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you believed in us?”
He didn’t answer. Adi’s taunts still rang in his ears. Fairytales were for babies and little girls, he said. Boys watched Roadies.
He looked away from her and saw the candyfloss.
“Why do you travel on clouds when you can fly?”
She laughed.
“Why do you need buses and cars? You can walk!”
Oh! The stories didn’t say fairies used clouds for long-distance travel.
“How far are you going?”
“As far as it takes to return to Parital, our homeland.” She stretched and closed her wings again.
“But where is it?” He asked.
“Up in the mountains. You won’t find it here,” The globe glowed as she tapped it lightly, “It was a beautiful place before the demon usurped it. He ruined the flowers, killed the birds, poisoned the lake that contained our magic and put the fairies to sleep with his silver wand! Only a few of us could escape. He has a golden wand as well, with which he wakes them whenever he wants, forces them to do his bidding and then curses them back to sleep again. Our only hope now is people like you.” She gazed into his face, her eyes shining.
“Me? But how?” How could he fight a demon who had defeated so many fairies? He was thin and small; he didn’t have Adi’s strength.
“You don’t have to fight, you’ve already done your bit,” she assured him, pulling out her necklace of glass beads. Its locket was a tiny crystal bottle. Something neither wholly liquid or air shimmered within it, changing colour as the light fell on it, “These are dream fragments, collected from people who believes in our magic. One day we’ll have enough dreams to rain down on Parital and revive the lake. Then we shall be free again. But I came here today to tell you something else.”
“What’s that?” He asked.
She flew down to his shoulder.
“Adi the bully is scared of cockroaches. I peeped into his dream last night and saw. Just say there’s one in his hair the next time he bothers you.”
Cockroaches? He always acted such a hero!
“Thanks!” He grinned at Gunja.
“You too.” She shook the pendant once, and sailed out of the window on her cloud.
Bittu followed her with his eyes as far as he could. She was right about standing up to Adi. Not because of the cockroaches, but because he knew that fairies were true.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This post is for the 2nd Tuesday blogathon, and this month’s topic is Flash Fiction. My story is a bit, silly? Sorry, I was planning to write another rone but didn’t get the time.
©Ruchira Mandal

2011-05-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

The Ether App is like a Magic Book – one little thing with an endless number of stories, poems, essays – whatever you want to read, whenever and wherever, provided you have your little Apple gadget with you. It’s your own personal library- the special thing being it is pocket-sized and therefore portable and a whole lot easier to handle. No dusting the shelves, no loose pages coming out, no having to remember putting in naphthalene balls, it’s completely fuss-free. This is not to suggest you do away with your old library but it will be fun to have a little library on the go, won’t it?
And you can easily have one. All you need to do is get an i-phone or i-pad touch, download the FREE Ether Mobile App, and then choose whatever you want to read. A part of the contents is free – and that includes some amazing work by writers both famous and new. The remaining part, which is again from both established and upcoming authors, comes at a price, but think about it- you would pay to buy a magazine, wouldn’t you? You would also pay to buy a book of stories from a bookstore or on Amazon, so why not on Ether? Because the content on Ether is good, and the price is not really huge. Most stories come at ₤0.59 or $0.99 - and then there are special periods such as Easter Sales during which some of the relatively higher-priced content also come at the minimum rate.
So that is the technical bit. What else do I like about being an Ether Author? (Didn’t I mention I was one of them? Must have slipped my mind! :P) Well, apart from the fact that it sounds really impressive and cool, it makes me feel a part of something pioneering as well. The field of publishing has gone through a lot of changes in the past few years- to the extent that e-books are now almost as commonplace as the traditional printed volumes. And now many authors are opting to go the kindle way or may be an e-book or kindle edition on Amazon and a printed one on sites like Lulu or Blurb. The point is, the conventional tree-book as some call it is no longer the sole source of reading material for the book-buyers and book-lovers out there. And this opens up exciting possibilities for alternative modes of publishing. E-books and Kindle are great for longer reads- novels and such. But what about readers who want short content while waiting at the bus stop, or sitting in the train? This is the void that Ether Books fill. Poems, flash fiction, short stories- that’s the Ether fare for you. And every time you download a piece, the writer earns a bit of royalty. On a micro-scale this system sustains everyone- the writer, the reader, and the publisher. In a world that is increasingly beginning to depend on all-purpose gadgets for their facebook and twitter and music and phone calls, an i-phone library was bound to happen soon enough, wasn’t it?
And if you like an author on your i-phone and want to read more, look up the Ether website, because they promote other works from their writers.
And this is not all. The Ether App is yet young and developing. By next year, they hope to make their content available on mediums other than Apple gadgets.
Okay then- a little bit of shameless plug before I round it off. I’ve had travelogues, short stories and poems published in The Statesman, an Indian newspaper, in a Dorset magazine called First Edition (it’s not published any more though) and I’m also part of three wonderful anthologies – 50 Stories for Pakistan, Shambelurking and Other Stories, and the newly released 100 Stories for Queensland. In fact, it was via the writer friends I made through these projects that I first heard about Ether. And now I've got three stories on the Ether App. (Check the right-hand column on this page). Do please read, rate and review.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoy using the Ether App, and reading all the wonderful stories up there. Give mine a chance too, be nice. :P
©Ruchira Mandal

Trumpet Calls

2011-04-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, time for an important announcement. I am now officially an Ether Book Author- that is to say- one of my stories is now available on the Ether Mobile App. It’s called ‘The Visitor’. The story deals with a famous crime-thriller writer who's taking a vacation to finish her next novel in peace, but the plan is interrupted when she receives an unexpected visitor. A visitor who has read all her books, and has taken them a tad too seriously!
As for Ether Books- Ether Books is a new and innovative publisher, providing short fiction, poetry & serials from both bestselling & emerging contemporary writers direct to your mobile phone. With the Ether app on your i-phone or i-pad you can always carry a good read in your pocket. Isn’t that convenient.
Needless to say, I’m quite delighted to be associated with them and in fact I have been waiting for this with equal amounts of anxiety and eagerness- so this comes
To build your own personal library of ‘byte sized reads’, download the FREE Ether App from the Apple Store.
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id362070951?mt=8
And don’t forget to read my story 'The Visitor' or I send my serial killer after you. :D

©Ruchira Mandal

That Whining Voice-Dealing with the Inner Critic

2011-03-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

Oh my God, I completely forgot about 2nd Tuesday this time. And missed the submission deadline. Brilliant. I'm still posting this because I wrote it and no point not posting, right?
Okay, on to the topic under discussion- Dealing with the Inner Critic, is that it?
I’m not sure I can say much on this- seeing that I’m myself not exactly an efficient arbitrator between my writing self and the skeptical, pessimistic, unhappy creature who keeps whispering things like “this plot is lousy” and “this is no good” and “why are you even writing?” She is there as I struggle to find an opening sentence to a piece of work; she is there as I get stuck midway and again when I read a first draft for the first time. How many times have I typed a sentence only for that voice to dismiss it as lame and pathetic? And I don’t know of twelve and a half ways to deal with it, all I do know is I must keep writing ignoring that voice till I can reach the end. It isn’t easy, I fail at it more than I would like, yet that’s the only solution I know of. When I finish the first draft, yes, then I do try and listen to it, and if I can’t trust it, I go for a beta. (Patti Larsen is the coolest Cat Woman around, and no, she’s got nothing to do with Gotham City as far as I know.):P
Midway through nanowrimo, my inner critic told me my novel wasn’t going anywhere. I gave it a month- and when I went back to it, I knew the voice was right. But there have been times when I’ve gone back to abandoned pieces and been able to complete them. This is all I’ve got to say- if your inner critic declares a piece of your writing as hopeless, give it time before dismissing it outright. And try and ignore that voice while you’re in the middle of writing something with a definite destination in mind. Finish the story/chapter/essay whatever, and then give an ear to what your inner critic has got to say.
I’m sorry my post wasn’t very useful, but I’m looking forward to picking up some great tips from you guys.
©Ruchira Mandal

12 & a ½ Ways to Deal with Writer’s’Block

2011-02-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

'I don't believe in it (writer's block). All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?' ~~Oscar Wilde

So here we are again at the second installment of Patti Larsen’s blog-hop. The topic this month has been suggested by me so you can guess this is a subject of some importance to me- a problem that bugs me frequently, making me devise various schemes to counter it. It comes in various shapes- phases of severe idea-drought, a complete lack of the will to write which sometimes culminates into a fear of the writing act (is there a name for this phobia?), the feeling that nothing I write is good enough and therefore pointless…no matter what it is- there are periods when even the most prolific of us have difficulty in carrying out the one activity that means so much to us. My idea behind suggesting this topic was that by having all of us share our opinions and experiences, we may be able to help this out, and I’ll begin by listing out some of the things that I have tried myself with some degree of success. So here we go:
1.Take a walk. I do it in the evenings, on the roof of my house where I can enjoy a little seclusion and even talk to myself without anyone feeling the impulse to call the psychiatrist. You can change the place and time to whatever suits you.
2.Morning Papers- Everybody knows about it, of course, and when done seriously and regularly, it does help one to come up with new ideas. For me, it’s not strictly morning papers, though- or put in another way, morning is twenty minutes before I start the writing proper at any time of the day! It’s all about just jotting down whatever comes to mind, no worries about spelling, grammar, caps or quality because no one else is going to read it - I find the use of the ‘stream of consciousness’ method an extremely freeing exercise.
3.Change your equipment, timings, location. I used to write fanfiction a few years back- and I usually wrote my chapters in a paper notebook first, and then type out the 2nd draft on my PC. Whenever I got stuck in the first draft however, I would abandon the pen and paper and come straight to the keyboard. And it did work most of the time. Similarly, a change of the room where you write or the hour at which you write may help in some cases.
4.Take a short break from your WIP and write something else- a different genre may be. Flash fiction is an excellent idea, it is short enough so you can come back to your original project, there are sites that offer flash writing prompts, and tweeting about #FridayFlash usually gets you lovely comments that would make anyone want to write again!
5.Re-start. Forget what you’ve written so far and make another beginning. Or write another part of the story and connect the dots later. That’s how I managed to finish The Maneater, my entry for Lisa M Stull’s horror story contest.
6.Read your story to yourself. Tell it to a friend and ask for suggestions. You may come up with something yourself during the discussion.
7.Write about the stumbling block in your WIP before you go to sleep at night. You may wake up with a solution.
8.Plug off the internet, or at least block facebook and twitter and whatever site you’re addicted to (I’m addicted to mugglenet, for instance). And yes, please don’t say practice what you preach to my face.
9.Indulge in your other passions and hobbies- singing, gardening, dancing…whatever it is. The plot for my first ever Friday Flash came to me while I was practicing for my Indian Classical Music class.
10.Describe things, places, people and smells. Could be anything from the sunset to an anthill to your favourite lipstick. It keeps you writing, and you never know- one of these paragraphs may end up in a bestseller someday.
11.Meditation, yoga, fitness classes- I do not know this yet- I’ve heard they help you concentrate. I’m planning to start this month.
12. Give yourself a deadline- or give yourself short goals- like writing for ten minutes, or writing a page, and then carry on from there. Again, this is a method I used for The Maneater, forcing myself to put word after word, sentence after sentence, on to the next line. When it was finally over I was so exhausted I could not bear to read the finished draft for two days.
So that makes twelve. And here’s the half bit:
When nothing works and you can think of nothing to write about, you can write a blog-post about Writer’s Block.:P
And although this writer here presents a hilariously bleak view of dealing with the problem, just listen to Mr.Wilde up there and keep fighting. We love to write, so we will, right?
Finally, links. Here’s another list of How To’s – perhaps you may find it helpful. And yet another blogger has shared a few tips on writing and the pros and cons of every method.

