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Hey Mr. Somebody Are you Carrots? *** You know I'm aware of your limited fare in the knowledge of general yet chance for big talk you do not spare Tell me something Mr. Are you Carrots? ***

A few months ago, I received this comment from this reader who wrote how she essentially read my whole blog in a single day and even though I sound like a narcissist douche, I was and am pretty sure it was more ‘her’ ability to sit around than anything else.    The P.S. of her comment, where she wrote how when we meet, she is going to take my autograph, made me both overwhelmed with happiness and silly and I responded saying that we would get a photograph clicked and I’ll make a post about our awesome meeting on my blog. Even though I was genuinely happy, at that time I presumed, as I did not know her or had a look at her blog, that she would be just another blogger teenager, all fascinated with my amateurish attempts at writing and someone who maybe did not have much literary exposure. But boy was I proven wrong when I actually met her and found that she was as much like I had imagined her as east and west are same and when incidentally, as it happens with me always, started

'Hey champion, hungry? Want something?', asked Andrew's dad, crouching down in that busy corridor. He nodded without saying 'Cheetos and Twinkies'. ‘Okay, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’ Five minutes later, out of the courtroom herself, his mom dragged him to the car and he could only say, ‘But mommy… daddy… ’ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P.S: This was an out of the blue idea and I would love to know how did you find it? Do leave a comment ;) P.P.S: I missed writing fiction. 

I interned at Hindustan Times, HT City to be precise,  a couple of months ago. It was one of the most exciting and memorable experiences, working there, among wonderful, happy and the most fun lot I ever saw in an office. And I am pretty sure I can write a full length post talking about how and why it was so amazing and who were the people who made it all the more so, but this post is about something else. While interning, I was, like every intern there, also responsible for working on the Dil Se  Column that comes in HT-City each day. It is a medium for people to share their messages with their friends and loved ones. Pretty simple, right? Wrong! While the concept is pretty simple, there's absolutely nothing simple about the messages that you'd see printed in there. People of Delhi, as it happens, are a curious lot. They can evoke extreme emotions when it comes to expressing their feelings through messages which the whole world can see. From insane laughter to

1. Granta would definitely have to be one book I'll remember for a long time. Both for the imprint-leaving stories and the fact that the imprinting process was a painfully long one. ---  Barker, Barnes, Hollinghurst, Ishiguro, Mitchell, Rushdie, Smith, Tremain, Winterson . . . Long before they were household names, they were Granta Best of Young British Novelists. With each Young Novelist list — in 1983, 1993, and 2003 — came new ways of witnessing the world, introductions to unforgettable characters and mysterious and addictive voices. In 2013, thirty years after the first collection, the magazine asked once again: which writers are setting the bar for a new decade in British literature?  --- --- Granta 123 : Best Of Young British Novelists 4 By Various Authors 240pp | Granta Publications $13.33  | Rs799 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, as much as I don't want to say this, Granta

Welcome to the third day of blog 'weak'. I hope you liked the last two posts, they made my blog quite happy. If you haven't read them yet, they can be found here and here .  I had been thinking of writing some fiction lately since 1. It's been a long time and 2. I really miss writing fiction. So today, while having a chat with dear friend and fellow blogger Ashna , I asked if she had any suggestions for the blog 'weak' and fiction and she had to say this, Write a 'flash fiction' story in 300 words. It should have this phrase: 'The noise made me jump out of my skin...'    It can either have a horror theme or something based on dreams.  which I thought was a very interesting idea indeed. So here I am, choosing the horror theme. Hope you enjoy.

Let me tell you my story in relation to friends. When I was 7 perhaps, I was admitted to a new school, in 2nd standard. There, among other things, which included marvelling at the size of the building and playground and discovering that I could buy an amazing hot samosa and a hotter bread-pakoda, both in all of ₹5, happened something quite  remarkable . I learned a new term, Best Friends . I didn't know exactly what kind of friends were called best friends,  but from what I did get, I was pretty much enchanted by the idea. That day, I saw a boy tell another how his best friend  from the class was on a vacation abroad and was going to bring him a gift from there. Later that day, I saw two boys, whom somebody maybe referred as the best friends , walking around during recess or maybe after the school ended, hands on each other's shoulders, chatting excitedly, like they were having the best time in the world. So, I assumed that perhaps best friends are those who bring

Hello people, this blog is perhaps going through the worse identity crisis ever since I started blogging actively more than 2 years ago. It has come on the verge of breaking down a lot of times, while pleading in front of me these past 4 months to feed it with posts. Yes exactly, you read it right, four months. Not something you'd ever see on a serious enough blog. In fact, not something I've seen on any blog, serious or not. And it's making me feel so funny that I want to laugh out a very hysterical unbelievable laugh.  No I wasn't in an asylum these four months and am certainly not in remission either, if you were thinking that. It's just that my blog is going mad and weak with no food for such a long time and since it is no lungfish , I decided to give it some food. And life. Life after food. Food first. Yeah :P Okay, so since I was feeling generous enough today, I decided why not feed it properly while I am at it. Pat and stroke it to sleep even.

