Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 285
July 10, 2020
Love, Loss, Lockdown
Reader reviews are slowly trickling in for ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’, a collection of 10 short stories, loosely set against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Here are two from Amazon India.
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If you like reading general fiction, please get a copy. And if you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links (both ebook version and paperback is available in these countries & is also available for kindle unlimited members) –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 9, 2020
Legend of The Muse – Review
Irish Poet W.B. Yeats is credited with popularising the Celtic mythical figure ‘Leannan Si’, a beautiful spirit who takes a human lover, usually an artist – painter, poet, musician or writers. And the affair only ends with the death of the mortal.
Director John Burr’s film ‘Legend of the Muse’ is a contemporary thriller inspired from this lore. The movie starts off with an intriguing murder in the woods. Riley Egan plays Adam, a struggling painter whose fortunes turn when he encounters a mysterious woman at the same spot. She eventually becomes his muse and lover.
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Actor Elle Evans who plays the titular ‘muse’ is the hero of this film; she has all the charms of a delicate looking but dangerous enchantress. Despite no dialogues she speaks through her eyes and demeanor. Max Decker, who has a minor negative role, is just right for his part, a bully of a neighbour who gets Adam to drive him to the woods for some deal, unwittingly leading them to the first chance encounter with the mysterious muse.
While most of the film takes place in Adam’s house, the cinematography is beautiful. Some of the set pieces look likes paintings themselves. Burr meticulously creates a clever juxtaposition of art and gore. Just when you are lulled by the serenity of a scene, there’s some slashing and dicing of human flesh. The background score helps in keeping up the tempo of the story and successfully creates a sense of dread in the viewer for most parts.
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The only weak link in this film is lead actor Riley Egan, the moment he opens his mouth, he kind of pulls down the momentum of the movie. It almost feels like he has some sort of a learning disability and if that is supposed to be a character trait then its fine. But otherwise his acting just doesn’t work. Somebody with a lot more confidence and charm would have uplifted this film to a whole different level. The rest of the support cast however does a pretty convincing job.
The paintings used in the film are gorgeous work of arts and not the usual random abstract stuff that’s beyond the comprehension of the average viewer. So brownie points for the art direction. With 1 hour 40 minutes to boot, the film however does falter with its thinly written side characters, especially ‘the other woman’ that makes Adam’s muse mad.
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A crucial chase sequence towards the end was quite hackneyed and unconvincing. Things begin to get a little predictable in the second half, making the viewer expect a clichéd climax. But then Burr throws up a nice little twist in the last few minutes and saves ‘Legend of the Muse’ from a messy conclusion, an affliction that plagues most horror/thriller films these days. The story is wrapped up neatly, with some of the puzzling bits from earlier scenes falling into place.
The Legend of The Muse premieres later this July on Amazon US. Shout-out to Tricoast for giving me access to the preview of the film.
Watch the trailer here –
Storytellers
My parents put me in a boarding school when I was seven. In a city which was at least 1500 kilometres from where they stayed. Where people spoke a language I didn’t understand. Mother had done a great job on convincing me about how it would be a ‘fun experience’ and bribed me with several new storybooks and a pair of roller skates.
“She didn’t even cry once,” she would beam proudly and tell people, every time she recalled the time they left me at that school. And quiet honestly, I did have an interesting time at the boarding school and the storybooks helped. And we had a library period thrice a week. I was thrilled! My older school did not have one.
When I look back now, that’s where my love for stories grew manifold. And not just stories told in books, but oral stories, of all those children around me, who loved to tell tales of their own. I remember how on the weekends, we would all sit together, and the older students would take turns to spin yarns. Horror stories were the toast of our little circle. Stories about how the school used to be a burial ground, or how our watchman was almost enticed and murdered by a demon-woman, or how the second floor of our hostel was haunted. (Nobody stayed on the second floor, there weren’t enough students.)