Happy Writing.

Writing Challenge: WRITER'S BLOCK
Second Tuesday 2: Words Shy of Daylight - Alberta Ross 12 & a ½ Ways to Deal with Writer’s’Block - Ruchira Mandal Second Tuesday - Writer's Block - Patti Larsen Iain the Cat opines on Writer's Block - Jeannie Using Writer's Block as an Excuse to not Write - Rebeca Schilller Writer's Block - Gary Varner Second Tuesday - Writer's Block and the Tooth Fairy - Annetta Ribken Writer's Block or Writer's Withdrawal - Eden Baylee Breaking Past Writer's Block - Elise VanCise
This post is part of a monthly writing challenge known as "Second Tuesday," written by members of the Fellow Writers' Facebook group. Click on any link above to read another "Second Tuesday" post. Enjoy!

New Connections: Social Networking and Writers’ Groups

2011-01-08T07:46:00.001-08:00

This time last year, I was used to logging into Twitter only to check the tweets of a handful of celebrities that I was following at that time, and to occasionally tweet about my bouts of fever or exam anxieties to no one in particular. My blog was in coma, I spent most of my Facebook time playing Zynga games (Yoville, Farmville, CafeWorld, Petville, Fishville- you name them, I’ve played them all, with the probable exception of Mafia) and in short my social (networking) life was near about non-existent. Then there were last minute revisions, then the exams, then post-exam trips to the shopping mall and to the movie theatre- and I disappeared from the Internet. When I returned in the 2nd half of the year, I went back to playing games. It would have probably gone on like this if I did not receive that message out of nowhere from the 100 Stories for Haiti Facebook group, asking for submissions for yet another charity anthology, this time for the victims of the Pakistan flood. Before this message, I didn’t know that whole anthologies could be put together via social networking sites. All I knew about the Haiti book was that the proceeds from the sales went to the victims of the earthquake. I heard about the book via the First Edition FB page (FE being a Dorset magazine that had published a couple of my poems. It doesn’t exist anymore) and I had joined their group because one of the 100 authors (I don’t remember who it was, it might even have been Greg McQueen- the editor himself) had requested people to like and join. Then the message came, I gave it my best shot and was soon part of 50 Stories for Pakistan. We were asked to promote the book, and I began tweeting, expecting as usual that no one would read my tweets. But the #storiesforpakistan tag brought me my first writer followers- I believe Rebecca Emin was the first one of them and all of a sudden I had a whole new world of writing open before me. I learned of writing prompts, Fiction Fridays, Six Minute Stories & One Minute Stories and writing contests on various blogs. Through the tweets of Rebecca, I learned of yet another anthology looking for submissions- Shambelurking & Other Stories. Another hash tag, another Twitter list, some more new connections.
And then came NaNoWriMo. My newly acquired writer friends were tweeting about it,and even though I didn't even no what all this was about, i jumped headlong into it. I asked around & realized I had to write a novel in a month. A novel? I hadn't contemplated writing novels at that point of my life- that too in a month. But my new connections said it was fun, and I took the plunge. I lost pretty badly of course,but in the process I learned things about plotting, outlining, character charts etc. etc., and I am still learning. NaNoWriMo also got me added to two writers’ group on Facebook – Fellow Writers and Thursday’s Novelists. In fact, it was through the former that I came across Patti Larsen- the lovely lady behind this blog-hop to whom I had sent a distress mail to ask for help with outlining during Nano.
The point I’m trying to make here is for me- the whole thing has been like a chain reaction- from First Edition to Haiti to 50 Stories to Friday Flashes to a blog fest: 2010 has been the year of new connections online for me and these new connections have opened up possibilities and opportunities that I had never imagined were there. Through Fellow Writers’ for example- I am part of this blog-hop. Now this might not be a great blog, in fact you might be already snoring over your keypad but at least it has got me writing. I was part of the Christmas Horror Contest on FecklessGoblin’s blog, I didn’t win- but I wrote a couple of pieces for it, and that was very satisfying to myself. I did my first Friday Flash on Halloween last year- and thanks to kind retweets and Mr.Linky on the Write Anything site, I had more responses than all the comments in my blog archive put together. That itself is a wonderful incentive to write again next week, isn’t it? Now I am a big procrastinator, and I’m quite lazy too- so I’ve done only four Friday Flashes so far- but when I saw other people tweeting about their own stories yesterday- it made me feel pretty ashamed of myself. Hopefully my blog will begin to look more and more regular as 2011 unfolds. Here’s raising a toast to more new connections in the New Year. And since you were so nice as to tolerate my blabbering self-love, I’ll post a more helpful blog-link for you, titled Thank Goodness for Social Networking.
That’s all for now. If you want to connect with me- my twitter link is on the right hand bar.

Me With the 'Shambelurkers'

2010-12-27T01:10:00.000-08:00

The Missing Key

We found our compartment and after a brief, ritual fight over the window seats, settled down. There was a group photo (“Don’t leave me out!” “Stop pushing me-you’re still within the frame”) and then the whistle blew. The train chugged slowly out of the platform and moms and dads with waving hands jogged backward from our windows.

“Cheers!” said the Pink Princess. “Three days of freedom- no parents, no homework, no…”
“We are supposed to study botanical specimens on this trip.” The Bookworm frowned at Princess.
“Hey, don’t spoil the fun before it’s begun.” I said. “It’ll be over soon enough anyway.”
The Kitten brought out a cake she had baked for the journey, and I started tuning my radio to find the FM. We were all gearing up for the party when trouble struck.

The Aspiring Loafer announced she could not find her key. Her suitcase was now securely chained to the berth with a lock that couldn’t be opened. Well, Loafer was legendary for missing things right under her nose. We knew she had used the key to lock her things on the train, so it had to be somewhere around. We searched the corners of our seats. We made futile forays into the labyrinthine pockets of the oversized jacket she had borrowed from her brother; and then into our own, with the same results. We were looking below the berths but when the distressed victim announced that she couldn’t spoil a parents-and-brother-free night and went off to dance with the girls in the adjacent coupe, we somehow lost the motivation. She returned panting after a while.
“Have you found it?”
“No.” Said Kitten. The rest of us were too annoyed to reply.
“I’ll just have to leave my case in the train, then.” She declared with the air of an ascetic about to renounce all worldly belongings.

The Bookworm, looking simply outraged, got out her own key – their locks were of the same brand, from the same platform stall – and turned it in the keyhole.
Click. It worked.
“Wow! What amazingly secure locks!” said Loafer. “Kitten, pass the cake please. I’m hungry. And thanks, Bookworm.”
Bookworm muttered something indistinct.

“Lights off.” Said our teacher, “And no, you can’t dance in the dark. Lights off means you go to sleep. Now.”
Five minutes later, I felt someone scrambling into my berth.
“Loafer! What the…”
“Make space, Looney, I’m so excited, I can’t sleep.”
Then there was a sudden thud, followed by another, as Loafer took off her shoes and threw them down. That woke up Bookworm, as her berth was right below mine.
“Will you stop raining shoes from up there?” She shouted, craning her neck to glare at us in the dark.
“It didn’t hit you, did it?” Loafer retorted, “Stop complaining and go to sleep. Good night. Guess what, Looney? I got myself a new camera, well actually, it’s my brother who bought it but…”

“Looney, wake up. I need your torch.”
I woke up with a start.
“What! Are we there already? It’s still dark, Loafer.”
“Exactly. That’s why I need your torch, I can’t find my hairbrush in the dark.” Loafer explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
I found my torch and passed it to her. “Honestly, Loafer, I had only just dozed off.”
“Go back to sleep. We still have three hours before we reach.” Said Loafer cheerfully. “Now where is my hairbrush? Princess, will you lend me your hairbrush please? I can’t find mine.”
“Do you have to carry out your beauty-care routine at four in the morning?” The Bookworm asked.
“Beauty-care? What beauty-care? I only want to look a presentable human specimen when I meet your botanical friends, Bookworm.”

The guesthouse was nestled among lush tea gardens, fronting a thicket of pine trees that opened into the Chalsa forest.
“I wish we could lose our way there and find ourselves in magic-land.” Said Pink Princess, gazing dreamily at the woods.
“Oh good! We’ll find loads of specimens over there.” Said Bookworm.
“And here’s my hideout for my future mafia don days.” Loafer yawned
“I thought you were becoming an established loafer?” I asked.
“Oh, I just promoted myself!” she replied airily.

The road coiled round the mountain python-like all the way to Loleygaon where the clouds descended along the pine-dotted slopes like waterfalls in slow motion. The snowline remained elusive, so we contented ourselves with collecting fern specimens. On the way back, we visited a monastery where boy-lamas studied at low desks in mysterious, enchanting classrooms.
“If my term results are too bad,” said Princess, “This is where I’m gonna run away to.”
It was a viable option, I thought, as I remembered the highly unpleasant math question paper that took me five Dairy Milks to recover from. And although the place had absolutely no trace of any botanical specimens, even Bookworm said she would love to come back there.

Sometime later, Loafer lost her handkerchief while studying orchids.
“She’ll probably lose her guns in about a minute if she ever becomes a mafia don.” Bookworm commented wryly, but only I heard her.

On the last morning, we visited Bindu, a border-area village. We were in separate Jeeps and when we arrived, Loafer and Bookworm were coming arm-in-arm down the bridge with chants of “We went to Bhutan! We went to Bhutan!” as the Border Security personnel indulgently looked on.
After lunch we hurriedly packed our bags. The holiday was over. It was time to bid goodbye to the dense green woodlands under the canopy of white clouds, and to the carefree campfires at night. It was time to return to the city, to school, to the tedious everydayness of life.
While we were arranging our luggage, Loafer discovered her lost key in one of her pockets.
Had she really lost the key on the train? I wondered. Was it just her idea of fun? My thoughts were disrupted by Loafer wailing again.
“But where’s the lock gone, now?”
“We aren’t searching the forests for you.” Said Bookworm. “We’ll miss the train.”
“It wouldn’t be such a bad idea.” The Loafer muttered, following Bookworm into the bus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Land of Dreams: a fairy-rhyme

Do dreams come true? Fairies would know.
They rule the lands where dreams do grow.
And tend them with their charmed care,
Their secret spells of sea and air,
Of April leaves and winter snow-
With such magic, they dream seeds sow.

Where are their lands? The seas can tell-
The endless waves that set hopes sail,
And dancing boughs in forests deep,
The gates of fairy-dreamland keep,
Where fairies chanting mystic runes
Give our dreams their rainbow tunes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, these were my two contributions in the collection Shambelurkers & Other Stories- posted on my blog at the request of my friend Sanjana.
The collection has a lot more wonderful stories- & some awesome poems about creaking grandmothers & portable pets & buttered toes & many such insanities, and also, all profits from the book go to the National Autistic Society of UK- so if you're interested in buying the book, here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/2unq4pv
P.S: I'll put up my story in the 50 Stories for Pakistan collection next Monday.

