It’s been a while since I wrote a book review, simply because I haven’t been reading much for the last two months. I wrote about that for The Curious Reader – about reading old favourites, but not really taking the plunge and reading something altogether new. Finally, a few days ago, I settled into a […]
Dragonflies, Jigsaws and Seashells – The Story Behind the Story
Stories of rejection can be empowering if they have happy endings. I realised that when I shared the story behind the story of Sisters at New Dawn. I think, since writing is such a solitary affair anyway, knowing that you aren’t amassing those rejections alone makes you feel warm, and a little less alone. So, here’s the story […]
Letters I Receive – VI
Okay, so this blog post cheats a little because even though it is about letters I’ve received, I’m also going to write about ones I just received – as photographs. They’re letters that I sent over 18 years ago. In my previous post, I wrote about the only crossed letter I ever wrote. I just […]
Letters I Receive – V
I’ve written about both Sreeja and her grandparents before. When Sreeja was studying at IIT-Kharagpur, she invited Veda and me to come for Diwali and see the magnificent illumination and rangoli on campus. All the dates went awry and we finally reached Kharagpur the day after the illumination. Oh, well, we saw what was left […]
Letters I Receive – IV
Recently (well, not recently really, but not long before the lockdown began), I did a letter-writing activity at a couple of workshops. I’ve always loved receiving letters. A letter in the mailbox with YOUR NAME on it? Ooh, the joy! I wanted children to experience that too, and what better way than through a workshop? […]
Letters I Receive – III
Have you ever had chicken pox? But more importantly, did you have a special friend to write letters to when you were quarantined? My sister Nisha missed her sixth standard final exams because she had chicken pox. Right through those weeks, she was extra careful, taking precautions rather similar to the ones we’re taking right […]
Letters I Receive – II
Once upon a time, we had a dial-up connection. I don’t know if younger readers of my blog even know what that is. Email took ages to load. You could read a book while you waited for the connection to be established and then … Never mind. For some reason, I had a usa (dot) […]
Letters I Receive – I
Have you ever wondered who uses the stationery in a hotel room? I mean, who needs an envelope and letter-writing paper and all of that when you spend one night in a hotel? I raise my hand. It’s me. And I take after my father. During the lockdown, I plan to share a story about […]
Writer’s Discipline
Yes, I know today’s post ought to be about World Dance Day, but somehow things don’t work that way. I’ve finished working on projects that have been works-in-progress for a while. I need to set them aside and do something new. That’s how I work. I have spreadsheets of when to look at work again […]
The Peril Trilogy
In the time of lockdown, Kindle Unlimited books are such a boon! I’ve been devouring books by Julia Golding for a while now, and when I discovered the Peril trilogy by Joss Stirling (same writer, different name), I was thrilled. Three books to read! Except that they’re so fast paced that I didn’t spend very […]
Ragged Wolf
I’m home. Coronavirus. Twisted ankle.My instinct is to sit with my laptop and work all day, but I know I will be exhausted if I do that. So, what can I do? I’m afraid of running out of books (yes, really) and I ration them, until I remember that I have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. […]
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
What a truly delightful story! In the shadow of Fruitless Mountain live Minli and her family. Everything in her village seems grey and dull, except Minli, who sparkles with life. That sparkle is, perhaps, the result of Ba’s stories. Night after night, he tells her stories about dragons, the Never-Ending Mountain and the Old Man […]
Leap Day
I’ve always been fascinated by leap years. Who hasn’t? Magically, out of nothingness, a day appears every four years. Where does it hide, squished between the 28th of February (a special month anyway) and the 1st of March? What does it do when it is hiding? Equally, I’ve been torn by envy of and pity […]
The Writers’ Club 2019-20
I can’t quite believe it’s been five years with the Writers’ Club at St. Mary’s School. I remember we had a maths teacher in class V who had been teaching there for FOUR YEARS. And I thought that it was pretty much forever. I’m there now. My first batch was created for the sesquicentennial celebrations, […]
Annexed
I was not planning to write a review of Annexed because of all the questions it raised in me about historical fiction. The Diary of a Young Girl, with its optimism and intimacy, made the Annexe come alive to all of us. I read it years ago and was left feeling hollow because vivacious Anne Frank, who died perhaps equally […]
Broken Soup
Unlike most other books that I pick up, the cover of Broken Soup did not attract me. But I’ve read and loved two other books by Jenny Valentine (The Ant Colony and Fire Colour One), so I borrowed this one – and, once more, I loved how the story was told. Rowan’s family falls apart when her brother Jack dies. […]
Sisters at New Dawn – The Story Behind the Story
Everybody knows that writing a book takes time. Sometimes (is it especially so with me?), it takes quite a long time. I wrote Sisters at New Dawn six years ago. 2014. Of course, this meant that in the last edit, I had to make lots of changes in it to keep up with the times. For instance, I […]
International Mother Language Day
All kinds of thoughts come to my mind as I think of the term mother language. I love the fact that so many languages exist. I love the celebration of language as both art and skill. Yet, working as I do with children and adults in diverse environments, I can’t help seeing other implications.On the […]
Listen to the Moon
I keep saying that with Michael Morpurgo, you can’t go wrong. Once more, with Listen to the Moon, I realised the truth of that. Had it been almost any other writer, I would have been daunted by the thickness of the book and the idea of beginning to read it when I know I’m busy. But Michael Morpurgo? […]
Ink
More often than not, fantasy serves as an allegory of the world we live in. Sometimes, the allegory is clearer than at other times, and I suppose part of that is cultural. For instance, when I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, I didn’t know enough to make the obvious connections. With Ink, it was different. […]