My daughter was born Leonardo Da Vinci and she is just improving from thereon.
I still remember the eight legged lion with its legs sprawled out like a pretty spider, the minimalistic designs of a fish without fins and tail, the cat without limbs and kittens with various degrees of abilities (no hands no legs, hands but no legs, legs but no tail) and her adopted monkey baby.
But now those days are gone and what I see is real stuff.
Please don’t ask the logic of the train, elephant and giraffe in front of the cottage. The cat and rabbit make sense with the girl, so please be grateful for that. I have seen weirder stuff.
The new and improved variety of lion and tiger, along with giraffe half-hidden behind a kangaroo, along with a hippo (pink), gazelle and crocodile (guess?). The outline of the girl can be accepted as a jungle sprite looking over these creatures…
And then there is stuff like this which is actually is superb considering it comes from a 4-year old working only with her imagination.
I’m sure she’ll turn out to be a far better painter than her mom. 😁
It is finally here! My very own short stories collection: The Forest Bed and other short stories. After long delays for ‘technical’ reasons, my book is finally available worldwide as an ebook. What’s even better?
The ebook is free.
The Forest Bed ebook is available to readers worldwide for free on Amazon Kindle
Offer valid from June 22, 2021, 12:00 AM PDT till June 26, 2021, 11:59 PM PDT.
Open your Kindle app.
Type The Forest Bed in your Search bar.
Select the book.
Download and read.
Provide an honest review.
Or depending on where you live, you can find it on Amazon. Just click the relevant link below:
It is finally here! My very own short stories collection: The Forest Bed and other short stories. After long delays for ‘technical’ reasons, my book is finally available worldwide as an ebook. What’s even better?
The ebook is free.
The Forest Bed ebook is available to readers worldwide for free on Amazon Kindle
Offer valid from June 22, 2021, 12:00 AM PDT till June 26, 2021, 11:59 PM PDT.
Open your Kindle app.
Type The Forest Bed in your Search bar.
Select the book.
Download and read.
Provide an honest review.
Or depending on where you live, you can find it on Amazon. Just click the relevant link below:
Just type in the comment box if you can’t find it. I’ll provide the link.
Book in Print: If you are more of a love-the-smell-of-books person like me, you can order the printed book from Amazon or Pothi and they will deliever it at your doorstep. Just click the link of your favoured distributor.
Free sample: If you are wondering why you should spend your money on the book, here is a free sample with five representative stories from the book. Please click DOWNLOAD to take a sneak peak and provide reviews that would help me raise the sale.
My mom always said, “Never judge a bird by its feather.” So when the time came for building a nest, I thought I’ll give humans a chance. I didn’t like judging them based on their feathers, or the lack thereof. I am not really averse to humans…just a little wary because they are so large and uncoordinated. They flap their wings all day for no reason but never take flight. Though, some credit is due because they continue trying. They never really give up, unlike most other creatures who are now using their wings to walk.
I also appreciate the way their trees are always breezy. I often sit outside the hollow of their trees and the breeze is just there when there is none outside. Someone told me it is because of the three-legged sloth that hangs from the top of their tree and the breeze comes when it moves round and round. I tried talking to one of them if it was true but he seemed a quiet one.
Well, it’s hot right now and I don’t fancy staying outside in the sun while sitting on the eggs. So, when I started property hunting for a nest, I thought I’ll build it inside one of these breezy hollow trees. A couple of mynas referred me to this tree mentioning that the resident humans were rather gentle on other creatures ever since the last revolution and their recent treaty with the resident mice, spiders, bees and wasps. Also, they had mentioned that the owners offered free food to feathered neighbours. All this seemed rather too good to believe. But again, I wasn’t judging them yet. So, I thought, I’ll check out the property to see if it was worth the risk.
It is one of the usual hollow trees where humans live–very thick trunk, no leaves, no fruits, huge open windows, full of useless stuff. You can hear the constant dripping of water that seems to be ever present for humans. At the window, I could not feel the breeze and the three-legged sloth on the top wasn’t moving.
The humans were still asleep (Lazy bones!) so I decided to take a quick tour and then wait until the sloth wakes up. I sauntered inside. The branches on the top seemed promising for a nest. As I started to check them out one by one, one of the larger humans woke up and saw me. He woke up his mate and pulled out his camera. I thought, well, if that’s what it takes to please them…I posed for him. Big mistake!