The Surprise Santa

2010-12-17T03:17:00.000-08:00

“Lend you my batmobile? You gotta be kidding, right?” The Batman exclaimed, glaring at me with equal amounts of outrage and disbelief.
“You’re taking the batcopter, so you can spare-”
“Do you even know how to hold a steering wheel?”
“Don’t think there are any flipper compatible ones, Bruce,” the CatWoman sniggered, “I dare say even Wayne Industries is yet to come up with one.”
I ignored the collective jibes that followed and tried to plead once more.
“I can peck at the button controls. Look, how else am I going to deliver gifts in time to so many people?”
How does Santa do it every year, anyway? Note to Self: Find out working up plans from reindeers. Must find one first though, opposite poles!
“I don’t care,” Batman replied, “You’re not going anywhere near any of my cars.”
This is so damn selfish! He’s supposed to help people. Well, perhaps he doesn’t consider me to be people enough.:(
“Then let me come with you,” I said, “I’ll help you rescue Santa and someone else amongst you can deliver the gifts.”
“You, come with us? You can’t even fly! What use are you going to be? That’s no business for you. And anyway, I hear the gang includes ol’ Lex Luther- that will need my help. No time to play postman.” Said Superman.
“Can’t you help me?” I asked the He-Man.
“How dare you? I’m Master of the Universe! I save the world!” He turned to the crowd- “Who named this useless creature a superhero anyway?”
“Some crackpot blogger,” said Batman, “and as for me, I would be more proper as a Halloween guest. Bats and Christmas hardly go together.”
“What if I accidentally go angry and green and hulky and get stuck inside the chimney?”
“I can’t ruin people’s misled-toes and silver bells with my slimy spider-webs, that’s unfair.”
“The electromagnetic pulse of my iron suit might hamper Christmas lighting and music. Highly undesirable at this time of the year.”
“None of the alien forms are particularly adept at courier services, or I would lend you my omnitrix.”
“I’m not going down a sooty chimney, it’s not a woman’s job.”
“You know what?” Said Superman- “We might be able to bring back Santa in time for Christmas. Wish us luck!”

I watched them take off- one after the other-setting off to rescue Santa from the kidnappers. I kept gazing skywards long after they had vanished. Seriously, why couldn’t I fly? Then I remembered the gifts. I glanced down at the large sack lying on the snow. A bag full of toys, dolls, books, sweets. A bag full of a million hopes. What on earth was I going to do? I couldn’t even lift this up! Then it came to me- the plan that had worked before. I started dancing.
Tap tap tap tap tap. Dance your wishes true. Love and hope, go tap tip tope. I love to dance, I do! Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
A small crowd gathered. Then they told (might have called, tweeted, retweeted-how would I know?) others about it. A bigger crowd gathered. I showed them the sack. The rest was not my business.
The great superheroes managed to rescue Santa Claus, but by that time, Christmas was over and everybody had got their gifts. And I went back to Gloria.
And while the world celebrated the superheroes, only one crackpot blogger remembered to mention how Mumbo Happy Feet danced to save Christmas from a near disaster.

Who brought your gift?
‘Twas Happy Feet!
He couldn’t fly,
He was rather shy
To fight villains tall.
But he cared for all
And couldn’t let your Christmas ruin-
So he danced, the sweet Penguin
And ensured that you got your gift
Thanks, Happy Feet.

©Ruchira Mandal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Write Anything prompt for this week was: "Santa Claus has been kidnapped only hours before he is set to start his Christmas deliveries. Whilst the other superheros rescue and punish the offenders, it is up to one Superhero to undertake Santas role this Christmas. Who will it be? How will they go?"
I had fun writing this. Hope you had as much fun reading.

Waiting One Night

2010-12-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Midnight.
The shadows have lengthened on the kitchen wall, flickering over dried oil sores, scalded tea stains, the stale boiled rice glued to the cobwebbed tiles. The candle shrinks slowly- the exhausted wax dripping down to a misshapen heap on the counter beside the oven. As the ants inside the sugar jar slip into comfortable snoring, Mrs. Mishra makes a decision. The moon watches with interest from her high seat the earthly woman’s hard, set face as it bends over the wavering flame before blowing it off. Now it’s dark, the air sleeps. Or perhaps stays silently awake, waiting.

***

When the smoky dusk pervades the wistfully lingering afternoon, Mrs. Mishra in her tiny, damp kitchen remembers the swaying cashew trees of her childhood seaside town. She remembers also the benign shadow of the Sun god’s chariot temple where her father worked as a tourist guide. There was no deity in that abandoned altar; neither sonorous chanting nor the ringing of ritual bells ever startled the Sun’s seven riding horses or the ancient elephants standing guard before the inner sanctum. But benediction from the heavens brought the ancient stones to life everyday while a little afar tireless waves crashed endlessly on the sand. The revving of a bike, a bicycle ringing past, the sounds of children playing and laughing- jolt her back to the kitchen cum pantry lined with wooden shelves. A flurry of accustomed movement follows- the rusty tins of tealeaves and sugar from the corner are placed beside the oven with a spoon and a strainer beside the oven. Worn hands pour a cup of water into the kettle as the amused ants climb up to the rim of the jar and start taking bets.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
It appears that the ants win, as they mostly do. Calling bells ring, doors open and close, the smell of incense sticks mingle with the echoes of conch shells in family prayer-rooms. Television sets announce the evening news bulletin to the neighborhood at large, except to the Mishra household- where no one has come home for tea. The ants chuckle to themselves.
She puts away the tea things- excluding the kettle, lights a candle, and forages in the cabinet above the counter, bringing out a dented carton, the dim light still revealing the hazy outline of a smiling sunflower and the colorful letterings of some wise adage about love, peeled and scraped through the passing years. As she makes to shut the cabinet back, a bundle of paper rolls out and drops on the counter beside the cloth bag resting against the greasy white tiles. Mrs. Mishra doesn’t notice, or perhaps doesn’t care. A whiff of something powdery escapes as she lifts open the lid. She peers into the carton, and then holds it upside down over a large pan. A skimpy handful of flour flows out, the candle making it look eerily like gold dust. She pours the kettle water into the pan and begins kneading. The light flares over her bulging green veins, over the cuts and the bruises, the cigarette stamps as the thin, blistered pair of hands shift through the sticky white mass.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Reality shows have replaced the newsreaders- the music floats in through the open kitchen window. The flour is kneaded; the chapattis are ready for the oven. Mrs. Mishra empties the cloth basket into the sink- a few shriveled beans and lumpy potatoes tumble out. She washes the vegetables with water stored in an earthen pitcher and then brings them back to the counter to peel.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Mrs. Mishra heats oil in a pot. When the oil begins to hiss, she throws in the vegetable pieces. She stirs and prods, but there isn’t enough oil to fry them properly. She sighs and pours water. The soggy contents whistle with a momentary puff of white smoke, which disintegrates like a faery dream. She rummages the mostly empty containers- scouring their glass walls for a little seasoning- a pinch of turmeric, perhaps; a little salt. Mrs. Mishra raises a hand to push out a disheveled strand of hair out of an eye. A little speck of flour glitters over her brow as the candle flares, throwing the lines on her face in high relief.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Through the rusty grilles of her kitchen window, Mrs. Mishra watches the moon rising with familiar indifference- as she’s risen over the years, a nonchalant witness to the first flush of home-making, then the early rows, the late nights, the tears, the verbal abuse, the beatings. The chapattis remain unmade; the vegetables have gone cold, again. She rises to put them away when she sees a roll of old, musty papers behind the oven. She spreads them under the candlelight and sees that they are bills- electric, water, and telephone- all unpaid, all overdue. They’re all really backdated too – those bills don’t come any more to the house. She rolls them up again and makes to put them away in the cabinet, then stops. She contemplates for a few seconds, and then tosses the paper out of the window.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Midnight.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock…
An incoherent, off-key ballad is heard. But it does not disturb the repose of the neighborhood. The singing performance is as regular as the evening news, they’ve got used to it. The pounding on the door follows. But the door is not locked today.
The man stumbles in as the door suddenly opens, loosing his balance, and bringing with him a strong whiff of cheap alcohol. As he regains his footing, a gambling ticket falls out of his hand. He swears, but there's nobody to listen.
The moon on the Western sky is already faint.

Far away, a woman walks alone, her eyes set on the day’s first crimson hues tingeing the Eastern horizon. The twittering birds greet her as the morning breeze rumples her uncombed hair. Her face is tired, her eyes sleepless, she stumbles on the uneven road. But she walks on, undeterred. Somewhere, she knows, an ancient chariot wheel is turning again.

©Ruchira Mandal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I experimented with the narration in this story, do you think it works? I did away with the first ending since all of you like the second better. Also, if you are not too annoyed with me already, could you read this one and vote for me?
http://authortrek.com/short-stories/2010/12/01/the-visitor/

Christmas Reading

2010-12-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

Good Reads for Good Causes

50 Stories for Pakistan by 50 writers

Produced by Big Bad Media http://www.bigbadmedia.com
Look at the image on the cover of this book.(it's right there on the side bar)
A man and a boy knee-deep in water. Father and son? Uncle and nephew? Teacher and pupil? Or perhaps just a kid, lost, tagging on to an adult in the hope that he will be taken somewhere safe, dry?
They are wading away from the light into the darkness and gloom. The unknown. Fear. Hunger. Disease. But they are also wading towards you. They can’t ask for your help. You must choose to give it.
A simple way of doing that is to buy this book. Proceeds go to helping the victims of the Pakistan floods.
Available from the Blurb bookstore: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1678288
£4.95

Shambelurkling and Other Stories is an anthology of children’s stories and poems from writers far and wide, with all profits going to National Autistic Society Early Learning Plus Programme. £3.99 (£1.06 per copy to the charity).
Available from www.lulu.com

100 Stories for Haiti is a collection of short stories published to raise money for relief efforts in disaster-stricken Haiti. All proceeds go to the Red Cross.
100 Stories for Haiti was published on March, 4th, 2010, as an ebook on Smashwords.com, and as a paperback available online and in shops. Watch the project's website for more details: www.100storiesforhaiti.org
http://www.bigbadmedia.com

Also- you could vote for my short story here:
http://authortrek.com/short-stories/2010/12/01/the-visitor/

'Shambelurkling and Other Stories' now available on Lulu

2010-11-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

'Shambelurkling and Other Stories' is an anthology of short stories and poems for children between 8 and 12 years of age, which has been compiled and edited by the lovely Marit Meredith (The Pages Magazine).

The book is now for sale via Lulu.com as a paperback or download. Whichever format you chose, the National Autism Society will receive £1.06 per copy sold.

And oh the most important part: It has got my poem - 'The Land of Dreams: A Fairy Rhyme' and also my story- 'The Missing Key.'

