Short Stories

Busy Bee (Part 2)

Posted on Jun 6, 2021Jun 6, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

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.

My life

Busy Bee

Posted on Jun 4, 2021Jun 4, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

So, you might have noticed that my posting frequency declined greatly lately. Earlier I used to write at least a couple of posts every week. But in the last month, since mid-Ramadan, I went slow, too slow actually.

No, it had nothing to do with fasting, something to do with my book–The Forest Bed–and everything to do with a couple of projects I had going on for my daughter.

As you might know, I love building things with hands. Earlier I saw on You Tube a folding kitchen that a father had created for his daughter where she could stand and cook. The kitchen was simple, clean and orderly with hangers and stands for utensils, a microwave and a working sink. I was specially struck by how everything was in place and ready to play when the girl opened it so the child doesnot spend time setting it all up.

My house doesn’t offer enough space for anything that elaborate. But setting the kitchen up is my daughter’s pain point. Usually by the time she is done with it, it is time to sleep, eat or study. So, I definitely agreed with the ready-to-play and folding kitchen part.

So I built it out of waste material.

The cardboard was home, thanks to Amazon–around 12 X 8 inches. I just cut one side to be folded up and down. Then, I used the side flaps to add to the depth. Of course, they close too when we are folding, making it a compact storage for all the things that were earlier found all over the house. Since cardsheet was not available due to lockdown, we covered it with the artsheets my daughter had already coloured. The utensil hangers are made of old buttons. The racks are made our of smaller cardboard boxes.

Since the space was too small, rather than sticking the oversized plastic stove on the counter top, we painted it on the counter…by we, I mean my humble-self and my very own four-year-old Leonardo da Vinci.

I added a bit of rough outlines for accent…”rough” being the operative word here. I didn’t want to take away the childish feeling from the paintings so I ensured that the outlines were not clean and symmetrical…they were drawn as if I didn’t have my glasses on (which I didn’t)…way off the mark but still leaving a mark (smudge, actually) on the sheet.

Closed front gates open upwards all the way back and down to form the floor.

The crazy fun I had during the process made me question my mental age…which was about five a couple of years back. I think now it has shrunk to three and a half.

I am planning to add a refrigerator and oven on the outerwalls in my next vacations. Any ideas?

Fiction

The Specimen

Posted on Jun 2, 2021Jun 2, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

The News Reader’s impersonal drawl filled the air while the king ground his Sodium pincers in anger, “As unprecedented hatred rises in the air between citizens of different colonies, people can be seen rallying the streets with hydro-guns.

They are drowsing each other with Hydrogen Dioxide, melting countless people into puddles of nothingness. The monarchy seems to be clueless on how to stop the massacre. As the tension builds, they are now facing a very real possibility of war, which, so far, was considered a thing of fairytales from planet Urth…”

The king, of course, knew what needed to be done. But that move would be akin to admitting a grave mistake…not graceful at all. After all, it was only last year that their planet celebrated its victory in space research. Tremendous amount of money was invested to arrange a group of scientists travel to this solar system with nine planets, so they could bring live samples. The samples from the blue planet, Urth, were exceptionally alive with chatter. One of the specimens, some Trum, had offered to discuss openly about their society and political system. And, foolishly, he had consented.

Maybe it wouldn’t have caused so much damage if he hadn’t allowed public speeches. But he had thought it was rather ‘entertaining’ to see a specimen address the general public as he tried to copy their accent.

He started with the great things he had done in his own country. How he had started war with others who did not agree. Gradually, he started offering his opinion on everything…how it does not do well to allow races to mix, to share resources…how the current government wasn’t taking enough measures to support it own people… how people should rise to save their birthright from usurpers…

And people listened, transfixed.

