Manali Manan Desai's Blog, page 34

Types of People I Encountered in The Past Few Days

I turned 33 on 20th June. From Saturday evening to yesterday night, I spent most of my waking hours attending calls or responding to messages of those who wished me.

I’m grateful for every wish and the blessings of so many people. However, the mischievous me cannot help but compartmentalize the people in my life based on their wishes (or non-wishes) on my special day.

“I believe that no matter what condition you are in when someone close to your heart remembers your birthday and wishes you a happy birthday, you feel happy.”-A. Singla

So, here’s a light and funny take on the people who wish us on our birthdays. If you find yourself or someone you know in there, please feel free to be offended.

1. The Keeper

These are the ones we don’t want to and should never lose. They’re precious because:

They mostly always wish you at midnight.They don’t need social media to remind them about your birthday.

But let’s not fool ourselves by thinking there are many of these in our lives. If they’re but a handful, consider yourselves blessed. If more, feel free to consider yourself a celebrity.

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash2. The Acquaintance

These are people you rarely talk to. Or maybe more too. But the fact remains that you know nothing about each other except your work and some basic personal life information (stuff like whether you’re married or not, how many children you have, etc)

They will wish you only because social courtesy and obligation dictates so. Oh and also, you have probably shared some laughs with them, but we know that doesn’t qualify either of you to tag the other as your ‘BFF’.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash3. The Onlooker/The Stalker

These are my favorite kind. You know why? Because, they know it’s your birthday (probably because others have told them or because they saw it on social media) but despite that, they conciously chose not to wish you. You might find yourself wondering why, but don’t waste your precious energy. The reason is clear.

It’s because you didn’t wish them on their birthday, anniversary, their spouse’s birthday, their promotion, their children’s birthday.

Oh, how dare you forget these important occasions in their life, expect them to forget about it, and have the gall of expecting them to be kind enough to then wish you on your birthday.

Photo by Harry Cunningham on Unsplash4. The Forgotten

I call these The Ghosts of the past. They’re as good as extinct from your life. You remember them because:

You spent one (or more) good birthday(s) with them many (or a few) years ago.You probably wish to recreate that birthday.

Alas, they don’t even know you’re missing them and even more tragic is that they don’t remember your birthday anymore. *there, there, it’ll be alright*

Photo by Alex Bodini on Unsplash5. The huh/eh

I saved the best for the last. Because these are the kind of wishes (read messages) on your birthday that will make you go ‘huh?’ or ‘eh’.

For instance, I had gone to a wonderful resort over my birthday weekend.

Photo by the author| A Rustic Mind on Instagram

I used the #HappyBirthdayToMe on my stories along with the above photograph. And guess what? I had my DM flooding with messages of ‘OMG where are you?”, “Where is this place?” and similar ones. That was alright with me because I’d have asked too if I were in their place.

What made me go huh and eh was:

This was the first time in ages they’d messaged/contacted me.They expected me to answer them and did not even have the courtesy to wish me ‘Happy Birthday’ while being insistent about knowing my whereabouts.

Me being me, had to put them in their place.

Photo by the author | Screenshot of my WhatsApp

Of course, the world became a better place after that and there was peace all around.

Did you find yourself or anyone you know among these *cough* well-wishers?

****

Thank you for reading.

How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

Become a Published Author

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

“At the end of the day it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished… it’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” ― Denzel Washington

Image by the Author: A Rustic Mind on Instagram

This year, on my birthday (20th June), I pledged to help new writers looking for publishing opportunities.

The question that arises now is, “How to become a published author with my help?“

1. Write something on the theme of MONSOON

Write a poem, a short story, or even a micro tale. There’s no word limit and your piece can be any form of fiction writing.

2. Email your submissions

I have tied up with Pachyderm Tales to see this project through. They’re a literary consulting firm helping new as well as established writers. You can send the work to either my email address (manali1988@gmail.com) or their official one (pachydermtales@gmail.com)

We’ll be editing and publishing your work without any cost.

