Hi All! One of my pieces was published on TheDrabble, a site that specialises in very short stories. Take a look.
My Neighbour: The Make-belief Butterfly
Many of my neighbours having been calling in, in spite of the lockdown and strict government measures. This guy took it to another level.
It is one thing to ask for something to eat but raiding your neighbour’s fridge and locking yourself inside is plain rude, and stupid too. I found him inside the fridge. Too colourful–bright white background with red and green spots–so, I’m unsure if he’s a regular moth or her love-baby with a butterfly.
Since the little guy showed no intention to move his butt out of the new found haven, or may be his butt was frozen after a night’s orgy inside the fridge, I took him on my hands (he fretted a little but couldn’t fly away) and placed him on one of the walls that gets warmed by the sun.
There he stayed for another 7 hours and I saw his butt had moved a little.
Later in the night, he was gone. Either he got well and away, or Hariya, our resident lizard (a story for a different day) had a sumptuous snack. At least, someone had a good time.
The Anchor
The book is not part of a short-story collection available both in print and as ebook. I will share the links soon.
The Killer Streaks
The story is now a part of a short-story collection available both in print and as an ebook. I will share the links soon.
1st Re-birthday Celebration
Stats: 1 year, 300+ Posts, 5600+ Views, 186 Followers
WOOHOOOOOO!!!
Fish in the Trees is my alter ego. It stands for my unique position as a true Gemini. (Ever saw that horoscope picture with two people looking in different directions? That’s me.) I have always been looking in two directions or more–trying to see both sides of the coin, skewing my perspective like a fish-eye lens. I have a traditional small-town upbringing, but am plagued with question-itis (the habit of asking pain-in-the-ass questions) and conform-o-phobia (the fear of conforming with status quo). My blog follows suit.
It makes both of us forever misfits, like a shellfish in the trees.
Fish in the trees only had five posts till mid-last year, all of which I deleted. On the night of 15th June last year, I decided to rebirth this site and moved in stuff from my earlier site Fly on the Wall (that no one read). Since then, I have written every week, twice a week, daily… Yup! I’m that crazy!
Now after one year, here are 10 posts that I am proud of…okay 18…It is rather difficult to pick your favourite child, and I have over 300.
- Twisted Fairytales:
- Nature: The People in Zoo
- Life and After:
Enjoy!
My Neighbours: The Green Pigeon
The lockdown has made me better acquainted with a lot of neighbours. This one visits us every spring.
When I first saw one, I rubbed my eyes, took a photo and showed around to check if it was really green, and really a pigeon. May be, it was a parrot or a barbet…People suggested I needed to invest in a better camera, or perhaps, a psychologist.
I questioned my sanity.
A couple of years later, I saw a group again, I took pictures. People suggested, may be it was just the morning light. I showed them Google Search for green pigeons. They said they might exist but not here. The shots aren’t clear enough for a proof.
For another month, I hung around on my rooftop everyday, looking for clearer evidence. Even though they had moved in the trees around my house, the green mean guys hung around, always out of range.
I prayed.
Then, one fine day, one of the elusive guys came close enough for a clear shot. There he sat for 10 minutes, letting me take 15 shots, and prove to myself that I hadn’t been hallucinating.
The experience inspired this painting.
Too Pink
Awoke in a world too Pink–
an Alice in Wonderland
kind-of dream…
a world I’d never fit in,
that doesn’t let me grow,
or have a voice,
forced on me
by the virtue of my gender–
the one I had no choice in.
Scared in extreme, I wake up,
still trapped
in a world too Pink…
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
Are you a racist?
Do you think you aren’t a racist?
Well, let me clarify, Racism is not just about hitting or killing a person from another race/religion. It is also the prejudice or discrimination you direct against someone of a different race, consciously or sub-consciously. My last post My Personal Black Day was an example of racism at a sub-conscious level in daily life. I had more of such experiences when I joined a Christian school in middle grade and later a Muslim High School, but those are stories for later.
Now, do you still think you aren’t a racist? I dare you to check.
Did you study in a school or college, worked in an office, or lived in a place that had people from different races–Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews or others; black skin, white skin, red skin, yellow skin or brown skin? Open your collection of pictures during the social gatherings and answer the following questions in the Comments section. You will find your own answer.