It has got also got contributions from Rebecca Emin, Rachel Carter,Emma Kerry, Mandy K James, Cindy Schuerr,Trevor Belshaw, Jonathan Pinnock, Sharon Birch, Maureen Vincent-Northam and many others. I'm dying to read it all (*checks letter-box and sighs sadly*)

You can buy the paperback version, or download the ebook version. For each copy sold, the National Autism Society will receive £1.06. A good book, and a good cause. Merry Christmas in advance.:)

P.S: The book will later be available on amazon with an ISBN, and a slightly higher price.;)That will be next year, I guess, for now, here we go:

Here's the list of writers- in no particular order:

Marit Meredith
Mandy K. James
Maureen Vinvent-Northam
Rosa Johnson
Rebecca Emin
Ruchira Mandal
Mark O'Brien
Jonathan Pinnock
Marilyn Sylvester
Jay
Ben Sherman
Rachel Carter
Trevor Belshaw
Cynthia Schuerr
Christine Lesley Nedahl
Myra King
June Gundlack
Emma Kerry

Fruit Punch-FictionFriday2

2010-11-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #180 for Nov 5th, 2010

Your Main Character picks a sliver of glass from their sleeve and gravely inspects it……..( now keep writing)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fruit Punch

Monica picked out a sliver of glass from the linen mesh of her sleeve and inspected it gravely. It was thin, sharp and jagged. She was lucky it hadn’t cut her arm. The front of her white boho shirt was all spoiled with fruit punch.
A few people around them had stopped in the middle of their dancing to know what the commotion was about.
“I’m so, so, sorry,” the light-eyed man was apologizing endlessly, “I just slipped. I swear I’ve got to get some new shoes. Here, are you okay?” He extended a hand.
She could have got up on her own, but he was grinning so sheepishly, like he wouldn’t think she had accepted his apologies if she didn’t take his hand, so she did. It was a muscular and firm grip, but also warm and soft and… was that a paper brushing against her palm? He let go as soon as she was on her feet and then turned to apologize to the waiter.
“Look I’ll pay for the glasses I broke, I just slipped, okay?”
She turned away, curious to read the note. It was a paper napkin. She unfolded it and read:

Saw a man fiddling with that drink. Be careful. - Said the untidy, looping scrawl.

She shivered and gave a quick glance around the room. There were fewer girls in the club tonight, several men slouched alone in semi-dark corners of the dance floor, a few loitered carelessly with drinks in hand- many of them looked like they could turn dangerous at a moment’s notice. The big, powerfully built man in the grey polo at the bar-counter especially looked sinister. It was risky for a girl to be alone at a club these days. Monica felt her throat growing dry as technicolour fluorescent beams poured over the shining, polished tiled floor. She checked the time. Perhaps she should wait a little? She settled on one of the plush, black-leathered sofas and continued watching the half-hidden faces whirling to the frenzied music amidst the eerie flashing lights. She jumped as her phone rang and pressed the set against her ear.

“What? You mean you’re not coming back to pick me up? I’ve to go home alone? You gotta be kidding, right?” The last sentence rose to a shrill, high pitch over the heavy metal.

“Is there a problem?” It was the man who had warned her about the drink.

“I…yes,” Monica faltered, embarrassed at her outburst, “well, not really. It’s just that I was waiting for a friend, but now he has just called me to say he’s stuck and can’t come to pick me up.”

“Oh, that’s bad.” Concern flickered into those light brown eyes. “But I suppose you can go home- it’s not too late, is it? You’ll still catch the last train if you hurry.”

“I suppose so.” She replied distractedly. “Anyway, thanks for the tip about the drinks.”

“Oh that was nothing.” He waved his hand, “I could’ve been mistaken, you know. The guy may’ve been just adding something to his own drink. I just panicked and acted like an idiot. I’m really sorry about your shirt too.”

“Nevertheless, you tried to help. Thank you.”

“If you insist-” He was grinning sheepishly again, “I thought I looked quite foolish myself, walking into the poor waiter. He almost got me thrown out. Hey, listen; which way will you be going? I could give you a lift if you wished.”

Monica smiled brightly, looking immensely relieved. “That’ll be great.”

***

“So is he your boyfriend, the guy who called?” He asked, his eyes on the windshield before him.

“Boyfriend? Hell, no –he’s a colleague, actually. We’re into television production, he was supposed to bring a new actor to the club today, but it didn’t work out. What about you? Won’t your girlfriend mind you left her alone at the club?”

He turned to look at her, leaning over slightly towards her seat, his eyes the shade of chocolate in the shadowy darkness inside the car.

“I wasn’t with anyone. I wouldn’t ever leave a girl I liked alone at the club.” He grinned sheepishly again- as the heat from the engine warmed her face.

The car gave a sudden ugly jerk causing them to almost fall into each other. The engine stopped. The man swore loudly and then glanced apologetically towards her.

“This car is getting old. Will you wait here for a few minutes? I’ll get her running again in no time.”

Monica nodded. He got down and then disappeared behind the raised bonnet cover.

Seconds stretched into minutes. She could hear sounds of his tinkering into the engine. Then it was silent. After five minutes, she opened her door.

The bonnet cover was open, but there was no one around. Where did he go? She walked back towards her door, lost in thought.

***
Silently, the man watched her from behind. As she looked around for him, calling his name, he rose slowly behind her, carefully taking out a chloroformed handkerchief. Everybody knew about the murders, of course. The papers were calling him the Jack the Ripper of the Night Clubs. But nobody knew him. He would have to take care of the napkin with his handwriting before he disposed of this one.

WHAM!

As the man reeled from the punch, he saw her taking out a gun.

“Bloody scoundrel! We’ve got you at last.” Sirens pierced the night as the black jeep hurtled to halt behind the motionless car. Men who could have just been wandering alone at Night Clubs hurtled out of the car, led by someone in a grey polo shirt.

“Well done, Officer!” he said, grinning broadly at Monica.
“Waste of a good shirt.” Said the girl.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

©Ruchira Mandal
Unrealistic? I don't know. I'm not supposed to edit anyway. And although I've now done two serial killers on 2 consecutive Fridays- I swear I'm a very sweet person and not psychopathic at all.:)

Day1 of NaNoWriMo-Sharing the feeling

2010-11-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently adopted this practice of writing a page of whatever comes to my mind as a sort of ‘Morning Paper’ before getting down to whatever projects I’m working on at the moment- in this case- NaNoWriMo. I got this advise from somebody's blog, but can't remeber who, sorry.:( Today, I decided to use the Morning Paper to blog about NaNoWriMo. Incidentally, I just realized, my Microsoft Word does not recognize the spelling ‘blog’- it has been underlined in red. It’s actually weblog, I guess, but it is stil being underlined in red. Ah well, to come back to my NaNo- I’m one of those writers who can’t outline at all. I wish I could, it would make life easier, but unless I start writing I can’t immerse myself into whatever I’m writing and therefore can not look ahead, if it still doesn’t work after I start, then I give up- so basically, I’ve started November with very vague and disjointed images of whatever I’m going to work on. This probably isn’t the best method of writing, and I won’t recommend it to anyone. It helps to be organized. But if someone is as unorganized as me, then don’t despair, it will probably work out, as it has done for me. The first few hundreds may be difficult, but you’ll start enjoying it as you progress. I finished last night with 1929 words, way ahead my initial target of 1600.
Of course, I do realize that I won’t be able to keep up with this speed everyday- in fact, I’ll be missing several days- there is Diwali, there’s a family invitation to an evening soiree on the 14th that I won’t be able to avoid, there will be at least two get-togethers with two sets of friends (one from school and one from college) that I’m looking forward to, there are music lessons, cooking, house chores, and there is Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (to be honest, I’m a bit worried about how long it will take me to get Harry out of my head and come back to my novel once I’ve watched the movie). So what I’m aiming at is getting as many words typed while I can, but that doesn’t mean I’ll skip meals or sleep over it. NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun, right, not a punishment! I’d like very much to win, but that doesn’t mean the world will cease if I can’t get 50K words written before the end of this month. My aim is to finish a novel – if it happens before 30th Nov, well and good, if it doesn’t, well at least NaNo got me started – I can still finish it because in the end, nothing matters except you and your writing.
Like I said in my last post- I’m not the most experienced writer at NaNoWriMo and can only share my own experiences rather than advise others. The day before yesterday I was freaking out over the 50K target- and so I went and checked my own fanfiction account. I found that my longest work there had over 62 K words, and that made me immensely relieved. All right, I’ve done it before. True, I did not do it in one month, not even in 2 or 3 months, but I wasn’t writing everyday at that point of time. In other words, 50K is not an unreachable target if I write everyday, and if I don’t get there in the end- I’ve already said-it doesn’t matter. There’s always a next time. I started tying yesterday aiming for my first 500. At 600- I told myself- a thousand more. At 900 – I thought -let’s double this to 1800. I ended at 1507 before tea, and I told myself- if I can get 200 more I’ll be comfortably past today’s target. In the end, I wrote more than I had expected myself too.
And I’m not worrying too much about style- I edit my writings a lot. Something for me to do in December.
All right, Happy Writing, I’m off to type some more.
P.S: Checked on some of my writing buddies- some people still have zero words- but I suspect they are too busy typing to come and update their word counts. And a couple of people had done over 5000 words in a day!!! What, are they trying to finish the novel in 10 days? Scary people -they shouldn’t be allowed!!! :P Awesome job, everyone! :D
2nd Nov 2010

NaNoWriMo Tips

2010-11-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

Started my first NaNoWriMo today- did 1376 words- want to cover 1700 at least. Let's see. Feeling very panicky and restless. I think because of the deadline and the competition,every second I just want to throw away my pen(in this case the keyboard) and go hide somewhere. I mean, what does it matter- but then, I signed up for it, right? So I should give it a try. What makes me more worried is that I'll probably be missing all the weekends. Extra reason for me to write as much as I can when I can. Started at 10 am, did my page of Morning Stream of consciousness, then typed, typed, typed-did not log into the net all morning- at 12 I shut down the desktop and went off to do some singing lessons. Had lunch. Sang some more. Slept a little. The came back to typing. Popped into internet world to update word count- and now I'll go and have tea. Will come back to type in the evening.
If anyone else is feeling scared like me: I find the guidelines below helpful:

1. If you can do more than 1700+ words per day, try to do so. It takes the panic out of the equation when you miss a day. And you will miss a day. You aren’t a machine. You may miss several. Do more when you are able so there’s a cushion.

2. Stay calm. You’re not actually writing with a gun to your head. Remember this is supposed to be fun.

3. It’s probably best to have an outline. Yes, you can explore instead, but when you’re against the clock, it’s good to plan out what the major scenes are going to be ahead of time. If you find yourself pulled in another direction, there’s still no gun to your head. You can veer off as necessary and discover an entirely different ending than you had pictured. It happens all the time.

4. Remember, this is just a first draft. Don’t worry about heavy research. That’s for later. You can always fill in gaps and correct niggling details in your next draft.

5. Remember, this is just a first draft. Every year agents and editors get some submissions which are obviously the raw feed. Novels are not ready for submission just because a writer takes the time to hit spell check once.

6. Write with a buddy. Write against a buddy. Make a bet. Get some stakes in this game.

7. Know why you’re writing. Maybe this is the one way you will get a first draft done…or a good start on a first draft.

8. Try to get to the end of you story. Even if you have to stick in pages that summarize scenes, this tip will help you complete your draft later. (e.g. X happens here, write that. Y happens here, write this.) That strategy will help you harness the momentum NaNoWriMo gives and protect you from frustration and disappointment.

9. Know why you’re doing NaNoWriMo. Some writers have acted like poo heads (not Winnie the) about National Novel Writing Month. They dislike it because they figure it’s for people who aren’t very serious about their writing. Well, d’uh! They’re right! A lot of participants aren’t very serious about it. Some people participate just so they can scratch “Write a novel” off their bucket list. If you’ve read No Plot? No Problem! you know that the spirit of this thing is fun.

10. For others, it’s deadly serious and provides the motivation they feel they need to get started. What’s wrong with that? They know it’s their first draft. Maybe they haven’t written anything and been paid for it. Yet. So what? Every professional writer started out from that same place. The hotheads must be awfully threatened and snobby. Or worse, they receive awful first draft manuscripts from naïve people who don’t know the word revision.

You can visit and thank the helpful blogger who listed these tips here.

Perfumes and Lipsticks -friday fiction flash

2010-10-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

In most parts of the world, Halloween is celebrated – in some form or another – this weekend. Your challenge this week is to write a horror scene ( or something horrific) using a wet noodle, a styrofoam cup and a feather.