3. Your work/submission will be published in an anthology

An anthology is a co-authored book. All the submissions will go together in a single book. The space within the pages of this book will be shared by a total of 15 writers from India and Europe. We’ll be publishing them in both eBook and paperback versions.

Here is some other basic information:1. Who can submit?

There is no age limit. However, there is a region-based limitation. We’re only going to accept submissions from Indian and European writers(we’ll be opening up more projects for other regions very soon)

2. Where will the book be available?

It will be made available on all major online book portals like Amazon and Flipkart. The offline distribution will be discussed, decided, and planned out later.

3. Who will edit my work?

The submissions will be edited by me personally. I’m a two-time award-winning author and a multiple times bestselling author on Amazon. I’m also a freelance editor. So, you can rely on my skills and trust that I will polish your work/submissions to the best of my abilities.

4. Is there a word limit?

No. We believe creativity cannot be caged within a minimum or a maximum number of words. So your stories can be as short or as long as you’d like them to be.

5. Can I send multiple submissions?

No. One writer is allowed only one submission.

6. Who will be the publisher?

That will be decided later, once we have all submissions ready to be published.

Here’s a little wrap-up one last time:Image by the Author: Manali Desai on Facebook

Thank you for reading. Please drop in any more queries in case you’d like to know more before submitting. I look forward to your creative submissions.

You can know more about me here:

About Me — Manali Desai

How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

Long-Short Stories by Chetan Soni

Book blurb:

A collection of 5 curated short stories which can be categorized as Modern-day romance between characters. Each story is fast-paced, eventful and hidden with metaphors.

The short stories provide a new and different perspective and emphasize on the fact that not all stories should end.

Enjoy this light read as the author tries his hand at writing short stories for the first time.

Genre: Fiction/Short Stories

Pages: 40

Format: Kindle eBook

Price: 49 INR/$ 0.99

My Ratings: 3.3/5

A collection of 5 flash fiction stories: Infidelity, The Chronicles of Raghu Kapoor, What’s in a Name, Letters from a Stranger, The Long-Short Story of Kabir-Sonia, this book offers a variety of reading that be finished in one go over a cup of morning or evening tea.

Book cover taken from Amazon

What I liked about the book:
-> Though the stories are different, they have a common theme of romance and overall positivity.
-> The stories were all fast-paced, realistic, and very relatable.
-> The author has covered all sorts of hurdles one faces in romantic encounters or relationships.
-> There were some gray areas talked about too (breakups, communication gaps, infidelity, the difficulties faced in a long-distance relationship). So, there’s a lot of emotions right from happiness to sadness, and confusion to drama. This, in fact, makes the stories a lot more authentic.

What I did not like about the book:
-> There was a very visible rush towards the moral of the story. In between the stories too, there are dosages of enlightenment in the form of “once a wise man said” that interrupted the flow of the story.
-> The book requires a round or two of editing
-> I’m not sure whether this is a pro or a con of the book, but I actually ended up enjoying the ‘About the author’ part more than any of the stories. It was so refreshing and funny and it made me wish that this side of the author had shown up in his fiction writing too.

Quotable quotes:
-> When it comes to infidelity, all logic goes for a toss.
–> Life would be so much better if everything falls accordingly but that never happens. There are always tests and situations where one has to overcome them in order to defeat life. In order to restore parity. Life is anything but desire.
->Magic happens when the time is right and the tide is low.
-> Hope is a dangerous thing, it kills you from inside and heals you at the same time.
->Sometimes, just sometimes, you need that phone call which restores belief in your logic and tells you that somebody cares.
->Why stir a nest when you don’t want any honey?
->She wasn’t in love. She wasn’t looking for love either. But sometimes, just sometimes you want that person around you. Not to say or do anything but just to be around.
->Somethings happen very fast and since we are enjoying that rush we let things go out of control.
->It feels good when somebody acknowledges your presence in their life.
->It’s difficult to be accepted in your true form by somebody.
-> She had some issues with the name Lakshmi during her school but made peace with it once she entered college and realized that even the US had made peace with Donald Trump.
->The more time you spend with somebody the more you got to know them.
–>Nobody is perfect and we shouldn’t look for perfections.
->There was no spark, no chemistry, no ringing of music in ears. Yes, it felt good. Sometimes you are so comfortable around somebody that you don’t need to apply extra force.
-> Mumbai casts a spell on you, and once you lose something in Mumbai, you never get it back.