Meanwhile, the smallest one woke up and started giggling. I was glad they approved of me; that would make them good neighbours. Or so I thought. I was so wrong!
After some time, the largest human got up and touched one of the square mushrooms that grow from the inner wall of the tree, said something about a ‘fan’. Well, I was rather glad to have him for a fan and I would have accepted the mushroom gift, but the female shouted, “No”.
Jealous!
Then she shouted something that sounded like ‘bird wud hurt’ and the first guy dropped his hand never plucking the mushroom. I would say, I was rather dissapointed by the lack of hospitality. Now, as I continued checking the branches as earlier, this female wouldn’t leave me alone. She started waving her hands menacingly, shouting “Shoo” on the top of her lungs.
“Shoo, yourself woman!” I decided, I wouldn’t be driven out by a jealous female. So, I hung around waiting for her to give up. The male placated her once and all three of them went out of the space closing the opening behind them. I was so glad for the peace and quiet. I tried waking up the three-legged sloth just to see if the breeze of this property was worth the hassle. I tweeted at him. I pecked him. But no use.
Then the female returned brandishing a pitchfork at me…
Okay, not a pitchfork, but one of those long branches these humans weild at times–‘wroom’, I think. She started pestering me with the soft side up, swiping pretty close but never making contact. I was startled at her hostility, I must say. You would think, I had stolen her seeds or something! At first I jumped around from branch to branch. Then I decided to fight back.
“Eat dirt,” I shouted and pushed down the dirt that was collected on the branches right on her eyes. She rubbed them and they were all watery. We faught like that for quite sometime until both of us were breathless.
That’s when she retreated never to come back.
I stayed there another hour but the three-legged sloth slumbered on. Then I just left. I was tired and hungry, and honestly, I couldn’t live in the presence of a hostile female. What if she blames me for leading her mate astray. What impression would that leave on my guy? I wish I had brought him along. Then, her guy would have seen right away that I was taken and he wouldn’t have hit on me in the first place.
Author’s note: I have always loved To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I never tried to dissect the love to understand why until recently. When I was reading it for the nth time, I realised…
The book sketches innumerable characters from a small town, I am not into documentaries and the entire thing should have been absolutely boring and I shouldn’t have been able to distinguish between characters. But I love it. The character sketch is woven into story and narrator’s interactions with them. It brings out not just the physical traits but the entire personality. Here are couple of excerpts.
“We lived on the main residential street in town—Atticus, Jem and I, plus Calpurnia our cook. Jem and I found our father satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treated us with courteous detachment.
Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side. She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember.”
“Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him. As he told us the old tale his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laugh was sudden and happy; he habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead.
When Dill reduced Dracula to dust, and Jem said the show sounded better than the book, I asked Dill where his father was: “You ain’t said anything about him.”
“I haven’t got one.”
“Is he dead?”
“No…”
“Then if he’s not dead you’ve got one, haven’t you?”
Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush, a sure sign that Dill had been studied and found acceptable.”
Also, the author was not in a hurry to give away everything at the beginning. It is almost half way through the book when you realise that Calpurnia is black and Dill’s character sketch waits until we are a couple of pages through with him.
In middle of all the confusion that encompasses my life, I missed a very important milestone: 400+ followers! Also, 14K views! Wow…there was a time when I had 3 views for one year…all my own.
Thank you, dear followers, for reminding me everyday that my blog is there for a reason: You! It is meant to show an upside down view of life, give voice to beings who often go unheard and spark a conversation. I had stopped giving political opinion last month because it hurt some very important people in my life but I still write about everything else under the sun, as long as it has the potential to stir a healthy conversation.
Sometimes, I do feel out of juice though until I see a photo, hear a story, read a word that makes my brain do somersaults until something spills out that is worth telling a story.
So, if you have a topic or a word around which you want me to weave a story, just leave it in the comments. The offer is open to anybody and anytime. You can throw the word in, in the comment box of any of my posts. I’ll pick up and see if I can weave something. It might take a few days…or weeks…months even, because my brain does its own calculation while I sleep, and churns out something almost perfect at unexpected moments, but it will surface, eventually.
So, give me inspiration, dear readers. I write for you.
Thank you again for following me. Keep posting comments whenever you feel like it, even if to just say, Hello!