So here's my first go at Fiction Friday- hope its not complete rubbish.
________________________________________________
Perfumes and Lipsticks

I ignore the rusty letterbox and grope in my pocket for the keys. As the key is about to turn, my hand falters. Someone’s dropped an empty white cup in front of my door. Rage and buried melancholy fights within me, the rage wins. I crush the cup under my feet and kick it away. I turn the key. Click.

In the kitchen I open the hidden pocket inside my bag and take the knife wrapped in cellophane to the sink. When the last drop of red is gone, I turn off the tap, replace the knife and open the window.

It is getting cold. The wind from the North is dry, slightly chilling, and it brings a strange scent with it- almost imperceptible, but then I always had a good nose. And after so many years, so many girls, I know the perfumes, the cosmetics, the shades and the styles. This scent is familiar, but I can’t place it. It makes me uncomfortable. I go to close the windows again and my eyes fall on the outer sill- a black feather is there, along with a discarded white empty cup. What the hell? I slam the window shut and forage the cupboards for food. I had a good dinner last night, but I suppose the excitement of the job works on your digestive glands a bit quicker than normal.

I grab a packet of Maggi Noodles and wait for the water to boil. As I wait, I remember the white cup, the coffee-stained styrofoam cup she had thrown on the table- on our last date. I remember pleading to her not to leave me, her contemptuous smile, and the sudden rush of anger in my head. I have always served coffee in white styrofoam to all my girls since then.

The water boils, I break the noodle cake into it and stir. When it is done I place the bowl on the counter beside the sink to cool, and go off to wash. I need a bath to wash off last night. The girl had ghastly taste- overdone make-up on a thin famished face, orange lipstick, horrible chunky jewellary and a cheap, nauseating perfume that almost undid the surprisingly good dinner she had worked so hard at. And then she herself hardly ate it- went on and on about how everybody laughed at her and how pleased she was to have someone who understood at last, about her near mastering of the secret arts, her cat, her toads, her darling crow… in the end I had to put an end to it. I wasn’t interested in the conversation, and the perfume was getting to me. But I did feel a little bad; I usually never left my girls hungry. Anyway, what does it matter once you’re dead? I change, brush my hair and saunter back towards the kitchen.

A strong, sickening smell assails my senses as soon as I stepped on the threshold. Hadn’t I shut the windows? I rush inside to find my bowl of noodles fallen into the sink along with the knife. The blade is unwashed, stained, the noodles soggy, bloated and reeking. What? How? But I can’t think any more, the smell overwhelms me, I need fresh air. I push the window open – a blast of cold wind and the smell is suddenly magnified a million times, I almost pass out and there is a piercing scream that freezes my innards. Oh, was it just a startled crow? This smell is really getting to my brain. Stupid crow! But how did the bowl fall into the sink? My eyes turn to the counter where I’d kept it, and there’s the white styrofoam cup, but I’ve no strength left for rage anymore. This time I don’t want to crush it, I don’t even want to touch it, but I can’t take my eyes off the lurid orange lip marks at the rim. The smell is in the room is now claustrophobic, and I finally remember what it is.
©Ruchira Mandal

Read a Book -Do Some Good

2010-10-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

50 Stories for Pakistan

Helping the victims of the floods

Produced by www.bigbadmedia.com

Book Preview

50 Stories for Pakistan now on sale

2010-10-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update- you can buy the book here:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1678288

50 Stories for Pakistan features work by the following authors:

Robert J. McCarter, Joanne Fox, Erik Svehaug, Susan Lanigan, Anne Mullane, Lisa Ricard Claro, R.J. Newlyn, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Martin Webster, Jonathan Pinnock, Trevor Belshaw, Julia Bohanna, Iain Pattison, Laura Eno, Dave Clark, Pam Howes, Alun Williams, Annie Evett, Jennifer Stakes, Rebecca Emin, Marjorie Tolchard, Marit Meredith, Paul Malone, Ewan Lawrie, Jarred McGinnis, Alex Tomlin, Gail Richards, Benjamin Solah, Ruchira Mandal, Alyson Hilbourne, Ramon Collins, Darren Lee, Riaz Ali, Nasim Marie Jafry, Heather Parker, Shazia Bibi, Andrew Parrott, Brigid O’Connor, Rob Innis, Tony Williams, Annemarie Neary, Emma Newman, Robert Long, Beryl Brown, Vanessa Couchman, Joanna Campbell, Sylvia Petter, Rosemary Hayes, Paul Anderson, and Alice Turner.

More about '50 Stories for Pakistan'

2010-09-30T01:37:00.000-07:00

Like I said, it is being published by Big Bad Media, specifically by Greg Mcqueen, &it has 50 stories by various writers including myself. Sales proceeds go to Red Cross. Buy the book, & make a difference.

A Fluttering by Robert J. McCarter
A Little Bit of Heaven by Joanne Fox
A Little Help? by Erik Svehaug
All Bound for Morningtown by Susan Lanigan
All The World's a Stage by Anne Mullane
Angel by Lisa Ricard Claro
Astral Footfalls by R.J. Newlyn
Cherry In The Summer by Martin Webster
Desert Culture by Jonathan Pinnock
Detention by Trevor Belshaw
Evelyn Walsh and The Miraculous Wig Club by Julia Bohanna
Getting Wood by Iain Pattison
Grandma by Laura Eno
I Don't Even Have a Name by Dave Clark
Just Like Her Father by Pam Howes
Ladder to God by Alun Williams
Leather Tack and Tears by Annie Evett
Lines by Jennifer Stakes
Listen by Rebecca Emin
Lucy and the Tuit by Marjorie Tolchard
Morning Toast by Marit Meredith
Mr Harris Gets A Fright by Paul Malone
No Ball by Ewan Lawrie
Nobody Dies from Drizzle by Jarred McGinnis
Office Honesty by Alex Tomlin
One of the Night Bus Folk by Gail Richards
Packages to Neighbours by Benjamin Solah
Promises by Ruchira Mandal
Seconds by Alyson Hilbourne
Sometimes by Ramon Collins
Spellbound by Darren Lee
Suki by Riaz Ali
The Bangle Man by Nasim Marie Jafry
The Critic by Heather Parker
The Day We Met by Shazia Bibi
The Hotdog Stand by Andrew Parrott
The Irish Poet by Brigid O'Connor
The Long Journey by Rob Innis
The Prisoner of Mansfield by Tony Williams
The San Marco Love Surfer by Annemarie Neary
The Scar by Emma Newman
The Sea by Robert Long
The Silver Pen by Beryl Brown
The Sparkler by Vanessa Couchman
The Summer Contest Joanna Campbell
Trashion Passion by Sylvia Petter
Wish You Were Here by Rosemary Hayes
Writing to Reach You by Paul Anderson
Zippy Bags and Post-Its by Alice Turner

Fundraising for flood vctims, and a little personal jig dance for myself

2010-09-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

So I finished my M.A Part2 exams way back in June & so for all practical purposes, I've nothing to do with my beloved university till the results come out I-don't-know-when.And I've read some books since then- Rushdie's Midnight's Children which was mesmerizing, then Shashi Tharoor's brilliant novel Riot (hey, I thought the guy only tweeted! Ignorant me!), then a non-fiction book by Amitabh Ghosh about Pokhran and nuclear weapons (well, when I bought the book from a railway station platform, I thought I was buying fiction... but anyway, Ghosh is still good, even though he totally flummoxed & disappointed me with the ending of Calcutta Chromosome) & then a Bengali translation (by Rajsekhar Basu) of the Mahabharata- which left me clueless about the roles of fate and free will in the epic, and then, guess what I ended up reading next? The vegetarian vampires cometh, netizens- yess, I've finally read Twilight. Bella - you're the most disgusting, hyper-dull damsel-in-distress that I've ever had the misfortune to encounter in fiction(I think the movie Bella is actually a little better, at least she's not gushing about her angel all the time), Edward- you are what in fanfiction terms would be called a male Mary Sue- perfect to the power of ludicrousness. To be honest, I did enjoy reading the book, as I have enjoyed many Mills&Boons stuff in the past- but for this to be a worldwide sensation? And they actually prefer this over Harry Potter? It baffles me.
Thankfully, I got a chance to recover into reading fantasy via the wonderful Inheritance Series. Christopher Paolini- please write the fourth book soon and send that Stephanie Meyer into oblivion. But everyone should hear Mark Oshiro talk about Twilight- I haven't read his Twilight reviews but he drops enough references in his Harry Potter blogs- check this out-
Mark Reads Harry Potter
And so BigBadMedia (I don't know about big & bad, but they do seem to have a fascination for blowing off people's heads- check the video on their home page) are trying to raise funds for the flood victims in Pakistan by putting together a collection of 50 stories by various writers. The reason behind the jig? I'm one of those 50 writers.
So if you've got time- take a look at this as well.
That's all folks!

Leave-taking

2009-01-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

My heart clung to the emptying room while I held you close,
And I was true in my heart as I trudged that night with unwilling steps.
And then the cab moved through ever-stretching roads,
Taking me away from you, and I boarded the train
And moved on.
And then I watched the moving hands of time impatiently
And longed to reach my destination.

And now I am home and settled, and quite at ease,
But at that hour of leave-taking, I hadn't wished to come.
I did not want to leave you, mother, but it's true I'm glad home.

Too much Butter

2009-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

In a befitting farewell by his home association, Bengal's prodigal son Sourav Ganguly was on Sunday presented a golden bat at his felicitation here as a poignant show of nostalgia marked the two-hour-long programme.

As the former Indian skipper was presented with the bat made of one kg gold worth Rs 25 lakh, confetti was showered amid a dazzling display of fireworks in the Cricket Association of Bengal function 'Celebrating a legend'.

Speaking on the occasion, chief guest of the function West Bengal Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty described Ganguly as a 'Dhruv Tara' (the guiding star) and compared him with the warrior Arjuna who battled all odds in the Mahabharata...

Don't get me wrong, people! I have been a Saurav-Ganguly fan since 1996, I have spent countless nights praying in bed for his century, I have crossed the decibel limit a thousand times(and am still prepared to do so)defending him against nasty critics-the Chappell -legion. But frankly, I don't see the idea behind gifting him 1kg gold in this recession-hit market - yeah, I'm talking money, because remember, it's ultimately the tax-payer's money that is being spent. The State Government has always gone overboard with Ganguly even during his playing days- why should we pay for the necklace of his wife and the Chinese doll of his daughter which the CM once gifted to them? Of course Ganguly deserves to be honoured, but surely a less 'golden'token would have sufficed? And where were these people between 1992-1996 when Ganguly was struggling to make it back to the team? Interestingly, the minister who compared Dada with Arjuna today was calling him mere "puffed rice a few days back." And that was another Extravaganza on public money. What is the net result of Maradona coming to India to wave at a few people and then depart with his appearance fees as far as the basic condition of Indian football is concerned? Nothing. It all amounted to a big zero. And a noted Indian athlete has commented how 16 modern tracks could be built, and poor junior players given new shirts with the money that was splurged on Maradona. Once Abhinav Brinda won the gold, state governments were competing with each other to give him money. Why? It was not that he needed the money? Nor did Ganguly. Why don't they spend the money on budding players, on pre-Olympic trainings? But what's the point? That won't win them votes. Our leaders care only about celebrities they can utilize and no more. The result, as they say, is one side of the bread is so damned buttered that it nauseates.