Buying details:

Amazon IndiaAmazon.com

Author’s social media links:

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Chasing Sunsets by Vaibhav Dange

Book blurb:

Love is supposed to set you free from the cage of dualities. If not, then it isn’t love. “Chasing Sunsets” is a collection of poems that depicts the fact that love cannot reside in duality, no matter what. Good-bad, right-wrong, yours-mine, pleasure-pain are just projections of our mind that creates an endless loop of cause-effect relationship. It gives us a sense of fullness within ourselves. But as we move on in circles years after years, we realize that love resides in emptiness. The journey of our life is something like chasing sunsets. At the end of our journey, things would get clear, clear as silhouettes across the sunset. Everything which as a form will become dark and there will be light in the formless. 

Genre: Fiction/Poetry

Pages: 101

Format: Kindle eBook/Paperback

Price:

Kindle eBook: 50 INR/$5.00Paperback (available only in India) : 180 INR

My Ratings: 4/5

Divided into four sections: Cyclic emotions, Denial, Breaking Point, and Acceptance, the poems in this book are written in free verse. They cover a range of emotions and deeply emotional, reflecting sensitivity.

Book cover taken from Amazon

What I liked about the book:
-> The way metaphors have been used in many places giving the poems a deeper meaning.
-> The poems are written in a manner that can be relatable to all readers and the best part is that they can be interpreted by everyone in their own way.
-> At many points, I had to stop and exclaim, “Oh wow!” or just reread the lines in admiration of how deep and true they were.
-> Some titles I’ll always remember or will most certainly go back to are Unborn Memories, Fear of Fear, Scars, Face to Face, The Unfinished Verses and Agony of the Ocean.

What I did not like about the book:
-> The determiners and contractions have been mixed up at many points (for instance ‘where two world’ instead of ‘where two worlds’, ‘don’t always come so easy’ instead of ‘doesn’t always come easy’ and so on)

Quotable quotes:
–> Poetry is evidence
that for ages
people have survived
through pain.
->When you decide to come close
to my abandoned heart
do not love too much, too soon
pretend to be sane, protect yourself
from the excess of love
oozing from those wounds.
–>You can never know
certain things about people
by just looking at them.
About the wars, they have fought
-> Do not fear the storm,
fear when it settles down.
-> I have a habit
of keeping my rooms empty
for the things
that shall never
come into my life.
–> Waiting is sweet, sweet as the honey
Just look at the sunflowers
during the night waiting for the dawn,
look at the sea waiting patiently for the moon.
-> Have you ever asked
a free bird
to visit the cage
where it was raised?

Buying details:

Amazon IndiaAmazon.com

Author’s social media links:

InstagramTwitterFacebook

Moony Thoughts

Making the night bright,

With your whiteness.

Making the sky beautiful,

With your brightness.

Making the dark less gloomy,

With your glow.

Making the stars shine brighter,

With your company.

Making beauty less perfect,

With your many spots.

Oh! Inspiration of many songs and poems,

Oh! Beloved of the lovers and loners,

Do you also crave someone’s love?

Why then do you show up just a little sometimes,

And sometimes all at once,

And sometimes not at all?

Maybe you too go in search of that one,

That eludes you and is just out of reach.

Maybe that’s why you become a muse,

To the broken hearts!

****

Thank you for reading. 