Soon enough, when we ran out of stories, we started making them up. And then, a year later, I changed schools. My parents took me back to the state they were in, enrolled me in a boarding school that was just three hours away. And gosh, how I despised that place. But books kept me going in the new boarding school. And somehow I managed to convince my parents to get me out of there. So a year later, I was in a new school again, where I finally found ‘my people’ and stayed on for the next six years.
So why am I talking about all this?
Well, an old school friend, who I haven’t spoken to in 14 years, got in touch and told me she was buying both my books. And she left me a really sweet message.
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Class 7 was when we were 12. Gosh, so long ago. I had almost forgotten about all the horror tales I used to make up. And all those memories came flooding back, when we used to finish our dinner quickly, and then huddle up under a dimly lit light and then I would tell them weird horror stories, all cooked up! Good old days.
Well, anyway, if you like reading general fiction, please get a copy of my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a short story collection loosely set against the Covid19 pandemic in India.
And if you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 8, 2020
Heartstopper Is Love
I’ve had my eyes on the Graphic Novel series ‘Heartstopper’ by Alice Oseman for a while now. A twitter user & fellow Indie author recently tweeted about it and re-ignited my interest in the book.
“Charlie, a highly-strung, openly gay over-thinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, meet at a British all-boys grammar school. Friendship blooms quickly, but could there be something more…?” reads the blurb for the book.
When I finally began reading the series, there was just no stopping. It’s so cute, so breezy, that you keep turning page after page and suddenly realize you are done with all three volumes of the book.
‘ALLERGEN ALERT – TOO ADORABLE!
Love the pace, the friendship and how beautifully the relationship between the two leads evolve. Binge-read all three volumes. This book is the warm ball of sunshine you need on a rainy day.’ I posted on GoodReads after reading all of it.
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What I love about ‘Heartstopper’ is how simply the panels are drawn, and yet, they convey so much more. It’s almost like watching a film in motion. Olsen takes time to establish the friendship between the two boys, which makes their evolving relationship convincing and charming.
Olsen makes the story very inclusive, with very lovable characters who are out and proud. Sure, some of them seem too perfect, and maybe the story is idealistic. But we have enough toxic shit in comics, so ‘HeartStopper’ is a breath of fresh air. While there are allusions to dark pasts and serious problems, it’s largely a feel-good story.
These three volumes are the kind of books you want to read after curling up inside a blanket, with a cup of hot-chocolate, while it rains outside. It’s a bundle of sheer love.
July 7, 2020
B-Town’s Fault in our Stars
The much awaited trailer of the Bollywood film ‘Dil Bechara’ was finally out yesterday. It’s the official remake of the famous ‘Fault in Our Stars’ film. A few people on Quora had requested me to write my opinion on it, so I thought I will post it here too.
Starring Sushant Singh Rajput and newcomer Sanajana Sanghi, the trailer starts with her voice-over where she introduces herself.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but the background music made it hard to understand some of the dialogues. The volume mixing was a little off in parts. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I had to watch it again.
And what kind of a name is Kizie (the leading lady is called that)? But since they ask us to not wonder about it in the trailer, I’ll leave it at that.
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Honestly, I have nothing to say about it. It was pretty blah. Didn’t have any funny or witty bits. Was kind of cringe-y in parts. And Kizie who has cancer, wants to go to Paris, which was very random. And it’s kind of hard to feel bad about Indians who have cancer but can fly off to Paris on a whim, with their love interest in tow. I know a 23-year-old who was diagnosed with cancer, and the only place that person visited was Mumbai, from Bangalore.
Also, a little disclaimer here – I have seen the Hollywood version of the film, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and that was a pretty forgettable film. 5/10 types, not bad for a one time watch. The only thing I remembered from that film while watching this trailer was that the the girl really wanted to go visit Anne Frank’s house. And turns out, I didn’t even remember that detail right, because some people pointed out to me that she wanted to go to Amsterdam to meet a writer she really admires.
Back to ‘Dil Bechara’, I wonder why Kizie wants to go to Paris? Another thing that I didn’t understand was if Sushant Singh is supposed to be a college kid? In parts he does look like a college-goer, in parts, he looks a lot older. Also, there was pretty much no chemistry between the leads.