Movie Review: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

2009-01-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

I think this is my first full-fledged movie review. I would have liked to review a few other movies I loved(I have mentioned some of them in this review), but as usual I felt lazy about blogging and typing and...oh, whatever, let's get to Rab ne Bana Di Jodi. The story isn't quite( to quote a part of its catch-line)"extraordinary", we know what is going to happen before we are halfway through, but the treatment, the approach make sit special.The best part of this movie is its extreme feel good spirit that allows you to come out of the hall thinking that the world is not so terrible a place after all, and that a movie can work wonderfully without any violence or vulgarity or twisted issues, depending on simple, basic human emotions instead. Another good thing is what SRK has said in an interview is that the songs do not stop the movie- and that is the way songs should be picturised in movies and in recent times, I have seen movies where the songs are used to push the story forward, like certain songs in JodhaAkbar(mindblowing songs, those, by the way), songs in Taare Zameen Par(what a movie) and a couple of songs in Jab We Met(another simple lovestory). The acting is superb, not just the trio of Khan, Sharma and Pathak but also the sideline people like Sahni's office colleagues, the Sumo wrestler and the Punjabi man hosting the contest with a Japanese fan in his hand, the owner of the garage etc. etc. Vinay Pathak is superb and Anushka Sharma is so fresh she never seems to be acting. I find her prettier and more expressive than SRK's last debutante leading lady, namely Deepika Padukone. I hope she will do many more good roles in the years to come. As for Shahrukh, people are saying that Sahni was a better avataar than Raj and that the latter is too loud, but I think Sharukh has done both roles wonderfully without remotely appearing the Superstar in either case. Sahni of course is very endearing, the way he says "love ho gaya" or "lighting up your lives ji", the way he places a rose and then replaces it, the way he gazes adoringly at the yellow tiffin-carrier... but Raj is great too- he is loud because he is meant to be loud because he does not really fit into the role he is trying to put on. His sigining of dialogue-"Hum hai rahi..." and the way he says it absolutely rocks. The comedy is great yet not overdone, and the song with the five girls is a great tribute to Hindi film music. But more than any of the songs, I loved the Haule Hauel music at different moments of the movie. A friend told me that the moment of Taani's realization at the Golden temple was stupid, because had she gone there with her dance-partner instead of her husband, she would have seen God, and by default her love, in Raj. I don't think the scene is that literal, though. Taani did not pray to be physically shown the person she loves, she prayed so that God would make her realize the love that was already in her heart, she wanted direction to understand who she really loved. Sahni walking forward after she opens her eyes was more for the audience's benefit than for her own, and well, it makes the scene more filmy that way. Aditya Chopra has done a good job. I like this movie better than Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

I look back...

2009-01-01T02:38:00.000-08:00

In anger at all the terror strikes India suffered this year, especially the one in November.At Singur and Nandigram.I look back in anger at all the deaths of average Indians like you and me who fell to politicians and their clout, their greed, their egotism in all parts of the country, from cities to villages. I look back in anger at the communal hatreds fanned by opportunists for their own evil profits. I look back in anger at the smoking ban so brazenly being flouted everywhere and nothing being done about it. I look back in anger at the sheer mismanaged and ill-spent "Maradona dhamaka".

On a more personal note, I look back in anger at the unfinished Metro expansion. Another year of promise gone, and I am still having to resort to a 3-break journey everyday. And I look back in anger and increasing frustration at a lot of my CU hours. I look back in anger at the cars, buses, tempos, lorries that honked their way this year through Kolutollah Street and promise to do the same next year, and the next year, despite it being situated between a hospital and an educational institution.
There are other feelings too:
I look back with terrible longing to my last months in college. I look back with nostalgia to all the get-together and movie-outings and mall-hopping I did last year with friends and family.

A Happy New Year to all of You.

It is gone in a blink!

2008-12-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

Is it really the end of December? Where did all the months go? The year seems to have started only yesterday! Like every other year, of course! I am having a mixed time this season, happy with friends, frustrated with university and I hope the New Year may prove more enjoyable for me as well as all of you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! Wash your socks and clean the chimney,'cause Sana Claus is coming to town!

Mumbai attacks

2008-11-30T06:02:00.000-08:00

I had a friend in Mumbai. Thankfully she was safe and we could contact her. Others were not so lucky. And I saw a white pigeon flying by the burning Taj, flying for safety, perhaps. Looked a Prometheun fool to me. I was also wondering where the self-styled protectors of 'Marathi' Mumbai were- hiding, possibly, as 'Indian' commandoes and soldiers gambled their lives to save others. And when would our politicians wake up- after the whole country is taken over?

Time of the Mother

2008-09-29T00:10:00.001-07:00

Nothing hot and happening, really, except the weather. Its either very hot, or it rains so badly that I have to swim in the streets. Well, College Street is flooded anyway if there's a wispy cloud in the sky, I suppose I just have to get used to it. University sucks. Just thought I would wish you all a Happy Durga Puja and Eid Mubarak as well.

Live happy. Live well.

Happy Independence Day

2008-08-14T01:09:00.000-07:00

It's an extended weekend, guys, so enjoy yourselves. If you can manage it between Ranbir Kapoor and his three girls, do hoist the triocolour on your roof. And yeah, you are supposed to bring it down before sunset, I have a neighbour who keeps the poor flag up for two or three days, sometimes a whole week every January and August- its very patriotic of him, no doubt, but that's not quite the proper way to show it. Then of course I will pray that India gets better politicians who do not disgrace the country at the parliament by behaving like English football fans, and that we get better roads, and that elections be no longer held along the lines of cast, sub-caste and ethnicity, that all the children of India can go to school, that we get more medals at the Olympics, that there be no more bandhs and strikes, that there may be peace in Kashmir and the rest of the country...and when I've finished praying, I'll go back to surfing and telly-watching. Happy Independence Day to you all.

Filling in the Blanks- a Daydreamer’s Delirium

2008-08-07T23:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, not so often, but regularly yet

The colors disappear.

On rain-soaked evenings or cloudy noons

My story-telling mind lets me down.

And all my selves that never were-

All those colorful powerful happening selves

I gave myself cease to excite me.

The bleakness makes her presence felt

Like the constant dripping sound of water

Running down an overworked tap.

I grope around in the blank grayness

To regain my lost fantasies.

Am I insane or ill?

Why can’t I live as I am?

I fear me sometimes- I fear my dreams.

And I fear the illusory happiness I run after,

My idle imaginations-if they engulf me

Or worse: melt away when the future comes-

The future of all the extra-ordinary happenings

Which I have kept at bay over the years,

When it at last arrives and the dreams shatter,

Will I be able to live and love?

When I finally out-grow my wishful fairy-tales

Will I be able to fill in the blanks?

P.S: The accompanying picture is a landscape painting by Tim Postell

Terror and Politics

2008-07-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

“There was a hospital here, gentlemen. Two hundred beds, eight doctors, twenty nurses. Each single one and all the patients were killed. That’s what an atomic bomb does.”

- Professor Tsusuki, a leading surgeon in Japanese surgeon while showing Hiroshima to a team of the Red Cross.

“The supreme value of human life and human blood has been forgotten, and human dignity too.”

– General MacAruthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the 2^nd World War.

Quoted from The First Atom Bomb by Marcel Junod.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can’t really trust any notions of behaviour these days. No civil or even humane norms, no responsibility or feeling of duty, no nothing. If terrorists bombing a hospital wasn’t enough- (a boy who went there to learn cycling from his father, a hospital staff, has lost his legs and his fighting for his life, while his dad is missing. And there were other patients too,) our political leaders now have decided to make an exhibition of their respective follies and their shameless zeal to exploit every situation to advance their narrow vote bank policies. Our Opposition accuses the Central government of masterminding the serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, which in turn has lost no time to retort with a counter accusation. One would expect them to be united in times like this, but they are all honorable men- what else can we say? The television channels of course are running top gear with breaking news about LOC intrusions and blast victims, but tomorrow, this will all be forgotten with the onslaught of more breaking news about twinkling television stars’ reality punch and the party schedules of some celebrity cricketer. Everything is breaking news these days, and fitting too, for this isn’t a world of healing or growth or renewal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fire

Behold the gift of Prometheus

That had promised to bring us

Light and knowledge, the warmth of life.

But scorching flames of darkness

Engulf us in the agony of death.

And all that man hath built

Through centuries of labour and study-

All statues and monuments and cherished memories,

All cities of the world are torn

Apart till Tartarus is revealed.

Knowledge today is destruction

And million Chirons are sacrificed everyday.

Behold that flame whose blazing trail

Has put the preying vulture to shame.

Too many hearts bleed today,

Too many bodies lacerated daily.

One wonders if even the mighty Hercules could save us from this hell.

N.B:Stay safe, and look out for mysterious packages and people. Take care all.

Who makes the decisions?

2008-07-25T03:54:00.000-07:00

This is about the already much discussed Indo-US Nuclear deal. I don't pretend to be a nuclear expert, I do not claim to have sufficient knowledge or expertise to express my opinion on the subject, but as a citizen of the country, I have a right to ask questions on the manner in which the decision on such an important issue was taken.
The Government said this was in the interest of the country. The pact was needed for India's energy requirements. Good. But did anybody tell us what would be India's energy requirement in the next twenty years and how much of that would be met by this pact? Did anybody think of telling us why it couldn't be met by India's own resources? Did anybody consult the Indian scientists to ask if we could generate our own nuclear energy? What about the thorium reserve in Ladakh?
The Leftists opposed this pact simply because the USA is their ideological enemy. Some others said this pact was anti-Muslim. Now what on earth was that about? If the pact really meets India's energy requirements, it should be beneficial to all Indians, right? And if the pact does not meet our energy requirements and if in fact it hampers our sovereignty or our environment, it should be against all Indians irrespective of their religions. How can it be anti-Muslim? In the end, when the time came for voting, the decision was made not through any logical reasoning, but on the choices of various political parties who decided whether they wanted the government to stay or fall. What was the point of those long debates and speeches when everything was pre-decided? Nobody talked about nuclear pollution, nobody talked about India's progress, they only voted according to Party whips, or being bribed, voted otherwise. Where did we, Indians figure in all this? How was this for the greater good of the country? I repeat, I am not for or against the deal. I am not for or against any political party, but I am asking readers to consider the callous manner in which our country's policies are shaped. Each member of parliament is supposed to exercize his thinking abilities and his intelligence, his concern for the country when he votes for or against a motion. But in the present system, how a party votes depends almost entirely upon his party's stand, which in turn is decided by whether that particular party supports the government or is in the opposition. Isn't it time to review this system?
On a related note to the confidence motions, what about coalition politics in India? There are too many parties today for any party to have a simple majority in parliament, but I believe, I strongly believe that every coalition should be determined before the elections. and there should be a law in this regard. When we vote for one party, we should know which other parties we are helping to power by voting for that party. Right?