- Which race/religion shows up the most?
- Is a person from another race/religion standing close to you?
- Are they close friends?
- Do you remember their names clearly?
- Ever visited their house or hung out with them?
- Did you ever go on a date with a person of another race/religion?
- What race/religion is your bestie?
- What race/religion is your spouse?
Did you get your answer yet?
You can give an excuse that these people wanted to be left out. Really? Did you try starting a dialogue or offering a smile?
Clearly, as birds of a feather, we racists flock together.
My Personal Black Day
I am rather ashamed of myself for this incident because, all my life, I had believed I wasn’t a racist. It shows me the mirror.
Bangalore, nearly evening…
I and my roommate had been shopping for several hours and I was fretting to return home. I was new to Bangalore, didn’t remember the roads, didn’t know the language, and had already lost my way once at night. My roommate knew the way, but we hadn’t been friends long, so I had a difficulty trusting her night-navigation skills.
As we boarded the autorickshaw, she asked me if it was okay if we visited a friend close by for a couple of minutes. She had something she wanted to handover. I said it was fine.
So we went to his rented flat in a posh locality. I was fine until he opened the door. Black.
I was suddenly on guard. I wasn’t able to place the sharp smell that came from the flat (a bachelors’ pad), I wondered if it was drugs. I can’t even give an excuse of huge built or towering personality. He was merely 5’8″, welcoming and cordial. My fear was only based on the colour and smell, which I later found out was the smell of sweat (bachelors’ pad, after all).
Even though I knew he was a highly qualified software engineer and a close friend of my roomy, I was scared. I held my breath until we were out. Those two minutes were the longest in my life. I knew that all those present there realised my discomfort since he didn’t stop us for chit-chat. I didn’t do anything, but still made him feel unwelcome.
I later tried to rationalise my reaction by saying it was being in a new place among strangers…but I had been in a similar situation before, but the guys were all Indians and we had a lot of laughs that day.
There are no two ways about it. I was prejudiced against a Black man even before he looked at me.
I met him later again in a GoCarting area. This time, I was genuinely happy to have received a second chance. Surprising my family, I went ahead and talked to him about everything under the sun. I still wish I had done it the first day, which still remains the black day of my life.
Your Art Inspires Mine: Making Software Training Bearable
As Instructional Designers, we create online courses for adult learners. Recently, I and another colleague were training around 12 colleagues on an authoring software that we use create these products. We were worried about the mental barriers of virtual training, the monotony of software training and the difficulty our colleagues would face in remembering the huge number of functionalities.
So, we decided to go crazy. To show them the various capabilities of the software, we used a dragon activity that Ellen Forkin had shared for free on her blog Ellen’s Wonderfuss Fairies for kids to doodle on.
We showed them how to insert icons and images of food in it’s stomach and then add labels and various functionalities to the page. It earned quite a few giggles from our ‘class’. Since, we are all 30-50 years old, I would call that quite a feat. More importantly, it helped them remember.
Next day, as a refresher of the functionalities taught the previous day, I quickly built a story using a troll hair activity, again by Ellen Forkin. It had the same functionalities and some new ones to get my ‘students’ excited and ready to learn. Some may think it unprofessional to use cartoons for adult learners but it worked for us.
Here is the story and a couple of screenshots. Together with the animation, narration and various functionalities, it came out as entertaining, if nothing more.
Now, a farmhouse, complete with animals and a farmhand, sat atop his bald head.
The old couple was horrified–it’s not everyday that you see the earth move beneath your feet. The young farmhand was rather amused–it’s not everyday that you see the earth move beneath your feet. The cow and sheep were wide-eyed and stopped mooing and baaing for an entire minute. The rooster, however, loved the higher perch and began cock-a-doodle-doo-ing right away.
But the gentle troll that he was, Munchkins put them down, smiled and walked away.
Thank you, Ellen, for waking my student’s inner child, which made the training a resounding success. Your art inspired mine.
For the love of cartooning and Norse mythology, and a good laugh, visit Ellen’s site: https://ellenswonderfussfaeries.wordpress.com/
Short Stories 