Hallo you! I am happy today. For no reason. And this post is about awards. Which you might have guessed by the title already. And I am going to receive, with much humility and bows(not the ones you shoot with), the awards that I have been awarded. Because well, I am happy and this post is about awards. Before this gets any more weird and foolish, I should just hop on to the stage with my speech. But before that, let me apologize to the two amazing people who gave me these awards. Months ago. Sorry Abinaya and Srishti, I am a hopeless procrastinator, do send me some remedies. All right then, the first award is the Creative Blogger Award  given by the ever so sweet, Srishti from  LIFE...as it is . Thank you so much Srishti, I alwardly feel too happy and reading your post again made me even more happy. So as part of the award taking ceremony, what I have to do here is a special dance  follow some steps/rules which go like this,

This is the third part of the story. Find the first two parts here and here . The first 'here' points to the first part. ;) Note: This part is narrated from a third-person's point of view. Doing this from Joy's POV was my initial resolve, but it wasn't coming along as good as I wanted to, so I decided against it. This is a loooooooooooooooooong post. *** 'Let me help you!' 'No, I 'm good!! I'll ...just...have to...jump a...little...higher...ahhh.' 'You'll get hurt. And what if someone sees you jumping like this?' 'What of it?' 'You're a Princess!' 'Oh, all the... better...Nobody...will say...anything..."oh fishes"...to the...Princess.' 'Here! Take my knife. It'll be easier with it.' She waited out of pride, contemplating whether to take the knife or not, thinking she was definitely capable to do it by herself, but then she took the knife and thi

This is part two of the story 'Princess and the Closed Room'. Find the first part of it here . *** I came out of the house and started walking absentmindedly on the driveway and later out of the big iron doors, on the cobweb of streets. I wasn't paying much attention to the path and turns on my way, but I knew, in that uncaring absentmindedness, where I was going. It was an impossible thing for me otherwise, due to my not so good sense of direction, but I kept going without any hesitation, as though I was following a map without actually having one with me. As soon as I had come out of that house, it felt like a big weight has been lifted off my chest. I felt less uncertain, less worried and less scared. I was free. I know I had made a lot of promises to people in there, specially to Joy and I know he would hate me later for doing this, but it was something I had to do. I knew this was wrong and I knew this would break the hearts almost all of those inside,

This post is part of Theandric Thursday , a fortnightly  whenever-she-feels-like-posting feature hosted by Ashna Banga . The dictionary definition of 'Theandric' is 'Relating to the joint agency of divine and human nature'. Sounds interesting? Write your own Theandric Thursday post and drop a link on her blog. You can write fiction, real events or a mixture of both. You may use the image on the right for the same. Happy Writing :) *** I don't remember how it all started. It felt like jumping straight out of one dream and into another. We were in a quiet suburb street, me and Lily. It was afternoon and no one could be seen around. Dull, bland houses lined the alley on both sides. There was a peculiar grey tone to each one of them.

Google "I don't give money at the traffic lights. In fact, I have stopped giving anything to anyone these days," said a friend a few days ago with an expression that showed that he no longer believes in any of such small acts of charity. I didn't know what to say to that, so I kept quiet. It might have been a momentary thing with him. Just an exaggeration maybe because he was a little off that day. But the thing is, there are people who don't give anything to any destitute just because they have some preconceived notions about the beggars.  Their argument is that 'these people', as they call them, have made it a business and that all beggars at traffic intersections are part of a syndicate and hence should be discouraged. Well, it's not entirely untrue, but colouring everyone with the same red is not the way to go. Anyway, we'll talk about that in a short time. First let me tell you an incident which led me to write this post in the

Here's what happens. You pick up a book you are really excited about reading and which you have heard about a lot from your friend. You've read the blurb, which looked pretty promising and seen some amazing five star reviews. To add to its appeal, it also happens to be one of those books by one of those writers who almost everybody swears by. So you get down to read and you like how it starts and you read more and you like how it's going. You like the characters, you like the humour, you like the use of metaphors in it. So you keep reading and you keep liking, so much so that you read more than three fourth of it in a night. The next day you continue with it and finally finish it. Seems good enough, right? You've read it fast! You must be feeling good, happy, contented, excited(even more than how much you were before starting it), right? 