How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

Sonnets to Paradise by Nidra Naik

Book blurb:

..To touch the skies and even beyond
To flip the earth and also to its respondTo fly and also to fall
To rise and also to halt
To sprint and get injured
To love, like, and embrace ambience from all spheres
For Trials of Confusion
must never be, must never be!’

Sonnets to Paradise is a saga about two female characters who find themselves demarcated in their ordinary mindsets and lives; their monotony and their antiquity. The two characters are not connected by blood or age but by a single piece of poetry manuscript titled, ‘Sonnets to Paradise.’

While Nayantara’s life is dull in her late 30s, mostly alone in the foreign soil of Rickmansworth; Nicola’s life is full of lustful extravagance, momentary romantic escapades, indecisiveness and unsteadiness. On a fateful wintery night, meeting a man full of stoicism and mystery, brings back old memories of Nayantara, so much that it refuels the poetess in her! While the former tries to discover the meaning of her life through her poems, the later engulfs a new, steadfast life by reading them!

This give and take of knowledge and philosophy through poetry changes their lives bit by bit, in a way that both find their imagined ‘happy places’ and stay content through the medium of lyrical words; till they finally accept their lives, it’s challenges and also its joyfulness. They not only mend broken relationships but also breath out love and life!

This book is a contemporary story of two single women in their varied ages, searching for happiness and finally arriving at a peaceful juncture in their lives.

Genre: Fiction/Contemporary Romance

Pages: 216

Format: Kindle eBook/Paperback

Price:

Kindle eBook: 125 INR/$5.00Paperback: 249 INR/$10.00

My Ratings: 4/5

Nayantara is a successful, single woman residing in the quaint town of Rickmansworth. While it is difficult for her to let go of her past relationships, will she find it from the elusive Scott who lands up at her doorstep? It doesn’t help that Scott suddenly seems more interested in Nicola, the daughter of Mrs. Patrick, who happens to be Nayantara’s most trustworthy ally. Will these two women, struggling to find love, be able to come to terms with each other?

Book cover taken from Amazon

What I liked about the book:
-> The character of Mrs. Patrick is highly inspiring.
-> The growth of Nayantara, as well as Nicola, is something that will leave readers extremely satisfied.
-> The way Nayantara comes to terms with her relationships, especially with her parents and more so with her mother.
-> All the sonnets (I prefer to call them poems) are beautiful and extremely apt as per the setting and plot of the story.

What I did not like about the book:

->There is a major problem of transition from one scene to another. The author changes the narration from the third person to the first person which feels quite abrupt. The narrative also shifts from one scene or context to the next without preamble.
-> Most men who come into both the lead female character’s lives end up wanting to be romantically involved with them, which I found a little problematic.