It was a pretty average, nothing too impressive kind of trailer.
July 5, 2020
Ads and an Asocial Writer
High five to fellow introverts and asocial people reading this.
The dictionary definition of asocial is – “avoiding social interaction; inconsiderate of or hostile to others”
I just avoid social interactions, but am NOT hostile to others. On the contrary, I believe my company is fun. Or I could be delusional too. Either way, this tendency towards being asocial is becoming a great hindrance towards my ‘writing career’. As an independent author, I am supposed to do as many ads, as many interactions and basically keep engaging with potential readers to keep my book selling. But I prefer sitting in a cozy corner of my house and lamenting that ‘maybe I will be one of those authors that become famous after their death’.
It’s actually making some sense to me now – the fact that so many authors found posthumous fame was probably because they were so horrible at making any human connections, that they couldn’t sell their books. Or worse, they were just obnoxiously unbearable people while alive.
Right now, there are so many independent authors out in the world, confidently self-promoting their books on social media platforms, and it is so amazing. I mean, I published my first book in December last year, and only started actively using Twitter a few days ago. And I see people online who haven’t even published a single book going on an overdrive, wooing potential readers and garnering thousands of followers. And that’s pretty cool, because once their book comes out, they will already have a substantial following to promote their book to. Highly unlikely that I will ever do that, unless I become rich enough to get a manager to handle my social media accounts and pretend to be me.
For example, most articles on Instagram ads suggest that video ads do a lot better than static posts. That a video is ‘more eye-catching’, ‘more engaging’ or ‘more whatever’. I started bugging husband to do a video ad for me to promote my book. My friends were just amused when they heard of my plan.
“Why are you making him do it? It’s your book, you should do it. People want to see the author with the book,” they admonished me.
“Because I don’t want to appear on a public ad,” I tried explaining. Also, husband is way more good-looking than I am, so better visuals. But in the end, the video ad idea was just scrapped. There was no way that the author (me) would come on camera. And the husband doing the ad did seem pretty lame.
I see so many weird ads pop up on my social media feeds, mostly by self-proclaimed models/yoga instructors with terrible audio promoting their pages. The kind of ad one would hit skip within the first three seconds. Poor video quality is a bit off a turn-off to the broadcast journalist in me. And that reminds me, despite having the opportunity to become an on-air TV news anchor, I had no interest in the profile.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have confidence issues. It’s just that I am usually a very private person. Most people don’t even know I am married. A professor congratulated me over my book last week. And for no reason, she added “you are not married right?”. I laughed to myself and then informed her that I have been married for almost two years now.
“How come you never told us? 
Sunday Surprise
I woke up late as usual, only to find out that my book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ had climbed up ranks on Amazon India’s bestsellers’ list! It was at fucking number three. At first I thought ‘shit, does the book deserve the ranking?’ and then I was like “woohoooooo, who cares, the book is number three, the book is number three!”.
Nothing can be more encouraging for an independent self-published author than to find their book making it to any sort of list. Besides, these rankings are based on sales not ratings. Also, it’s on the Amazon top 100 free list, which means the e-book is free, only for the weekend. So please grab your copy if you don’t mind reading some realistic general fiction. They range from heartfelt to wacky.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 4, 2020
Books and Bestsellers
So I had a blurry Saturday. Most of it was spent trying to promote my new book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. Honestly, I think I just wasted a lot of time in just refreshing to see how much engagement my social media posts got. So narcissistic and stupid right? A couple of more books and maybe I will finally get over it.
But here is something totally awesome that happened – the book hit RANK 10 on Amazon India’s BESTSELLERS list under the ‘Literature & Fiction’ section, in their TOP 100 FREE list. I am not even kidding, take a look.
And yes, the book is free just for the weekend (4th & 5th July), so grab your copy if you haven’t yet. It’s a short story collection set loosely against the Covid19 pandemic. I am super excited about the ranking since it’s hard for a new unknown author to make it to any list if they are writing general fiction. So these things are a morale booster.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ – Giveaway
My second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’ is available for FREE on the kindle store across all Amazon platforms. It’s a promotional offer just for this weekend, so please grab a copy now.