Road-Song

2008-07-21T04:10:00.000-07:00

Last week we drove from Kolkata to Bhubaneshwar – my parents drove, i.e., while I watched the way from the backseat. Sometimes I think that’s my role in life- the backseat – always passive, never taking a direction, just allowing myself to be carried away or drifted with the tide – but let’s leave that aside for now. We started at the crack of dawn- at around 5.20am. It was a wet day, the sky was gloomy and my parents who were taking turns to drive found it rather inconvenient. As for me- I enjoyed the show. Speeding across deserted streets that would be choked in traffic snarls in a few hours’ time, watching the old metropolis waking up to another day, we made it from one end to the other of the city in unbelievable time – half an hour, to be precise. There was the great sacred river with yellow lights twinkling on its banks as a light drizzle grazed its surface. And then finding the Bombay road – National Highway 6, then 60 – long straight roads flanked by green paddy fields, frequently encountering diversions as men worked to repair the ravages of Nature – there were whole bridges washed away, broken roads- remnants of the previous week’s devastating floods. Sometimes we met the railway line, but it disappeared soon afterwards. At one point, the weather changed so that it was almost unbearable to tolerate the heat as the sunbeams penetrated the glass windows of the car. And then again the clouds gathered. Somewhere about an hour from Cuttack, on a lonely road, a single gigantic cloud mass hung overhead in the sky, almost touching the grass lining the road. When it started to rain, the world turned white, and my father was forced to park on one side and wait. So we waited, and I wanted to get out of the car and into the rain, but you don’t get to do everything you want to do in life.

What else to say? Results tomorrow, and I am terrified. I don’t even remember now how the exams went. Will get back here if I stay alive.

Kedarnath at Midnight

2008-07-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

The moon was quiet that night

As it bathed the snow in beauteous light

The mighty peak seemed holier than it had at day-

Silent, omnipotent under the starry sky.

The houses slept, enchanted as if by the silver wand.

Staring through the dreamy sheen

I groped for words and failed to think

What magic or power had touched the earth,

Some eternal poetry in forgotten script

Was alive at that hour; throughout ages

From prehistoric times.

Fest

2008-07-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

The moment she walked onto the grounds she knew she shouldn’t have come. But it was too late for regret.

She had been hearing about Connections from the first day of college. She had heard about it in school too, about this coolest college-fest in town, but it was a distant thing then. In college, it was an all-pervasive presence. Everybody grew more and more obsessed with Connections as December approached but her family had already planned a vacation to the seaside. The next year, the fest was postponed to January, just before their exams. No questions of coming, of course. When the final year fest came around, she was struggling with a terrible cold and was also feeling quite lazy about the whole thing. She thought about her sore throat and what the outside wind could do to it, and she thought about the crowded evening buses. And then she decided to go.

It took a while to find her friends in the fully packed ground, what with the band on the stage at the far end of the ground and the crowd screaming with them.

She got introduced to Tina’s cousins and found herself forced into group-photos with Neetu’s boyfriend’s pals.

“So you actually came?” Exclaimed Tina, “I thought you’d stay back again!”

One of her cousins asked Tina something and she turned back to reply.

“What is so great about the Connections evenings?” She asked Neetu.

“The crowd, of course! The huge crowd! You get to hang out with friends!”

She looked around. The people closest to the stage were dancing and whistling and screaming madly. In the outer circles, the mood was more relaxed – people strolling, smiling, glancing now and then towards the stage and sometimes singing along. But except Tina and Neetu there wasn’t a single familiar old face. Somehow, hanging out had seemed better during skipped lectures on sleepy afternoons during normal college days. She felt tired. This wasn’t the great magical place she had imagined it to be. So at seven o’clock she started making her way towards the front-gate.

The gate was shut. A group of perplexed students stood huddled at the courtyard, barred from advancing towards the gate.

“You can’t leave now.” A harried volunteer shouted at the annoyed group.

“You can’t just hold us up like this!” Someone snapped.

“Wait for five minutes, please.” Another volunteer appealed.

Ten minutes passed. Then it started raining.

“They can’t let us out because of the huge crowd pressing to get in.” And so there was a crowd, a very rowdy crowd looking as if they could break the gates. Meanwhile, the foiled run-aways couldn’t return to the grounds because the volunteers had now blocked that entrance as well.

“They say those people have got fake passes.”

Fake passes for a fest?

Breaking the human chain of the volunteers, the prisoners made an impatient run towards the gate. And the enemy outside chose that very moment to finally break into the castle.

It was a near stampede. Without a clue about where she was going, she found herself back at the grounds.

By then the show was over, thanks to the rain. But the crowd hung around hopefully. She walked towards the small back-gate and found it miraculously open, without any trace of a fake pass-holder. And so she was finally out of it.

“You shouldn’t have gone.” Her mother said.

She thought for a while and then replied.

“But I think it’s better than regretting missing the fest for the rest of my life. I’m disappointed, not sorry.”

The moment she walked onto the grounds she knew she shouldn’t have come. She had almost stayed back home, but she came. Now she was regretting her decision.

She was a schoolgirl when she first heard about Connections, the coolest fest of the coolest college in town. At her class, they weren’t even allowed for the school-fest. Two years later, they became the seniors, the fest organizers. She watched some of the stage-rehearsals but never went for the finals. The auditorium was far from home and it would go on late into the night. A year later, she became a college-fresher. Everybody talked more and more about Connections as December approached. She listened and when December came she went to the seaside. The next December came and she was all excited.

“Let’s come during the day,” she suggested, “and till afternoon to watch the contests.”

“But how silly, the fun really begins after six o’clock.”

But college was quite far from home, and she could not afford too stay late. When the final year fest came around, she was struggling with a terrible cold and was also feeling quite lazy about the whole thing. She thought about her sore throat and what the outside wind could do to it, and she thought about the crowded evening buses. And then she decided to go.

One of her friends gave passes to a host of cousins; another was busy with her boyfriend’s pals. It took a while to find them in the fully packed ground. Even the old faithful mobiles failed, what with the band on the stage at the far end of the ground and the crowd screaming with them –

Have you ever thought

Of the stars light years apart?

They are still nearer, dear,

Than you and I are together! *

She got introduced to Tina’s cousins and found herself forced into group-photos with Neetu’s gang.

“You’ve got a cool pair of earrings.” Tina said, “I love them.”

It was her favourite pair, imitation stones in a beautiful shade of ocean-blue that looked green in the light.

“So what about Connections?” She asked.

“This is Connections. There’s music in the open and you stand and listen.”

One of her cousins asked Tina something and she turned back to reply.

“So what is so great about the Connections evenings?” She asked Neetu.

“The adda it provides, of course! And the crowd, the huge crowd!”

She looked around. The people closest to the stage were dancing and whistling and screaming madly. In the outer circles, the mood was more relaxed – people strolling, smiling, glancing now and then towards the stage and sometimes singing along. But except Tina and Neetu there wasn’t a single familiar old face. Somehow, adda had seemed better behind the covers of books on sleepy afternoon classes. Today, the place didn’t seem to be her college at all.

She felt tired. She had planned to stay till eight but that was before arriving here. She didn’t know what she had expected, but she felt somehow cheated. So at seven o’clock she started making her way towards the front-gate.

The gate was shut. A group of perplexed early birds like her stood huddled at the courtyard, barred by first-years wearing official badges from advancing towards the gate.

“You can’t leave now.” A harried volunteer shouted at the annoyed group.

“You can’t just hold us up like this!” Someone snapped.

“Wait for five minutes, please.” Another volunteer appealed.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Then it started to rain.

“Why did they issue so many passes?” She asked someone as they cramped themselves under the little shade of the auditorium’s archway entrance.

“They say those people have got fake passes.”

Fake passes? She looked at the gate. What was happening? A cricket match? A bollywood night? What madness was this?

Breaking the human chain of the volunteers, the prisoners made an impatient run towards the gate. And the enemy outside chose that very moment to finally break into the castle.

It was pandemonium, or a near stampede. Nobody knew where he or she was going. The volunteers could do nothing at all. And she found herself back at the grounds.

By then the show was over, thanks to the rain. But the stalls stood tall, and the crowd hung around hopefully. She walked towards the small back-gate and found it miraculously open, without any trace of a fake pass-holder. And so she was finally out of it.

Her father was waiting for her at the bus stand.

“You must be disappointed?” He asked.

She thought for a while.

“I am disappointed, but not really sorry.” She replied at length, “At least, I won’t regret missing the fest for the rest of my life. I am glad I came.”

* The lines are a sketchy translation of a popular Bengali number.

Silence

2008-07-05T01:07:00.001-07:00

Wanting to ask you something,

I groped around my dusty days

And found I had no questions.

Wishing greatly to speak to you,

I searched the pages of the book

And learnt there was nothing to say.

I ran through the entire phonebook:

All names were yours and you were nowhere.

I deleted the message I’d typed for you.

And all my words have lost their way

Into some indifferent black-hole.

Unwritten

2008-01-31T19:47:00.000-08:00

Unwritten

I know someone weeps within this house.

I have often felt her silent cry

In careless moments as I wandered by.

She has haunted me at happy times

Like a vague morning dream.

I hear her sigh on evening walks

As I search for my fairyland,

I hear her whisper with the wind

The magic words she writes on sand.

She follows me on lonely roads.

I hear her singing in the rain.

But still I know not how she looks,

The story of her secret pain.

Meeting an old friend at the street

The other day, I stopped to talk.

We stopped there long and laughed and talked

Till I was on my own again.

And then I felt her watching me,

I felt her anguished tears as mine,

But when I turned around to see

Her shadow had slipped past from behind.

What is the sorrow that makes her cry?

What is the tale that she can’t tell?

Why stays she lonely in that house?

I knock the door but no reply.

2008-01-30T04:47:00.000-08:00

To Charles Lamb

Children that never were,

How many years must you wait still?

How many of my own lit dreams

Must float along towards your shore

Before your million years have passed?

In what age will the reverie be true?

Must all unfulfilled dreams

Of Poets forever remain so?

Their words haunt me as Time rushes on,

Trapping me tighter everyday.

In what age shall I break free?

Disjointed Thoughts on New Year’s Eve

2008-01-30T04:42:00.000-08:00

Disjointed Thoughts on New Year’s Eve

Time moves.

It runs.

It races.

It flies past.

Only I stand still waiting.

No crashing meteor comes.

Perhaps I too move a little,

Say a bus stop or two.

Why do I care anyway?

Insignificant creature that I am,

Why should I care which face of this planet

Faces the sun’s same face again?

And people sing and dance,

The same moves, the same steps,

Same words, the same old tired smiles-

Cell-phones all over the world

Trying and failing to connect.

And tomorrow the sun will rise again!

I wonder sometimes:

Does even the sun care?

Orbit

Our dear old girl is once more done

Her yearly tour around the sun.

Falling stars did fall too close

But the old girl still safely goes

In the same old beaten path.

To drink her health we meet tonight.

We sing, we dance, we turn off light

And cheer her for a future bright.

And when the party ends at dawn,

We’ll return home and carry on

In the same old beaten path.

Independence Day

2007-08-11T03:57:00.000-07:00

Another 15th August approaches...another day in this mire of elections and defections, and the politics of religion and language and caste and sub-caste and of saving your own skin. Another independence day in the midst of general frustrations with the way of life, of complaints and disgust with the great Indian circus known as politics. And yet, in spite of all these, a day of taking out that flag once more, a day of hoisting the triocolour, a day of standing erect as the national anthem is sung...it is this pride that keeps me going. This wednesday, however glad I am to escape the daily routine for a day midweek, is not just another midweek holidayt., It is out Independence Day. Jai Hind.

