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) net email id. They later made it a paid service, so I just stopped using that email address. I began to use rediffmail instead. It was modern and quite cool, but internet was still expensive, and I didn't yet know how to type. My sister Nisha and I were (and are) so close that we had hours of conversation that we needed to catch up on when we were apart. How could emails do?Plus, as dancers, we needed more. Sending videos was impossible. I mean, who had digital cameras? And how could the internet be used to send videos? That was absurd.So, the first time Nisha went to France and wanted to perform, I wrote … [Read more...]
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 a letter, or just a picture of a letter each day. Here's one.This one is from my father. I've always loved receiving letters from him! Each year, we would go to my grandparents' place in Bangalore for the summer, and each year, he would write me at least one letter before he joined us there. This one is from much later in my life - when I was doing my post-graduation at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.In this letter, my father addresses me as he often does Baccha mine. Isn't there something deliciously warm about it? He wrote to me from Chennai and my favourite part is the end, where he refuses to put … [Read more...]
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 and start the rewriting process. As I said to my sister just yesterday, I'm a terrible writer. But I'm a good rewriter, which is what makes my writing passable. And yes, sometimes I write 12 and 13 drafts of the same story before I'm remotely satisfied, so perhaps I'm a good rererererewriter.But now, it's time to write, not rewrite. And I postpone it. Of course I postpone it.Since the beginning of the lockdown, I've been at my parents' place and so, today, because I had to start something new, I decided to look through my cupboard to postpone writing just a little longer. And my younger … [Read more...]
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 long over them.Peril (Book 1)Meri Marlowe is the last of her kind, except that she doesn't know that. She knows that she can see a colour called Peril that no one else seems to be able to see. Her parents died protecting her, and left her in the care of Theo, who can't see peril, but knows that Meri's secret must be kept safe because ... He has no idea. Someone wants to kill her, simply because she can see peril.Kel Douglas is the enemy, or at least, he ought to be. When Kel and Meri meet, though, everything seems to change. Meri is a Tean and Kel is Perilous. Historical … [Read more...]
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.Ever since Duckbill was acquired, though, I haven't used Kindle Unlimited much because Duckbill books aren't there any longer. Halfheartedly, I checked if my favourite writers had anything new there, and ... yes!So much for rationing my reading, though, I read Ragged Wolf practically all day until I finished it.Ragged Wolf is the third in the Dragonfly trilogy, and I enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed the rest of the series (which, perhaps, it's time to reread ...?) The protagonists in the three books are not the same, and I love that. The characters we get to know in one book are around, but … [Read more...]
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 of the Moon. Ma harrumphs and disapproves, for what use are stories when their fortune will not change? Life is hard and they must strive to make ends meet.With all the stories she has heard, Minli knows that only one person can help change the family fortune - and that is the Old Man of the Moon. And so, she sets out on a journey to find him. All along the way, she meets different kinds of creatures - a goldfish that can talk, a dragon without wings, a green tiger and more.Minli's journey is particularly heartwarming because her character is … [Read more...]
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 for people born on the 29th of February. The uniqueness of the day surely makes you a special person. But poor you! How does it feel to have a real birthday only once in four years?I was so fascinated by the idea that in the very first book I wrote (which was, thankfully, never published), I created a special day - the 31st of November to echo the magic of a day that springs into being out of nothingness. It was not enough, though, to satisfy my love for this day.And so, in Sisters at New Dawn, I built an event around it. A proper event for leap day. At New Dawn … [Read more...]
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, and it led to the publication of Flickering Flames. In the second year, we put together a book of our own, handmade, and we called it The Book that Speaks. And in the following three years, I held a writing competition, with the results being announced during the very last session. Last year, I also invited a special guest to give away the prizes - and what fun that was.This year, my batch was particularly enthusiastic and we had not one but two parties - one for Christmas and one yesterday for our very last session. I love how excited all the girls are about the competition … [Read more...]
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 of loneliness and of typhus, could not have, should not have died.But what of the others in the Annexe whom we see only through Anne's eyes? What of her father who survived and the others who didn't? What of Peter, the only young boy in the Annexe, who lived to be eighteen in a concentration camp?Annexed is the story from Peter's point of view. Right at the beginning, I was uncomfortable. Peter and Anne were real people with real stories. Was it okay to create a fictional character Liese, with whom Peter is in love at the beginning of the story? And as things … [Read more...]
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. Jack was the kind of person who made a room more interesting when he stepped in and left people feeling a little deflated when he stepped away. He was funny, lively and charismatic - so much so that Rowan lived in his glow. She was his little sister.But after he dies, something in the family seems to die too. Rowan's father leaves, and her mother sinks into a well of sadness. Rowan, all of 15, does not want to live with her father, so she takes responsibility for her little sister Stroma, and pretends both to her father and to the world at large that everything with their … [Read more...]