A little about the book – It’s a collection of ‘ten short stories with the COVID-19 pandemic being the only common thread. The stories try to capture what the pandemic means to the common Indian man. It distills the various pressure points we see in everyday news and in some of the stories, matches against a larger philosophical outlook.’ – this is a snippet from a review left by a reader on Amazon.
If you get the book, do leave a rating/review, it means a lot to independent authors like me. Following are some links –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.
July 3, 2020
STAYING AT HOME
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Well, three are kinda defunct. But, yea, four.”
*silence*
*long sigh*
“Well, okay, I guess”
*silence*
“Are you both sure of this?”
******
Netflix produced an Indian romcom in 2018 called “Love Per Square Foot.” It followed the antics of a young couple pretending to be married to qualify for a housing scheme which would help them get a flat in Mumbai. The movie was a hit and it spawned several think pieces. It was discussed avidly in trains and people giggled among themselves that “pretending to be married” is the least of what most would do to own a piece of this city.
T and I are married. No pretence there.
My husband has always wanted to own a place in Mumbai. We are Mumbaikars. Born and raised in the island city. My parents had bought a 438 sq. ft. (carpet area, okay) apartment in the then-swamps of Kandivali in 1983. T was raised in a tiny 220-sq. ft. chawl room in Worli once-owned by the booming Century Mills.
Unlike T, I’ve never felt an intense desire to own real estate in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. It didn’t make financial sense, I argued. Ever so practical, T promised he would never consider a place that wasn’t “VFM” – value for money. I gave my blessing, confident that the boxes being passed off as apartments in this city could never be considered “VFM”.
Which was the case for nearly four years. T would go “apartment hunting,” – poking around in dusty old buildings with moss-covered exteriors, pretentious show flats in bourgeois neighbourhoods and unfinished skeletons in the suburbs.
He found potential candidates by poring over Google maps looking for relatively empty patches in Mumbai and then clicking around to see if there are buildings facing the relatively empty space.
He was happy foraging apartments across the city and he never took me along. I would get involved only if he had a “good feeling” about a place. T’s “good feelings” were quite practical — pricing, size, location, view, future value appreciation, flat layout, facilities, conveniences, etc.
Of the approximate 60 flats he shortlisted online, 15 made the cut for a visit by him and only two qualified for me to take a look.
******
“It’s a 2BHK. Its………………… nice”
“Why did you hesitate?”
“Why don’t you see it first?”
“What’s the ‘but’ T?”
“Let’s go and see it.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Arre it’s nearby. Baghun tari ghe (Take a look atleast)”
******
“A balcony. Nice.”
“Yes, madam. All rooms have balconies. Even Sir liked that.”
T was dropping side glances at me since we stepped foot in the place with the realtor. Instead of relaxing and getting a feel of the apartment, I was focused on trying to dig out the factor that made him antsy of my approval.
“Is that… a hill?” I said staring outside the living room balcony.
Calling it a hill would be quite a stretch. It could qualify as a hillock or whatever the term is for a smaller mound. The protuberance was covered in luscious green blessed by the July rains. I gaped. T stood by my side, grinning and feeling very proud of himself.
I gawked some more. Any Mumbaikar reading this must have also taken a pause. It is nothing short of shocking. Having big patches of wild greenery – whether flat or jutting out from earth – in front of your apartment would be a big green check next to any dream apartment checklist.
Next up: no building blocking line of sight. From one bedroom you could see a flotilla of fishing boats and ships on the creek with a tiny island in the distance. From another was a “city-view,” with the Parel behemoths rising in the distance.
I was enamoured. I hopped from one room to another, heading directly to the balconies and staring out. Feeling the breeze. I had good feelings about the place. I turned and grinned at T.
His smile dimmed a bit and whispered out of the corner of his mouth to not alert the realtor, “You might want to take a look at the ground as well.”
I stopped smiling. I hate looking down from heights. Especially from higher floors. I looked down. There was a road. I was confused until I saw T subtly tilting his head to the left. I turned my head.
