For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn

Posted on by
1

In school , after every exam, my teachers would complain “You would score better if you just wrote MORE!” Of course now in college, I’m just another register number so no teacher would know if I was the girl with the 80 in her Business and Corporate writing paper, the subject which requires you to be as brief as possible !

I like brevity, when it comes to writing. Personally, I think that a lot more could be said with shorter pieces, instead of those that ran into pages and pages of nothingness. I remember an incident where I represented school in an another schools inter-school Creative Writing competition. There were two entrants from each school, and the other guy from mine was.. well.. a bit over confident when it came to his writing. My story was about 3 sides long, and his ran into 8 or 9. I will never forget that look on his face  when he saw how short my story was. Anyway, I came second. And he… didn’t.

The other day in college, we explored Flash Fiction, and I LOVED it! My favourite piece would be Hemingway’s six word flash fiction story :

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn

The story is sad, yes, but I love it more for the fact that it shows how the speaker/person/character who put up the sign is attempting to overcome such a difficult thing. Every time I read it, a new wave of awe develops.

Nice article on Flash Fiction here

BooksBeatlesBlah

Posted on by
1

I’m listening to “If I Fell” by The Beatles on repeat. This song is fast replacing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as my all-time favorite Beatles song. And you know interestingly, I heard somewhere that “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was written for Patti Boyd, Harrison’s first wife. Another great who I share my birthday with played lead guitar on the album version of the song, and also wrote “Layla” for the same woman! And the acoustic version of “Layla” is currently my ringtone.

Yes, I love complicated connections :)

I’m reading lots of chic lit, as usual. Ranging from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre ( for college – and ok so it’s not exactly chic lit heh) to Advaitha Kala’s Almost Single (hated it), and right now Sophie Kinsella’s “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan”. I’m desperately looking for this book called “Marrying Anita”  by Anita Jain that I’ve been hearing good reviews about, but I’ve looked everywhere and simply can’t find it.

Nothing seems to live up to Zoya :(

I need to invest in a decent bookshelf.

Oh and did quite ok in my first semester examination, and earned a bit of cash so I’m pretty proud of myself.

The ink

Posted on by
Reply

I found an inkpen, so I went out and bought  bottle of ink for twelve rupees. I came home and spent an hour trying to fill the thing, as it’s “suction mechanism” refused to function. Finally, I succeeded. The floor has battle scars, though. And so did my hands.

And so I write, with my ink pen. It’s not pretty, but still oddly satisfying. I write in a pretty blue book I bought, about nothing and everything. I scribble and doodle and shudder to read what I have written, but still I write.

Posted on by
Reply

And now the loops are reminiscing
Recurring dreams of minor chords
Metered time
Muted chimes find the beat
-Maria Taylor “Song Beneath the Song”

It feels like I can breathe again.

It might be the rain, or the fact that I’m lying on my bed listening to it. Or just that I have nowhere to be except here right now. I have nobody to be with right at this moment but myself.

There are times when I long for moments like these. When the light, and the pace of everything is right, is blended into now. When the words flow easily. When I have time to think what I am thinking, and to think about thinking about something else, just because I can.

I can fall asleep now, if I want to. Or lie wide awake, just the same.

It’s the middle of the week, I’m in love, and it’s raining.

Posted on by
Reply

The air is heavy.
Hoarse, and grating,
You flinch at my every breath.
But still you bear the wheezing.

Rancid, and yellow.
You’re waiting for the bitter aftertaste
You are the damsel’s saving grace,
While I will remain the one the shoe will never fit.

Pick me up and twirl me
Did you, will you, can you?
Dust settles on the dolls
The tea in their cups went cold
While we waited for you.

Flashes, a tree, a pink kitchen
Lights blinking, and I smile
The golden fruit, but I am
The rotten, brown spot
That sours, day by day.

The Zoya Factor

Posted on by
15

So I finished ‘The Zoya Factor’ by Anuja Chauhan from start to end today. I absolutly loved it. Each and every moment of it!

I fell in love with Nikhil Khoda right at the start. It’s been a while since I’ve actually sat down and read a book, and Nikhil Khoda’s character was so worth it! I have history when it comes to falling for Indian cricket captains!

Definitely a good, fun read!

Continue reading →

Ficlet – Monique

Posted on by
Reply

The first thing you would notice about Monique was that her left eye was blue and the right was green. She was incredibly conscious about them being “strange” (as she put it), but in reality we both knew the reactions it drew from people helped her judge them. There were some who were initially taken aback, but politely chose to ignore it after a while. There were some who could never tear their eyes away from hers (she hated those). And then there were some like Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca.

Monique had been seeing Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca for about three months. Well to put it a bit more correctly : 3 months, 5 days, 4 hours and 11 minutes. She was “deeply, madly, crazily in love”. Everyday she wrote in her diary about her dreams for the two of them and the life they would share. They would have two children – a boy, named Pedro (after Micheal’s father) and a girl named Mia (after her own sister), a dog named Bosco ( although Monique was still unsure about the breed), and a house by the sea.

She would gush “He’s different! So unlike all the rest!”

And I would say “How so?”

And she would say “He says he loves every part of me! And the best part is he hasn’t said a word about my eyes being strange!”

Once Monique and Micheal Ricardo Morencio Balenca were sitting across from each other at one of their regular haunts when he stopped mid-sentence, burst into laughter and exclaimed “Why, Moni! Do you know that your eyes are each a different color? How very strange!”

Monique wept buckets that night. Gone were Pedro, Mia and Bosco. Gone was her house by the sea.

” I will never fall in love with another man again, ever! They are all hateful creatures! Every last one of them!”

The next day at the library, as Monique dragged her broken heart through the shelves, looking for a wildly romantic book to bury herself into, she met Alejandro Dio Beno who took one look at her and said:

“Those are by far the most beautiful eyes I have seen”

Needless to say, Monique’s dreams came rushing back.

One of my (revealable) deepest, darkest fears

Posted on by
2

I miss how easily words seemed to come to me. Lately, I keep thinking about my “first poems”, which used to be about Puppies, Kittens, Dogs and Cats. Through ages 6.5 -10 I think I was very cleverly hinting at what I wanted for Christmas! My parents were a bit slow on the uptake though, I only got my pets in 2001 :)

Creativity is so hard to sustain. Writing on demand is virtually impossible.

I fear my future.

Although there are various possibilities that have been very expertly outlined and debated ( where words such as “rich” and “husband” were thrown up – get the gist?) there are slight reservations. Slight.

So basically right now I fear that I am going to end up a struggling writer with no access to Facebook and no money to go to KFC, living in a poky one-bedroom flat with several cats who are my only source of company.

Bah.

Otherwise life is good ya.