Quotable quotes :
-> Memories can be some messy affairs at times.
-> Age as they say is the math. Man has created to drum its logical intelligence, math is more useful in science, and not in building relationships, maybe in building huge ships.
-> Romance is, but an imagined order of our preconceived ideas about love. Romance doesn’t exist. It’s created. Created sometimes by the most fantastic minds! And higher than romance is philosophy!
–> When you are in love, it doesn’t matter how divided is the geography, all that matters is how united your souls are, your hearts are! And this feeling of love is not full of longing but is filled with adoration and blessings.
-> One doesn’t have to be with each other to love, one doesn’t have to make love regularly to be in love, one doesn’t have to hold things tight to show love and one doesn’t have to be full of wants to shower love! You can love the most distanced person with the utmost rigor and joy.
-> ‘I bring with me abnormalities and irregularities, like crude mountains and the meandering waters, but it’s true that with you by my side, these irregularities fuse into something exuberant, something deep and something charming.”
–> We always miss the bygones, irrespective of how difficult or distasteful it must have been, that’s us as humans, the complicated restless minds of the world.
-> Things of religion bring the utmost emotion in people, whether for better or worse is debatable.
–> Desolation opens the gate for melodious music.
-> Sometimes, it’s so eerie to understand that people who push you into relationships are the ones to flee first, with no reasoning or compassion.
–> We always have a choice to stop events or people.
-> Who would explain to self-indulgent men that being single and being lonely are two different facets of life? Some women single by my choice and not out of compulsion.
-> Men of today are more about fulfilling their arms of requirement than love somebody unremittingly with no preoccupancy!
-> Who knows what defines that thing with wings! All of us have defined Love as per our own understanding and parameters, as per our experiences, good ones and sometimes wrecked ones too. We have all moulded and bent love in our own ways. Love is an intangible piece of feeling, which gains or doesn’t gain a shape or is shapeless, sometimes a fit and at others a misfit! Hence, love can be interpreted in all directions possible!
-> It’s never a great feeling to be blatantly ignored by a loved one! It’s undergoing chains of emotions where there’s no settled place to resolve!
–> Today’s insensitivity is tomorrow’s awareness.
–> Time makes us delve into oddities of life, sometimes these oddities are infinite, till we live or till the last breath of our lives.
-> Human beings- the most intelligent of all living beings and yet the oddest and complex lot. Who made us complex, we ourselves!
-> Life is too short for worthless thinking. Engage your mind in thinking through important stuff, not stints!
-> That’s what luxurious hotels people do to the guests, pamper and spoil them but it’s just not the real India. Real India is a struggle, to make ends meet and one can notice that in the roads and by-lanes of these cities. It is such a contradiction, inside the hotel and out on the roads!
-> You should allow people if things didn’t work, not necessarily, it’s going to be the same. We don’t lead recurring lives! We learn! And hence must move on!
-> A loner can share too!
-> Life becomes regular with time, be it any tragedy in the past.
-> Love has all forms. Not one is truest, and not one is wrong. Love like the wind which is directionless for the rational mind yet holds on to its own direction. It has no one interpretation. It’s as per a living creature’s suitability, ability to understand. Love is polygonal and only its complexities enriches human experiences.
->We are individuals, with tastes, beliefs, lifestyle, and food to our choice, however, companionship is never harmful, never a bad choice. Be it in the form of a parent, a partner, a friend, a pet, or just a house caretaker, we all, no matter how practical we say we are, would always be glad to walk into a house with somebody waiting for us, caring for us or complaining to us. We all need that somebody…actually everybody needs a somebody…
-> ‘Please stop by the library this weekend. Unlike gadgets, there are books. And a book takes you through all veins of emotions…’
-> At once, Mumbai was a lavish city of the rich and at the other it was also a city of poverty-stricken people and not to forget one of the best examples of the great Indian middle-class. Such was the case with developing nations; where you find all kinds of world boxed into one piece of earth; where food, clothing & shelter still took precedence and where money always existed in the by lane of struggle.
-> We overact, over-explain, over-do things that are not required.
-> Anger isn’t a great emotion to carry forward.
-> We all screw up, which makes us the biggest assholes on earth, but what circles it back is that we realize; repent and fall down… but only to rise better!
-> Who knows what a sin is…it’s all so relative in here! Only diligent people realize their mistakes and not fools in actuality.
-> Friendship is so much cooler and joyful than sex!
-> Nothing can be worse than a distasteful romance! It will neither let you forget the person nor will it let you hate them.
-> Marriage is a stage of life where you want things to be right, orderly, and very much in place.
-> Some things are not as per planned. But does that mean, we change the course of our lives?
-> Sometimes, we get so immersed in one person that we forget to be inclusive about the rest of the people- for people in it, it’s ordinary but in actuality it sucks. You mustn’t dedicate your entire existence to only one ongoing-it becomes the most static part of us-the most redundant of all.
-> Shitty affairs lead us nowhere! Where most people just love themselves and pretend to love others-these kinds are nothing but escapists! Mere escapists…let life screw them up! Let them repay their own karma, own up someday, to their own actions! Let them…
-> Broken relationships make you headstrong in life; they prepare you not to make those mistakes in the next one! Break-up doesn’t necessarily mean being ruthless! It just means being learned and wise; a bit matured!
-> Marriage is just a part of life, not the wholesome experience of life.
-> Life is all about taking leaps and living the moments.
-> Much has been explained about how difficult attachment can be, yet emotional people always tend to get drawn towards it.