There was a graveyard.
“Ah”
“Yea”
“Ok, that might be an issue”
“Ah…uhmm..errr…Well…”
“What?”
He turned right while looking down. I followed his sight. There was another graveyard. I didn’t understand. I looked left again. Turned and looked right. Looked down. There was the road. Squinted. Both looked different.
“Wait, is it the same graveyard?”
“No. They are different. The one on the left is Christian. The one on the right is Sunni.”
Ah, yes, the tombstones. “Oh. So, then, two graveyards.”
“Ah…uhmm.. errr…Well…”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT ELSE IS THERE?” (Yea, fuck whispering. I was beyond that now.)
“There’s also a Chinese cemetery”
“WHAT?!”
“Yea”
“CHINESE?”
“Yea”
“HOW?”
*silence*
I was now glaring at T. He was back to grinning. “Four balconies though,” he said enthusiastically.
“And three cemeteries”
“Well, four actually. There is an Armenian cemetery next to the Chinese one. It’s apparently quite nice. There are articles on it. Called Ba’hai Gulistan. The Armenians believe that their souls should be buried in gardens. Very nice na?”
“T”
“Yes honey”
“Four graveyards”
“Yes honey”
“Four”
“Well, one actually. Three are not functional now.”
“Anything else?”
“No”
“Okay.”
*long silence while we contemplated the very-green-smaller-than-a-hillock terrestrial pimple*
“They are never going to agree to this.”
“Well… feel mine will. Yours……..”
******
Dear reader-who-may-not-be-a-Mumbai-resident,
This is a story of privilege.
Mumbai real estate is fucking expensive. Very-fucking-expensive. Unbelievably-fucking-expensive. We are in middle of a real estate slump right now and it’s still very-fucking-expensive. Even the most disconnected-from-reality Mumbaikar will talk passionately for hours on his feelings for the city’s real estate scene. It is a very sensitive topic and very close to Mumbaikar hearts. Everyone believes they are an expert. And they probably are, because everyone, at some point, clicked the “buy” instead of “rent” tab on housing websites and pored through it. Or they were part of heated family discussions where someone is ranting about the “extremely evil builder who is connected to so-and-so politician” and “he bought a flat because everyone knows they have black money” etc
There are plenty of divergent views on Mumbai real estate. However, every person – rich or poor – agrees on three points:
1) Mumbai real estate is very-fucking-expensive
2) Real estate developers, or builders as they are colloquially known, are crooks of the highest order
3) You cannot buy real estate in Mumbai unless you are incredibly privileged.
T and I are not self-made-rich. We do well. But left to our own devices, we would NEVER be able to buy any apartment of any size in this city.
Enter, the parents.
******
Unlike me, T shares an extremely weird relationship with his parents. They trust him. Shocking, I know.
His parents were going to part-finance the apartment their only progeny wanted to buy. My parents were not financing but everyone involved knew that an approval from my extremely-strongwilled-and-feminist-but-will-never-accept-she-is-one ultra-religious mom was indispensable to the entire venture.
Naturally, T and I unanimously decided not to tell her anything until we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s.
******
“We liked a place.”
“Finally. Great,” T’s mom was overjoyed. We had hemmed and hawed on apartment-purchasing for a long time. “Both of you liked na? Not just him?”
“Yes, I also liked it.”
“Wonderful. How much is it.”
“Well, they showed us a 2BHK, but we liked the 3BHK better. It’s a stretch but it’s a comfortable stretch.”
“Great, so nice. How much is it?”
“There’s this thing.”
“What thing?”
“There are some graveyards nearby.”
*pause*
“Some?” T’s devout mom asked.
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Well, three are kinda defunct. But, yea, four.”
*silence*
*long sigh*
“Well, okay, I guess”
*silence*
“Are you both sure of this?”
“There are four balconies, Aai,” T said enthusiastically. I wanted to bean him with my tea-cup. He saw my expression and tempered down for a second and then notched it right up again, patting my thigh reassuringly.
******
“It’s a kabristan,” my mom said.