The fact that we need a Pride month is a matter of shame for us all.
Did you know that around 5% of population across that world has a problem with gender identity. You say, “Well, I’ve never seen anyone…” That’s because they are foresaken by their families upon birth, killed, left in orphanages, handed over to the LGBTQ+ societies in your area or their families hide their ‘defect’…
The fact that we need a Pride month is a matter of shame for us all
because it means we are still not treating people right;
That we need a whole month every year to remind ourselves that people who are different deserve an equal footing;
That we still forget that gender is not black and white but hues of rainbow;
That people are commiting suicide every year because they are pushed to marry the ‘wrong’ gender to prove they are ‘normal’ and those who resort to violence to prove they are ‘man enough’;
That there are sports for women and sports for men, and people who are allowed to enter none;
That there are people who laugh at those who wear their colours with pride;
That every year, too many children are forced to drop out of school because they can’t deal with the physical, mental and emotional abuse by their classmates and teachers alike;
That we are still teaching our sons that boys don’t cry and daughters that girls don’t talk back;
That we are raising another generation that is just as unforgiving to those who don’t fit in the unyeilding boxes of gender roles…
The fact that we need a Pride month is a matter of shame for us all…
I drag my feet to the bus shelter. The night was nearly over and I had nothing to show for it. I push the gnawing hunger down until…
There was a time when men would throng this area after the late-night movie in the hall close by, eager to get behind the bushes with anyone who showed the slightest piece of skin. It was a life of plenty then. But not anymore.
The virus had changed it all. Movie halls are closed. Men are wary of strangers. The mask makes it difficult to bare my supple lips, the biggest draw in otherwise petite frame, but without a mask, they would be even more vary. No one is ready to risk the disease for the sake of pleasure. I really can’t hang a board in my neck declaring that I am vaccinated…
Not that I am vaccinated anyway.
A pang of hunger pushes me to quicken my pace towards the bus shelter. There is always someone there, returning from a late-night job or a soiree…
I turn the corner and look expectantly. A lonely figure is huddled on the bench waiting for the next bus that wouldn’t be here for a bit–a woman! I sigh, but I have to try. I step forward from the shadows, flash cleavage towards her and make a ‘follow me’ sign towards the shadows. She visibly cringes and averts her gaze.
I sigh again.
I hate the bus shelter’s light, but I’m hungry and desperate. So, I make a mad dash, hold the girl’s face in my hands and dig my teeth in her neck…
I mentioned a couple of projects for my daughter in my last post, but elaborated only one–the folding kitchen. Well, the other one is a jungle/zoo/farm backdrop.
Everybody at home had been complaining about how my daughter’s toy animals turn up everywhere in the house at the most inopportune moment, like on the floor under your bare feet, on the pillows when your head hits it too hard, on the chair seat when you are too tired to check before sitting, under the bed where you can’t pull them out without getting yourself dirty, behind the huge almirah which needs four grown up men to move (we have only three at home)…
I guess, the herbivores have the habit of running away to go looking for grass and plants, and the carnivores follow them to eat them…
Well, it became important to build a ranch/sanctuary/safeplace where they were allowed to roam. It also helps my daughter create stories that I could, then, publish in the blog (Hah! Mastermind me, stealing stories of the minions…).
So, I used an old flat cardboard box to build the backdrop with water colours (all that I could find at home during lockdown).
The walls have silhouette of a deep forest.
I also built a detachable cave and a hollow tree out of a plastic box. The 4-year-old Madame Leonardo Da Vinci coloured it to perfection.
The forest comes with yellow and red trees built out of old coloured cardboard boxes. It also has a fishy pond and an even fishier river that can be moved around at will. These were made of the old plastic sheets from my old organiser diary. The stones donated by an unsuspecting relative add to the effect.
To ensure flexibility to convert it to a zoo, we have combined it with a set of foldable cardboard cages and coloured by the family artist a few months earlier.
The piece is a continuous work in progress since we plan to add grass, a few more trees, a lying down hollow tree, and other cool stuff to build stories. We are gradually working towards adding farm buildings to the set as well. I’m looking forward to building a nice blue ocean out of the box top, thanks to my daughter’s new found love for water creatures.
The best part is that it also works as storage space for all these sets.
All in all the hard work seems to have paid off, considering the time my daughter spends with the set. I had too much fun…so there’s that too.
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 