The Last Book- end of a Journey

2007-08-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over. All the wait, all the frenzied, anxious wonderings- it's all over now. The last word has been written and the quill has been put down, and if our favourite muggle-'witch of words' picks it up again, it won't be to depict another year in the extraordinary life of one bespectacled Harry James Potter. And so, how does it feel? Relief, that Harry Potter lives, or perhaps disappointment for those wise cynics who would have preferred an unhappy ending? Yeah, I have come across some disgusting spoilsports who reckon Harry should have died, and the reason one of them has given on Yahoo Answers is, and I am quoting-"...should have died because for some reason, Harry gets on my nerves." Well, I think if the hero of a book gets on anybody's nerve, then he/she should put it down, read other things and spare us from their strange ideas of 'poetic injustice'. For my part, I feel a bit strange. I was older than eleven when I first discovered Harry in his cupboard under the stairs, but I shared his surprise and his feeling enchantment as he made his way through Diagon Alley and Hogwarts. I read the first four books within a space of a few weeks, so I can't say I grew up with Harry, but I accompanied him as he grew up. So, I suppose it feels a little strange to think it's really the end of the journey, that there would be no more waiting for the next book, that I won't be searching mugglenet and HPANA for some clue Rowling might have slipped(I would still be visiting for the remaining movies, of course) and that I won't be counting the dates till the new book is released.
And so what about the last book? Well, to me it was intense, action-packed. From the moment we see Harry Potter in his bedroom at Privet Drive till Voldemort finally falls in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, there is hardly any time to breathe. It's like jumping from one event to the other. The opening chapter with Voldemort at Malfoy Manor sets the mood and he and his deatheaters are after Harry sooner than we could be ready for it- chasing him in the skies across three counties, nearly missing him at Bill and Fleur's wedding and then right afterwards at a deserted muggle cafe on Tottenham Court Road, the Ministry of Magic and Grimauld Place, at his native village- Godric's Hollow, then in the house of Xenophilus Lovegood- the father of his friend who pays for his outspoken support to Harry, and then, finally getting caught and imprisoned at Malfoy Manor, escaping again but only to land up in Gringotts- the wizard bank and almost getting caught, escaping, finally to turn up where Voldemort expects him to go- Hogwarts and walking willingly to his own death. And throughout the constant changing of locations, the aimless moving that at a point of time disillusions Ron and Hermione and even Harry, we are given clues that ultimately falls neatly into place. This is the most amazing thing about Rowling's writing, how all the pieces fall neatly into place in the end, how the plot is tied up, in each book individually, and taking the series as a whole. And it makes us look at the whole issue of making the right choices by throwing new light on the character of one whom every Harry Potter fan, like Harry himself, had come to see as infallible. He had been carried away by his talents and abilities in his youth, he had been, by his own admission, selfish and bitter before reality hit him hard in the form of death for his sister and although never evil, or whatever Rita Skeeter and Ron's Aunt Muriel would want us to believe, Rowling shows us that the greatest wizard on earth could be human, and susceptible to human follies.
And then, what about Snape? Fanfiction writers have been saying for ages that he had loved Lily, some went to the extent of saying that Lily loved him back and (bless us) Harry was actually Snape's son! Jokes apart, 'Prince's Tale' was undoubtedly one of the most moving chapters of the book. But does that make James Potter a hateful character? One of my friends, my best-friend in fact, declared that she hated James. But if we hate James for what he was like to Snape in school, we have to hate Sirius as well, and Sirius Black, I am sure, is one character all HP-fans (ok, most of them, making exceptions for those who wanted Harry to die) love. Ok, James was arrogant, but Snape on the other hand was immersed in the dark arts, and having a muggle-born best-friend didn't stop him from joining the service of a wizard who talked about pure-blood supremacy. No, I am not trying to find fault with Snape here, but what I am trying to say is that neither James Potter nor Severus Snape were perfect individuals. And yes, they detested each other so they hexed each other whenever they got the chance and Harry was unfortunate enough to land up inside a memory that showed Snape at the recieving end. I do not agree with Snape that James had saved his life 'only' to save his own friends from being expelled, nor when he says(at the end of book6) that James would have never attacked him unless it was four-to-one, it could not have been more than two-to-one- because Lupin was the good boy in the group, and Pettigrew was content to watch his bigger friends do the honours. And I am convinced that James Potter, whatever he might have been as a school-boy, was a brave man and a great wizard. He was, after all, Harry's father. So the purpose of this long lecture? Snape is a tragic character and I feel bad about the way he died, and the fact that he died before Harry realized what he truly was, but that doesn't make James Potter a bad person. I am going to have an arguement with my friend about it, but no matter, we frequently have these little 'discussions' over HP books and movies, over Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan, over Indian cricketers and countless such 'important' issues.
Going back to the book, I think Rowling made it a point to prove beyond doubt that there's a war going on, and so there deaths, and important deaths. Not at the end, like books 4, 5 and 6, but from the very beginning. if we leave Charity Barbage out as someone we never came across in the other books, it begins with Hedwig, Moody, Ted Tonks(ok, we meet him briefly, but he is father to an important character), Dobby, Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin, Tonks, and Colin Creevay. Hedwig- who was annoyed with Harry for not letting her out of her cage fulfills the promise Harry had made to him ("..and then you can fly again.") in a way Harry never had dreamt of, Moody- who knew and had expected Voldemort to go after him, Dobby- who had promised never to try and save Harry's life again at the end of book2, Colin Creevay, always so taken up with Harry, Remus and Tonks- the parents of an infant, dying in what Rowling calls an echo of what Harry's fate when James and Lily died, and finally, Fred Weasley who had planned what his friends would wear at his wedding only a few months back. Rowling has been ruthless, brutal, if you ask me, with these twins who wanted to sell laughter in a strife-torn, war-ravaged world. "Can't you tell us apart even when we are Harrys?" must have been the last time they would get the chance to play on their identical appearances, because soon after this, George Weasley, feeling 'saint-like', would be telling Mrs. Weasley- "You can finally tell us apart, Mum." And then the time would come when there would be no question of mistaken identities, because one of them would die. We get a picture of happy life 19 years later, we hear of Teddy Lupin, obviously happy, Percy- not much changed, Neville in his element with herbology, Victoire- the daughter of Bill and Fleur and we assume they are happy too, but we don't hear of Charlie, and we don't hear of George Weasley either. Is he still selling laughter? I would like to believe that "Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes" is still making roaring business, and he did open the Hogsmeade branch that he had planned with his twin, because the world could still do with a laugh. Another important person we miss in the epilogue is of course, Luna Lovegood. What do you reckon she is doing? Editing the Quibbler? Or has she gone on a World Tour to look for a Blibbering Humdinger?

A month to my birthday, a few days to my exams!

2007-06-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the 4th of June today- wasn't it this day a few years back that the Prisoner of Azkaban was released? Well, that special feeling that can accompany only the anticipation for a Harry Potter book or a movie is in the air again, and this time, it's a double treat for us in store. Nevertheless, I am much more eager for the 7th book but that comes later and then I am planning to go for the movie with my friends from school, so that is also an equally pleasurable wait. At any other time, I would normally mark down the pages in my personal diary to countdown the dates of the movie and book release, much the same way as Harry ticks of the dates on his calendar to count down the days till the 1st of September, but this time, with the exams starting on the 20th of June, I felt a little guilty doing that. But anyway, I have the mugglenet countdown-clock on my website! It is 4th June, exactly a month away from my birthday. Sadly, my exams won't be over by then, but when they finally do, I mean to have a gala time with my friends. I only hope Rowling won't spoil the fun by killing Harry or anyone good. I have wept a lot over Sirius and Dumbledore as it is. Enjoy the summer! And keep visiting!

I am leading a cursed (net) life!

2007-05-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

Well, will you believe my luck? Just a few days back my CPU was malfunctioning, then my broadband telelphone line went wrong, and now its the turn of my UPS. I am disconnected again. My friend Abhinav feels that that the "exile thing" is in love with me, but I think someone seriously has cursed my internet life. May be the deatheaters got wind of what I have bveen doing to them in my fanfics! Meanwhile, I had a layout change- pink is not my favourite colour, but I think it looks cute. Besides, my site can't forever look blue. That would be so boring. You should visit my site and tell me what you feel. You can already see the new banner. It has been made by my friend Kate. You can find her site "Desires" from the affiliates page of my site.

By the way, I fianlly finished Journey to the Battlefront, isn't that great?

Computers do work without UPS, but I don't want to risk t in case of powercuts. My father says he will change the batteries when he has time. Till then- goodbye.

My story is almost over!

2007-04-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, I am really ending Journey to the Battlefront! It will be strange not having to rack my brains for ideas. And meanwhile, if anyone wants to read the new chapter, here's the link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2846652/30/

On a sudden and typically-me-like random note, I want to share something I came across while shifting through my study notes with you. This is from Henry Myers' book - Tragedy: A View of Life:
"The hero does not die for love, or for power, or for success, or for revenge; he dies for Juliet, or for Desdemona; he dies to be Duncan's successor, or for 'infinite riches in a little room'; he dies to climb the tower he has built.
What do you think? Interesting, no? Would you like to comment?

Nothing Happening

2007-04-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's alternatively scorching hot and windy wet here at Kolkata. It is usually very cool after sunset, especially when the clouds darken and there are rainy winds blowing from the South, which is why I love my evening walks on the roof. But the days are unbearably hot, especially on Wednesdays when I go to college and need to walk some distance in the sun while returning home(around 1-2pm) and on Sundays when I have my music class for which I need to leave home at 12pm, yeah, right under the midday sun's scorching glare.All this heat is taking a toll on my sleeping habits- my brain feels so dull after I return from these 'moments under the sun' that I can't help taking a nap...which means I can't sleep early at night. And I used to be the "early to bed" type! You might be wandering why I am going to college only once a week. Well you see, our classes are officially over and even the extra classes have long ceased. A few of us devoted lot make the weekly trudge for some last minute suggestions and advices. We are also supposed to submit three-four essay-type answers, and I started pretty enthusiastically, but by the 2nd week it was all gone. This Wednesday I managed to hand over an answer on Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy(from Austen's Pride &Prejudice, for those unfortunate lot who are not acquainted with him) which took me about 2 weeks to write. And after all the 'effort', my teacher said I ought have included critical cross-references. But never mind, nice man, Darcy! I wish there were men like him in real life! Well, all these preparations are for our University exams in June- starting on June 20th and ending in July, completely ruining my birthday in the way. But the good thing is that I am going to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after that. Well, the little waitings in life make life so interesting. I know I am going to be depressed once I've finished reading the book- I've found that a slight emptiness always happens after a period of waiting, once the thing I was waiting for is over, and till some new is found to look forward to. And this being the last book, there is going to be a greater emptiness, especially because knowing Rowling, the ending can't be particulary feel-good 'they-lived-happily-ever-after' type. Well, at least the movies are not over yet, Harry Potter has sort of become a part of life, it is going to be strange without having to wait impatiently for the next week. But look what happens when I once start blabbing about that boy wizard...I was talking about other things. Have you ever felt frustrated because nothing was happening in your life. I often feel it, although I also know myself to be too lazy a creature to be part of a real-life adventure. But waiting for little things keeps me happy- whether it is the plan to meet my school-friends after the exams, or waiting to watch your favourite show on television...I feel so sorry for Eustacia Vye(Thomas Hardy-The Return of the Native). She had nothing to wait for. No wonder she was so desperate to fall in love with Clym. I started writing this yesterday and had to stop and switch off my computer as the Norwester hit. There is something about this stormy rainy darkness that I love. When I see the dark clouds gathering, like a great army descending on earth,or tall trees shaking and my familiar neighourhood is transformed into remote lands of fantasies where I must journey to find some treasure- I feel all the poetic ideas stirring within my heart and yet I fail to find the words to give shape to them. It was evening and someone was blowing the conch shell. I felt the thunder, the lightening, the dark, green leaves of the shaking trees were all following the same rhythm- the rhythm of the conch shell's music. I do think I have a talent for random blabbings. Thanks for bearing it with me.