Tag: Life

Posted in My life

The Curious Case of M&S (Part 2)

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal
Illustration by M at Ammpryt ART

A lot of you already know my best friend M through my post–The Curious Case of M&S. She’s my soulmate, except for the romance part.

We had rediscovered childhood together at an age when most women try to act grown up. We had run amok on streets ducking angry cows, eating unhealthy food, just loitering around on the pretext of finding coaching centres, attending those coaching just to be around each other during summer breaks…well, you get the drift.

What I didn’t tell you is that our common love is painting. We met during our Bachelor’s at our painting class and it was love at first sight. We were the fiercest competitors and best friends. We had entered competitions together, exhibited paintings together, experimented with colours and dabbed with different styles.

I was her biggest fan…the kind who collect waste paper after the other, literally. So, she used to carry out five-minute experiments on scraps of paper, intending to throw them away. I used to collect these little gems. Some may find it a little creepy–stalker-kind of behaviour. But I knew someday, I’ll sell them off as M’s first and become a millionaire. I had that level of confidence in her skills.

She is the best painter I have come across, and I have met some some really successful Indian painters during Bachelors. After she finished her Masters, she had to take a long career break due to the reason the world knows as marriage and children. Now she’s back in full force and raring to go.

She paints both for love and money. She has created some illustrations for my site under the pen name Ammpryt ART.

She also has a website that has her contact details in the About page. So, in case you are thinking of some custom-made paintings that you can print, she is the go-to person. She also has a design shop on redbubble.com by the same name (Ammpryt ART). They print your chosen designs on blankets, mugs, t-shirts etc and deliver at your doorstep. There are a bunch of Red bubble links in her blog, though she hasn’t figured out the blogging part properly yet. Do check her site and let her know your thoughts about her designs.

We are currently working on our first book–a story compilation with some kick-ass illustrations. Wish us luck!

Posted in Fiction

Left Hook, Right Hook

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

His right hook was stronger than his left hook. So, he gathered the coriander leaves together with his left hook and waged a war against the errant leaves with his right. But they kept falling out, reminding him that quality of his remaining life depended on the new set of fingers his new bosses had ordered for him, if he was to keep his current job as a housekeeper and cook.

For 34 years, he had worked at a warehouse, using his pair of sturdy hooks to carry and store the wares to be housed, never missing the set of flexible fingers that his contemporary robots sported. So, when his owner decided that his model was too old to be repaired and sold him to willing owners, he felt jilted. New beginnings weren’t easy at his age. But having a new owner was better than being thrown in the junkyard, so he went quietly.

His new owners, an old man with a broken front teeth and an equal old squat woman with a traditional nose pin, took him to one of those ‘lesser’ engineers who work for the masses. How humiliating it was to be standing in the place along with all sort of riffraff!

Then came the big blow…He wasn’t fit for the new owners who needed a domestic robot. Being new to the whole robot-thing and not knowing better, they were fooled into buying an old industrial robot with hooks unaccustomed to the nuances of household work, especially cooking–a delicate art–that need a set of flexible fingers instead of hooks. His owners had openly regretted the choice, calling him a tin-box!

There could be no greater insult. He was made of Aerosteel used in making spaceships! He suggested them to rent him to another warehouse. He offered to work overtime to pay back their money. But even he knew it was a long shot. There was no guarantee a warehouse would hire a 34-year-old robot with obsolete technology.

That’s when the ‘lesser’ engineer became his saviour. He suggested updating his program to ‘Househelp’, and getting him two set of fingers, both easily available on GooglyFace.com. Since the fingers weren’t coming cheep, the old couple needed some persuasion. But they eventually relented since they had already invested 78 thousand bucks on the tin box, and ‘another 7 thousand wouldn’t kill them’.

Hence, the engineer quickly updated his program to Househelp before they could change their mind, deleting his Warehouse program by accident. He offered to order the sets of fingers from a ‘friend’ who would give them a ‘discount’ (his discount being 30% more than the market rate but the old couple would probably never find out).

So now, he was ‘home’ with his new owners awaiting his new body parts, and praying to God, if there was a God for robots, that the engineer would know how to install the fingers properly, else he would be stuck chopping coriander with a pair of hooks for the rest of his life.