-> Putting behind the fragments of first love is as difficult as learning to walk. Although as a toddler, falling down was never a cause of failure but an act of learning.
–> It’s easier said than done…to control emotional upheavals, to forget love failures, to get up after somebody has hurt you badly; it was so difficult to bring your emotions to a table of normalcy!
-> Everyday post-work, while on the train, I kept reading. It didn’t strengthen me, but it surely brought a new dimension to my dull life- my passion for poems and books! These books became my friends when I wanted to talk, my lover when I wanted romance!
-> Tragedy makes you a higher being.
-> Money is useful and only runs into one’s pocket when they work hard for it.
-> Happiness has to be in-grown and not discovered outside of one’s existence!
-> The scariest moments in life were not the outcomes but always the decisions-decisions to hold on to something forever.
-> Friendship is beautiful between two living beings; man and dog, man and man, man and nature, man and books, man and music, and so many others! But friendship is slightly deviated between man and woman, when the invisible line is crossed. Many fall for friendship instantly, soak it in their syrupy nature but when lust engulfs the needs, this beauty is taken for a ride, into paths too uneven, too shaky to stand upon it!
-> Matching attire with accessory and the heart with the mind is utterly boring and bland. One should only match a smile to a face.
-> The most appropriate way of releasing your anguish, emotions is through music and writings!
-> An inspiring set of friends can do wonders to your non-aspiring life.
-> What maturity does to us, what being old actually denotes is not brittle bones, wrinkled skin, medical ailments but life’s experiences, its cycle, its observations.
–> Only people close to you can dagger you that bad, and the wounds never heal, it just gets buried but not healed!
–> Attraction is another terrible thing, it harms your mental state to an extent that you sometimes end up liking that person, factoring in no sensible reasons. Your tastes and interests go for a toss, you develop a streak of unconscious biases towards that person, and although you don’t like their worldly dealings, their uncompassionate persona, you still are drawn… for some flaws of your own past life! These relationships, if developed, result in nothing but a delusion, pain and are inconclusive-it’s nothing but a karmic affair, an affair that holds no good, no peace!
-> If you compare greatness with minor disappointments, it will seem to be the right balance.
-> It is awful to be attracted to someone, who you have nothing in common with!
-> People refer to romantic relationships as friendship, to cover up your commitment phobia.
-> Reading does something wonderful to your imprudence, so much that you got wary of your true worth, your responsibilities and you also learn a lot about being in love, to be kind to most and perform duty as that defines us!
-> All poets and writers of the time would wish their work to be published!
–> Not every dark thing, every dark lane must end in darkness. Light shows up.
-> Only when there’s darkness can there be light! Only when you find shadows must you find reflections.
-> It’s amazing what a new place does to the most hesitant people, introverts, reserved ones; what exploration brings in you! How beautiful are awareness and discovery, and yet there’s so much to be unearthed!
-> Given time and space, few troubled relationships overcome and stand out.
-> It is a warm feeling to know that your folks have finally arrived, with you and to your understanding. It’s so relaxing to know that after a certain age, we accept each other, in a way that we could’ve never understood earlier.
-> Some things don’t require modern intervention or renewals as they stand classy across all leaps of time.
-> Love is never complicated! Our thoughts towards it are, indeed, full of mazes. Love is in fact, very easy, very peaceful, extremely joyful, if you may kindly start observing. Your needs are demanding and hence the emotional journey gets turmoiled. The associated relationship is complicated because humans are full of desire, demands, and self-obsessions! Love is selfless. With love comes greater spiritualism and responsibility, you become closer to nature, to the living, and also to the dead!
-> We are fear-mongering people. We want Love to be mirrored as the exact version of our reflective thoughts, assumptions, accumulations over watching, and hearing. But that’s being foolish, an idiot’s trailer, to digress love.
-> If you have exposed yourself to love, so will you be exposed to pain! One doesn’t come without another.
-> A man must like your bare soul before he just likes your bare body. A man isn’t a man of love if he just falls in for your body and that’s the man you’ve to be careful about.
-> Sometimes eyes don’t reflect the mind.
-> The only way of remaining truthful to oneself is to just keep going, of never evading the reality and that only a few will bring you a smile. You’ve to do it for yourself. Not many will feel your fingers, see you the way that you are. You’ve to see ‘you’ for yourself.
-> It requires a lot of effort to deal with another ego.
-> As we grow up, we become so much aware of our needs and desires that it’s okay not to chase after meaningless fornications.
-> A passionate heart’s tale never misses striking a chord.
-> It’s alright to be playful, to just be oneself, to play stupid, restless, be impulsive, and also mellow down, to feel jumpy and yet try to feel great about everything running around; to want, to desire, to feel the thrill, to be a part of it, to be real. Yes, it’s judicious to be sorted but exhilarating to be real!
->Let’s not give each other lectures on morals or realizations, either on misdeeds or intoxicated actions. These are nothing but heavy concepts built by men from generations after generations; to put gutsy, vibrant people like you chained and controlled. To drill a hole in your continuous space where love is felt by intimacy, and intimacy by the tangible living beings. There’s no ascendance of the order of love- do what suits you, what makes you free…just don’t be pained or chained. Get up and live your life. It’s for once and meant for people who are thrilled to take a chance.’
-> This phenomenon called life will poof in the air suddenly. And in tumultuous complexities created by us, we’ll lose out on living its gorgeous moments.