The story below is a chapter-in-continuation to Ashna's story/chapter which she posted last month. We've come up with this super-cool idea of writing alternate chapters of this story without discussing what we are going to write beforehand anywhere and it's turning out to be real fun.  You can check the previous chapter written by her, on her awesome looking newly revamped blog here :)  *** 'No shit!', I said, mocking surprise at the guy in pink shirt. The guy shifted in his place trying to hide a smirk. The young man had just informed me that I had dropped my phone on the platform. He had informed me after I had screamed and kicked and tried to force open the door of the coach which closed just after it got knocked off my hand by a bull of a de-boarding passenger, onto the platform. After the train started moving and when I resigned to just looking at it lying there, waiting to be picked up by a lucky soul, pinky said, 'You could have pushed

There are two types of crime thriller / murder mystery novels. One are those, which throw in innumerable characters with seemingly incomprehensible and complex plot at the very start. Then there are those, which look simple and straightforward in the beginning, with no complex character entanglements, but which go on to prove your assumptions entirely wrong as you progress. This one, belongs to the second category. ---  When a man is discovered dead by poisoning in his empty home his beautiful wife, Ayane, immediately falls under suspicion. All clues point to Ayane being the logical suspect, but how could she have committed the crime when she was hundreds of miles away? As Tokyo police detective Kusanagi tries to unpick a seemingly unrelated sequence of events he finds himself falling for Ayane. When his judgement becomes dangerously clouded his assistant must call on an old friend for help; it will take a genius to unravel the most spectacular web of deceit they have ever f

Talk about deviant/unusual narrative and this book stands out from the rest of the crowd like an apple in a box of mangoes. An apple as fresh as they come. Though it's not easy to review something you find extremely beautiful and I'll nevertheless try to be as neutral as I can. But, let's read the blurb first.. --- Circa 1990.A world drawn and woven with words. A bond punctuated by absence and distance...Two continents. Two cities. Two people.And letters. Hundreds of them.Over years. Across oceans. Between hearts. Between Abhi, who is training to be a neurosurgeon in London, and Uma, who is just stepping into the world of medicine in Kolkata. As they ink their emotions onto paper, their lives get chronicled in this subtly nuanced conversation through letters ... letters about dreams, desires, heartbreaks, and longings... about a proverbial good life falling apart, about a failed marriage, a visceral loss, and about a dream that threatens social expectations...Lett

Is it a new love the one you feel A new excitement, a sweet pain a reason to trust someone again - Or is it just an illusion of your memories, your past

Sometimes, even the tiniest of things can make you happy. Things like waking up early morning and watching the sun rise, going on a walk all by yourself or with a friend you haven't met in a while, watching a baby cackle with joy, being out in the first rain after a long summer or smelling something which instantly brings back some of your most treasured memories. It could be thousands of things, all different and diverse and sometimes quite magically, the same. They fill you up with joy, makes your heart pump a little more blood, and your lungs a little more oxygen. You feel elated and refreshed and confident. It makes you feel like you've always been so happy because in that instant you forget all the problems, tensions and difficulties you might have in your life and you just enjoy and live in the moment. View from inside the mosque. Something like this happened with me today and I was so happy that I didn't want it to go away before I captured it in somet

So, how would you describe your relationship with technology, if suppose someone were to ask you? Or, let's put it this way, how much do interact with technology in your day to day life? You talk on your mobile phone, listen to songs maybe. You take pictures with your camera. You use the internet and watch videos on your PC or laptop. Or you do all these on your smartphone instead and then some more, like playing games and using your GPS for maps etc. Of course talking of technology, some of you might have a gaming console, an intelligent TV, fridge or washing machine which is programmable according to your needs. But we are not going to talk about these things. The focus today is something else. You see, even as we stay dazed with the flabbergasting amount of new phones which get launched these days with speeds faster than your dream car and super super clear and rich displays and touch and capabilities that only stop short of making your morning coffee, some of th

The kiss had been awkward well. She was still sitting at the pier. As soon as he'll cross the board, the sniper will shoot her. That had been the arrangement. But right at the edge he heard a loud crack, got a huge blow, felt his back burn and fell down. He had been tricked. - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  P.S: I wrote a different ending earlier for this. Would you like me to include that one??

Today is the day which most of the people welcome as that one more day to save them from the chilly winter and give them a respite from braving the cold outside, well at least those north of the equator do. A day when you indulge in a little more sleep, maybe wake up towards the end of the parade, in time to catch the balloons being set off on TV, then go on to have a late brunch, followed by spreading on the couch to see that sudden and improbable air of deshbhakti  dawn on each and every one of the telly actors on every entertainment channel. Though nobody cares to see the parade these days, there are some who go one step ahead. People have started questioning the monotony that surrounds the republic day parade itself including the chaos of the days that lead up to it. And let me say this at the outset, I am not one of those people. I have no problem whatsoever with any traffic horrors that may arise due to the rehearsals, neither do I care about the surprising number of checkp

Brian : And then he said "you're a portly, good for nothing bag of fatty shit".. Kenneth : And you said? Brian : I said "that's not nice of you" Kenneth : What! That's it, just ' that's not nice of you'  ? Nothing else? Brian(nervously) : I also said 'mister' after that. Kenneth stood aghast, staring at Brian. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  # I don't know if there are any rules for writing 55 Fiction. This is my first(obvious by the title) and I hope you don't dislike it that much.