“So?” I retorted ready to fight.
“Well… I kind of feel it’s not a big deal. If it was one of ours, there would be a lot of smell all the time. Right?” T’s mom remarked softly, looking at neither of us.
I stared at her and burst out laughing. My mom was shocked into silence.
Practicality, thy name is a Mumbaikar
******
“How the hell did you agree to this?” my sister, M, remarked.
“I was seduced by the natural light and the wind,” I replied grumpily.
“You do realise there are FOUR graveyards, right?” M enquired raising her eyebrows.
“Yes, yes I know. Can everyone please stop repeating it,” I whined.
Unlike my mom, my sister had a different reason for pointing out the neighbourhood.
I am terrified of ghosts. I don’t care for your rational explanations. I’m a scientific person but everyone has their irrational beliefs and mine includes being terrified of something that I’ve never personally seen and whose existence is not scientifically proven till date. I don’t watch horror movies.
‘I Am Legend’ is the last horror movie I watched and didn’t sleep well for more than a month after that. (Yes, I know, it’s not a horror movie but zombies-from-a-virus are just a step away from the evil corporeal beings okay)
“Think of it this way. If a ghost does visit us, imagine all the authentic recipes we will get,” said T, with a smirk.
Change of plans. Forget the flat, I would like to re-think the marriage.
******
“What’s that sound?”
“The lift,” T said patiently, explaining the origin-of-sound for the one millionth time. We were settling down for the night post the housewarming puja. My mother and MIL spent a considerable amount of time warning the priests of dire consequences if their chanting didn’t “deep-cleanse” the apartment.
I spent the first week staring at the shadows the curtains threw on the ceiling-to-floor windows. Every time a curtain flapped; I held my breath to see whether it would reveal red-glowing-in-dark eyes. It didn’t.
A week after we moved in, I fell ill – not the cough-and-cold kind. Both ladies yelled at the priest demanding to know how I could possibly fall sick if the puja had been done properly.
I was as speechless as the unfortunate priest.
******
The AC stopped working in the second week of the lockdown. We were entering peak Indian west coast summer when Google Assistant says shit like “In Mumbai it’s currently 31 degrees [Celsius]. Due to the current humidity it feels like it’s 46.”
I sat in our “office space” as the cross-ventilated breeze kept me cool. Faint sounds from the TV indicated that my in-laws had settled in with their daily dose of Mahabharat or Ramayana.
The gentle breeze turned into a stronger wind.
I wasn’t sweating.
******
The fan was swaying. I sat on the bed tracking its movement while the wind made a wheeeeee sound. My hair was whipping my face and T was locking things down.
Cyclone Nisarga was heading our way.
I took selfie videos of my riotous hair – as if I was sitting next to one of those fans used to simulate storms in movies – and sent it to friends.
The hillock that turned yellow over the summer started sprouting hints of green. Over the next month it would transform into an emerald jungle – my spot of calm whenever things got too much to handle, which was quite often nowadays.
******
I don’t like debt. I don’t like being handcuffed to a job. One of my biggest issues with buying this apartment was that we needed to take a loan. An EMI to suffocate me.
We did our calculations, made our Excel sheets and I knew that the math showed the debt could handle my sudden, unexpected, out-of-ordinary salary transitions.
But, at the crux of it, I didn’t like its existence.
It’s day 103 of lockdown and expected to extend by at least 30 days as of now.
My uneasiness about the debt has been overshadowed by the gratefulness of possessing a larger-than-usual apartment overlooking a greener-than-usual space, and a lower-than-usual electricity bill thanks to non-stop stronger-than-usual winds.
This may change in future. The country’s economy is close to a collapse. I may lose my job. T may lose his. We may both lose our jobs. The Excel may not be able to handle the burden of a pandemic. I may have to bid goodbye to my spot of green.
But I’ll always remember that this weirder-than-usual place helped me survive at least 150 days of a seemingly unending, unbearable, soul-crushing period of my life.
I don’t know what’s next. But then who ever does?
(This is a guest post by a friend who lives in Mumbai)