Buying details:

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Author’s social media handles:

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You Stood By Me

Thank you,

Dear heart,

For not letting me make decisions based on rationale.

Thank you,

Dear brain,

For not letting me make decisions based on sentiments.

Thank you,

Dear eyes,

For seeing things as they are and learning the difference between real and fake.

Thank you,

Dear hands,

For holding on to things that matter and letting go of things that didn’t.

Thank you,

Dear legs,

For standing firm in your position when required and walking away from situations that pulled me down.

Thank you,

Dear shoulders,

For carrying the load, literal and otherwise.

Thank you,

Dear ears,

For teaching me to listen, with and without attention.

Thank you,

Dear mouth,

For speaking the truth, and also some lies, when the need arose.

Together, you all make me whole,

Together, we make a great team.

Together, we can survive it all.

****

Thank you for reading.

How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

Summer Reads I Really Enjoyed

Photo by Vitaliy Gavrushchenko on Unsplash

Do you read as per the seasons? I don’t necessarily do that, but some stories and books just have that vibe around them. For instance, A Christmas Carol or The Gift of the Magi leaves such a fuzzy and contented feeling when read during the festive seasons.

I’m a person who loves reading in open spaces; a bench in the park under a tree, a chair on the balcony while basking in the sunlight, are just a couple of my favorite spots.

Right now, is just the season for doing that (it is the summer season where I’m currently staying) In my growing up years, summers meant eating mangoes and reading as many (non-course) books as I could, without anyone reprimanding me.

That helped me read tons of books over the years and this article is the result. So, let’s dive in, shall we? Get your lemonades ready to sip along while reading these.

1. Me Before You by Jojo MoyesImage credit: Goodreads

I was doubtful about this one because of two reasons:

a) It felt similar to A Walk to Remember and The Fault in Our Stars.

b) Why read something which I knew would break my heart?

But, I’m glad I did not listen to that negative part of my heart and gave this book a chance.

A middle-class girl (Louisa Clarke) employs herself as the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound rich guy (Will Traynor). For her, it’s a badly needed job. For him, it’s a thorn in his side, because he has lost the will to live. Naturally, I expected a predictable read but what unfolded left me inspired.