Initially, people came in with requests about removing certain people from their colonies and, then, to remove certain colonies from the planet. He, too, agreed because it made sense to him then…until it didn’t. And then, all hell broke loose…

Not sure how hydro-guns came to be. They never had water, except for the samples collected from the blue planet. But now, it seems that they are building them in hundreds. The hydrogen dioxide reacts with sodium of their bodies and melts it. Nobody in their living memory remembered them fighting, but now…

If the madness didn’t stop, he will be facing a war soon, adding further water to their miseries.

Sighing, he did what was needed. He instructed a team of soldiers to load Trum on the waiting spaceship and dump him back to Urth.

Fiction, Random Thoughts

The Taboo (Real Life)

Posted on May 31, 2021May 30, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

My earlier post, The Taboo, sparked a lot of conversation and it reminded me of a real incident from my college days.

I was travelling by car with a bunch of family friends to a marriage. We were all between 20-25 years of age, celebrating the momentary freedom from parental supervision. (In India, you are under parental supervision as long as your parents are alive.)

On the way, we saw a scooter at a distance. A girl in her late teens was travelling with an old person, probably her father. One of my friends said, “Hey! Guess what? I can touch her hair while sitting,” and he began extending his hand to touch her.

I shouted at him to stop. He was rather surprised and said he won’t hurt her, just touch her hair. But I held my ground–Just the act will hurt her; that girls are afraid of travelling because boys take such liberties.

He was shocked. He had no idea.

I asked him how he would feel if someone did that to his younger sister. He growled, nobody would dare touch his sister. I reminded him that she probably dealt with this on a daily basis and never told him because of the fear of retaliation or the fear of being grounded for life.

He had no idea…

Fiction

Fly High

Posted on May 30, 2021May 30, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

I was out, of course, while he called. I can’t exactly give flying lessons inside a cozy classroom.

He could have just left the message on the answering machine. But no! He had to call me 13 unlucky times before losing it and blasting his cellphone off with his wand.

He’s like, “Why don’t you carry your cellphone with you?”

Sure, I can carry it. But he should try answering calls while riding a broom driven by a shrieking first-timer trying to avoid birds, trees, humans and electrically-charged clouds.

There is no foothold. I almost drop myself ten times a day while holding a broom with both my hands. I don’t have enough hands to hold a cell phone too.

But does he understand? No! Instead, he blames me for ignoring him. Love sucks…

Random Thoughts

Published Our First Book!

Posted on May 24, 2021May 24, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

“After an year of toil and tears, it is finally here! Our very own short stories collection…”

-Manpreet and Shaily

The Forest Bed and other short stories

Our book is now available in India in print on Pothi.com. 😊 😃 They deliver across India through courier.

Soon, it will be available worldwide as ebook and in print.

Spread the word!

Share the post, if you will. Please, pretty please! 🥺

Random Thoughts

Dreams and Crop Circles–Is this a Sign?

Posted on May 24, 2021May 24, 2021 by Shaily Agrawal

Earlier this morning, I had a dream that was on a fairytale-meets-star wars theme with princesses, prophecies, sabers and spaceships. As I sat down to prepare lunch, I was greated with this sight.

A dried top of bottle gourd had this design.

Had I been a supestitious person, I would have run out of my house declaring that Lord Ganesha (with elephant face) has visited my house in his triple face avatar. But thanks to the dream, I was on a Sci-Fi cum Fairytale mode. Hence, I decided it was a crop circle inside my house. You may say, “Hey, a crop circle is a circular pattern in crops.” I say:

Bottle gourd is a crop.
It’s top is circular.
This one a has pattern, a pretty one too. Many progressive Indian women, henceforth, shall use it in their rangoli designs.

I wonder which TV channel to contact–

Aaj Tak that will turn it into Doomsday prophecy
NDTV that will call it the next attack of a deadly microbe
National Geographic that will call it a visitation from aliens and add it to their existing series of crop circles…

Any suggestions?

Hey! Small aliens that fit inside my fridge! Now that’s a plot for story. What do you say?

Fiction, Nature stories