Posted in Fiction

An Exercise to Futility

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

He hid in the dak storeroom in the middle of the night and typed frantically on his laptop. He couldn’t dare to switch on the lights for the fear of being intercepted.

His ears were on hyper-alert, registering the tiniest of the sound–the tic of the Seconds hand of the clock in the adjoining bedroom, the constant dripping of the faucet in the kitchen sink, the scurrying mice on the storeroom floor. Compared to all these, the sound of typing felt like hitting a gong over and over. What if somebody heard him?

He couldn’t go any slower too. If he took too much time, someone might realise he’s missing. They would surely come looking and realise what he was trying to do. Then, they’ll find a way stop him or at least delay him enough to make the whole exercise futile. But he couldn’t let that happen…

The information he was dealing with was crucial, and the consequences of failing to act on time would be dire. The stakes were too high to lie low, so he typed like a madman praying to the Lord to give him just enough time.

He thought of the old days…happier days when he didn’t have to live in the constant fear of detection in his own home; when human roamed the planet freely…

“Just five more minutes,” he prayed. Then, he heard the baby wail…Time to change the diaper!

Damn working from home!

Posted in My life

Calling W

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

My smartphone has a thing against making calls to my husband. Specially, during the pandemic, our connection has gone for a toss.

1. On the first call, I get no dial tone, no caller’s tune–only a woman in her mid-twenties educates me about COVID 19, washing my hands and keeping a six-feet distance. Yup! That’s the standard caller’s tune in India now. I wait for her to end her ranting so I can bug my husband. She speaks non-stop for sixty seconds. Then the call goes dead.

2. I call again. This time, some random guy picks up the phone and we both hello each other without being able to talk. I hang up.

3. I call yet again. The call gives some feeble beeps and goes dead.

4. Desperate to get through to him, I call yet again. The call connects but I can’t hear him. The call disconnects after 8 seconds.

Frustrated, I dump my phone and stomp off to let off my steam.

5. Five seconds later, my husband calls me demanding to know why I had called him four times and never cared to speak. Duh!

Posted in Fiction

Lonely

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Three thousand years is a long time to be stuck inside a box, however pretty and expensive. Stuck between this world and the next, it gets rather dark and boring in here. Add these bandages and the temperature in here could become a killer, if I wasn’t already dead. What’s the point of the perfect preservation of body, when I can’t even look in a mirror.

So I had to crack open the Shell, quite like a chick out of an egg, and take a walk outside. If you meet me on the way, please ignore the bandages–they weren’t my idea of fun. I was just lying there, waiting to be buried, but these guys decided that I deserved an eternity…of loneliness.

I wish I wasn’t a king.

Posted in My life

Sailor, Ahoy!

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I’ve never set foot on a ship, but I know how it feels for a sailor to wipe floorboards after a storm.

-Me

My house has a special feature–water harvesting. When it rains and the wind is in the right direction, which is at least once a year, (this year has been rather generous in this regard) the unique technique used in the windows allows maximum possible amount of water inside.

Since my room is the highest room of the tallest tower in the area, the amount of water it can intake can put a Civil engineer to shame (“Why didn’t I think of this? I could have saved riven Yamuna. I should drown myself in this pool.”) I think the architect who designed the house worked with King Akbar in Agra, since a similar water harvesting technique has been used throughout the Agra fort and Fatehpur Sikari fort. The only mistake he made was to forget creating a tank at the bottom to contain the water it collected–such a waste!

So, whenever it rains and the wind is in the ‘right’ direction, the I play the sailor, while my daughter sitting on the bed squeals with excitement and works as the lookout–“Look Maa! Water from that window too!”

I specially remember this night when my daughter was one and there was a storm. Lights went out, the inverter didn’t work, and we lighted a candle. Then the wind moved in the ‘right’ direction and water came in from all of the five huge windows covering two walls.

Suddenly we were sailors of the old times on His Majesty’s Ship in storm. One of my family members had run upstairs to help and together we bailed (wiped) water out of the room, while the Princess was sound asleep in the King’s arms. After five minutes, when it was clear that no amount of bailing/wiping could help, the King ordered us to abandon ship and we took the nearest escape route to the floor below.

Water came to us from all directions, raining down the stairs that led to the roof. It followed us down the stairs in torrents, trying to drown anyone en route. Wet from the water falling from the stairs above, we made it, somehow, to dry lands of the lower floor, leaving all our belongings to fate.