I’m a sucker for sassy protagonists. Women who speak their minds are inspiring for me, even in fiction and Louisa Clark made me chuckle all the way. Her character growth left me awed.

If you’re looking for a feel-good, butterflies in the stomach, kind of read, here it is.

Favorite quote: “You cut yourself off from all sorts of experiences because you tell yourself you are not that sort of person
But, I’m not.
How do you know? You’ve done nothing, been nowhere. How do you have the faintest idea what kind of person you are?” 2. Looking for Alaska by John GreenImage credit: Goodreads

I was shy and confused as a teenager. So, books with flawed protagonists always attracted me. This book offered not one but all major characters as teenagers with so many flaws.

This one is hands down one of the best debut books I’ve ever read.

Read it for Alaska’s feminist outlooks, Miles Halter’s awkwardness, and the coming together of the whole batch, in the search of one girl who means something different, but significant, to each of them.

Favorite quote:“ There comes a ti me when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow- that, in short, we are all going.“3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen ChboskyImage credit: Goodreads

If coming-of-age and teenage drama is your preferred genre, this makes it to the top 20 for me.

This was another book that had a relatable protagonist for me. One more debut that left me with so many feels, I would recommend this for all teenagers and young adults.

Even though the reader might not be anything like Charlie (the central character) there is something about how the author wrote him that makes us see the world through his eyes. We may not be like Charlie but the things he went through in high school were something almost everyone went through.

Read this book for its authenticity. As an adult it takes you back to when you were a teenager, as a child, it shows you what lies ahead and as a teenager, it inspires you.

Favorite quote:“We didn’t talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough”

What are your favorite summer reads? Do let me know in the comments.

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How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

I Choose to Grow

Writing isn’t an easy task,

But then, what is?

When I’m stuck on a piece,

Or am running out of ideas,

Or need to meet a deadline,

I criticize myself.

But that only aggravates my anxiety,

And hampers the quality of writing.

So I’ve decided to challenge myself,

Rather than doubting myself,

I’ve decided to focus on what I can do,

Rather than what I cannot do.

I’ve decided to grow,

Because I want to try and become a better person.

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Thank you for reading.

How to contact me:Connect with me on LinkedIn.Subscribe to my YouTube channel.Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.Send me an email: arusticmind@gmail.com/manali1988@gmail.com

The Panipuri Crimes by S B Akshobhya

Boob blurb:

The young and driven Sagar Bansal leads a team of six on the path of a digital adventure. His plan is to put the humble cane-panipuri vendor, found in every other street in a metropolitan city, on a digital platform.
As they gear up to launch an app to sell panipuri, the cloud of risk looms large. All five entrepreneurs who earlier ventured into the business had died in road accidents. But all that is overlooked and forgotten in the excitement of the team reaching the verge of a VC funding.
Is the death of all five entrepreneurs a coincidence? Can Sagar and his team overcome the odds? Why are the ordinary vendors dying one after another like a pack of cards?
The Panipuri Crimes is a thrilling story weaving together the world of entrepreneurship and struggle, love and other demons, and the murky world of crime.

Pages: 123

Genre: Fiction/Crime Thriller

Format: Kindle eBook/Paperback

Price:

Kindle eBook: 119.77/$9.99Paperback: 190 INR/$15.99

My Ratings: 4.3/5

Sagar, Rathishree, Rudra, Yashashwini, Jim, and Koyal; six engineers with an entrepreneurial streak, set out to start their online panipuri selling venture. Things start off slowly and pick up pace steadily. However, there is a mafia in the setup that controls all the local vendors who aren’t very thrilled about the dish going the internet way. Will the 6 entrepreneurs have to face the wrath of this mafia who don’t think twice before pulling the trigger on the innocent vendors?

Buying details:

Amazon.comAmazon India

Author’s social media links:

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