Three hours later, when the rain stopped for a while and the wind took a break, I returned to our room to find it water-logged. It took me three more hours to put out the beds on the roof to dry, and to clean and dry-up the room and the carpet…and get ready for work. No sleep for me that night!

For many years, we have looked for ways to make our room waterproof without sealing the windows (since sealing them will turn the room into an oven) but to no avail. It doesn’t stop me from loving it though.

I fell in love with those huge fancy castle-like windows the day I entered this home for the first time. They gave me the sense of living in a hotel with a spectacular view…mine is that of trees and a field across the road. Well, beyond that there is a water tank and houses, but it is as good as it can get while still living in a city. And then there are birds that knock on my windows so often…

Some inconveniences are worth it…

Posted in Guest post

Guest Post: Ngozi Awa

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I’d like to present a guest post by Ngozi Awa. She is fellow blogger and friend who shares heartfelt pieces of her life and other stories on her blog http://doshelles.com.

The Quiet and Reserved Ones


As an undergraduate, I wasn’t the boldest or the most eloquent in class. However, I knew I wanted to make a difference in the quality of studentship in the department. So, there came the decision to run for one of the supporting leadership positions in the department’s students’ association.

When I indicated interest to run for Treasurer of the Department of English and Literary Studies Students’ Association, I was laughed off. My classmates and seniors described me as withdrawn and shy. I was pained at the low levels of confidence I received from my classmates. I thought they could see past my quiet demeanour.

I didn’t let their disapproval stop me from pursuing my goal. I vied for the position, wrote and delivered a manifesto that sent the crowd to their feet with rounds of applause. I won the position.

It is okay to be reserved, quiet, or even withdrawn but you have to step out of your comfort zone once in a while.
Like Master Shifu of The Kung-fu Panda series says “If you do only what you can do, you will never be more than you are now.”

You can read more of her beautiful stories at http://doshelles.com/.

Posted in Guest post

Guest Post: Don Ostertag

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I’m pleased and honoured to share a Guest Post from my partner in crime, Don Ostertag. He is one of my favourite blog writers. His stories are straight from the heart and worth your time every single time.

An Introduction to my blog: Don Ostertag: Off Stage

I am in my lower 80s. My legs are in their late 90s. My beautiful Mexican senorita, now senora, Georgina, (Gina), and I have been married over half a century (59 years). We have five sons, four daughters-in-law, and eleven grandchildren. My wife raised five sons and one husband, and now is using her talent to help out with our grandchildren.

I am retired. I have had a great many occupations over the years; but for the last 45 years of working, I had been a union stagehand in the Twin Cities. While stagehands often work into their 80’s, (I knew one in Boston that was over 90), common sense and my aching body told me to get out. I had way, way, too much fun in my youth, getting bucked off horses, getting busted up in football, and getting bounced on the ground at the end of a parachute jump, and so on.

If I outlive my 401K, and my bad luck with Powerball continues, I’ll probably be greeting people as I gave them their shopping carts at the nearby big-box store. But for now, I’m retired.

I never got into trying to hit balls into holes in the grass. Although I lived in the woods and lakes when I was young, hunting and fishing don’t appeal to me anymore. I love fields and flowers, but my knees no longer approve of gardening. TV grows old after you watched the same episode of NCIS for the umpteenth time, and the MN Twins keep losing. I do read and read and read. I always have my Nook within reach.

And I write.

All my life I enjoyed daydreaming, watching people, and writing. More importantly, my body doesn’t mind my remembering and my writing. This blog is a small example of my writings.

I hope you enjoy reading them half as much as I enjoyed writing them. For the most part, they are true stories. Well, as true as I remember. After all, many of them happened a long, long time ago.

OLD HAND – published pieces

STAGE HAND – show biz pieces

NO HANDS – bits & pieces

PS: This Intro was written before the Darkness came to our world. And while prayer may be a great comfort, just remember God helps those who help themselves. So please obey the rules for good health. Be optimistic. And love thy neighbor even if it is at a six-foot distance.

And just keep thinking what the words of that annoying earworm sings, ‘The Sun will come out tomorrow’.

STAY SAFE

For a good laugh and food for thought, visit Don’s blog at https://donostertag.wordpress.com/