Ritu Lalit's Blog, page 12

The Critters : An international collaboration

Two years back, when I was writing a book called Chakra, Chronicles of the Witch Way, I met Grace.

I am a member of an online writing community and put in a request for a beta reader.  The rules were simple.  Both the other writer and I would critique each other’s work, chapter by chapter.  We would help each other, lend each other a shoulder to cry one, freak out, help each other when the inspiration dried out etc.

Grace responded to my mail.  All I knew was that she was American, a proof reader and was also writing a fantasy.  She very kindly agreed to beta my work on conditions of reciprocity.

And then the fun began.

Chakra is a tale about Japas and Japnis, people who have managed to harness their chakras (energy centres) which enables them to play with elements like wind, water, fire and air.  It is very vedic in flavor.  Grace belongs to the Bible belt.  She was fascinated by the concept of energy centers in our bodies.  She was writing a tale about an angel, a rebellious one at that!

At first we were completely at sea.

I sent her a chapter about Samaira and Sandeep (whom I had named Sami and Sandy for short.)  She got confused.  Why do they have similar sounding names?

Umm, we normally keep similar sounding names for siblings, I explained.

Confusing, she said.

I thought about it.  It was a valid point.  So my characters became Sami and Deep.

She asked me if she should name her main lead Matthew or should he be Matt.  He is rebellious, she explained.  I had no clue to how Matthew could not be a rebel but Matt could.  But to me Matt sounded good and I said so.

By the second chapter we were into each other’s work, but again the yawning cultural gap kicked in.  Angels are asexual.  It made no sense to me.  I argued, ‘How can you have a main lead who does not have human impulses?  How will a reader identify with a character like that?’

Thankfully it made sense to Grace.

I liked her main lead, Matt.  He was the badass who broke bones and healed them too!  Useful bloke to have around.  Hewas naked in the first chapter and needed clothes, and reminded me of Clark Kent when he fell down to earth.  Nice beginning.

She is a proof reader and every single typo jumped out to her.  And she was strict about POVs.  She never let me stray on them.  But it was not strictly work.  We discussed a lot of other things.  While telling me that the POV of my chapter jumped from one character to another and sweetly asked me if it was spring here.

Which of course led to an extended talk about the weather – it was autumn here.  I told her we had 8 months of summer in Delhi and she said she found 4 months that they had of summer hard.

Grace, I found out at that stage used French and Spanish as second language.  For us, whichever part of India we belong to, whatever our mother tongue is, we use English to communicate across state-lines.  We got to discussing that, and learnt a lot about each other.

We kept up a steady communication by mail; she celebrated Halloween and me Diwali.  By now, I knew that Matt was a guardian angel and she knew that I was writing about witches and warlocks (Japa and Japni I called them.)

She called back her first chapter and fleshed it out, adding conflict between angels.  It made the first chapter much more interesting.  I realized that our heaven is not simple.  Our gods and goddesses have personalities which may or may not gel with one another, it makes good stories.  Having one Almighty God makes heaven a very orderly place – and for an Indian, a bit alien.

Her main lead, Matt by now was a sexual being, and he had old angst, resentments and a huge chip on his shoulder.  I loved him, and suggested that he should be a teenager.  My characters were headlong in their adventure.  In short, we were being productive.   I kept on building the story, layer by layer; chapter by chapter, eager to know what Grace would make of it.  She was fascinated by the culture which to her was alien.

We had a brief hiatus sometime after December.  She was embroiled in a fight with her “renter” as she called the woman who was her tenant.  I kept pestering her for updates, fascinated by all the drama which involved lawyers and the fact that the tenant had not put up curtains.

Her guardian angel was in love with a female guardian angel of sorts who oozed sensuality.  I liked that.  One of my witches had gone mad and was being tempted to safety by a biscuit.  She laughed. We call them cookies here, she explained.

I learnt a lot from Grace, about POVs, about descriptions of rooms, of the scenes.  What does it look like?  How does poori taste?  What does it feel like?She always asked these questions and I tried to explain.

By April, my story was done.  She wanted to re-do hers.  We finally lost touch …

Or so I thought

In a few months, she got in touch with me again.  She had roped in three other writers, one from Australia, one from Africa, another from a country that I forget.

Let’s make a critiquing group, she said.

So we are at it again. The Critters as we call ourselves.  And I am learning a lot from other writers in the group, not only on honing and polishing my craft, but also gaining insight on how they live life.

This post is a part of Makemyhome activity at BlogAdda.com

Book Review: Wrong, For the Right Reasons by Ritu Lalit

A wonderful review

Building the Craft, Beta Reading

Writing is like meditation.  No one knows what you do, many times even the author does not know what he or she does.  But meditation helps the person and he/she feels the benefits.  In writing, the author enjoys the experience and the finished work delights its readers.

When I write, I commune, I live with the characters, in the world they inhabit.  I interact with them, experience the events of their lives and then try to make it come alive using words.  I do have a plot in mind and I hope with all my heart that they listen to me and not throw nasty surprises at me.

Do they listen?

Oh dear me, no!  Most often they throw spanners in the works.  They just can’t be repressed.

When I began writing I felt like God!  I was creating worlds.  Like all things in life, this grandiose delusion of mine bit the dust.  The characters took over, the world of the book took over.  All I could do was scramble along and make the best of it.  When I wrote Chakra, I planned to write a book about gifted teens.  They would have adventures, grow up a bit.  Find their powers.  Simple eh?

Well the story was supposed to take place in Delhi and thereabouts.  High Schools, Politics amongst kids …

But Jorawar came to life.  So did Lata Irani.  What was the poor author to do?

I loved the story, and then the reviews came in.  Too many characters, many people said.  I had to agree.  Many times the author is so close to the plot, she sees the trees but completely misses the forest for the trees.  This time, I decided I needed a fresh pair of eyes for my book “Wrong for the Right Reasons.”

A beta reader.  Someone who is balanced and can give me an unbiased view about the book.  Someone who can tell me whether the story works or not.

[image error]I contacted book reviewer and blogger Sakshi Nanda.

“Ritu Ma’am, I have never beta read a book!” she said, unsure of what was required.

Oh, but she really did a good job.

The book is out on Amazon and is getting good reviews, four stars no less.

[image error]

 

 

She says

‘Wrong, for the Right Reasons’ is one of the most real books you will read this season. It is Shyamoli’s story – as a young divorced woman, a single mother of two, a daughter struggling to break-free from an abusive mother and a person looking to walk on her own terms in a society which defines ‘respect’ in the most constricted of ways and hangs norms like nooses around the necks of single women. What is special about this book is what is seen as amiss in others – there are no sudden twists and turns, no army of characters and not even a flourish of a closure. It tells you a story keeping the sensational and the spectacular away, yet retaining the extraordinary within it, in the form of portrayal of relationships, streams of consciousness and the growth of the characters over the years that span the novel. One of my first doubts was about Shyamoli being too real to be made into a ‘heroine’ but by the end of the manuscript I had revised my idea. She is that exactly because she is life-like. And readers will be able to find a Shyamoli in their lives too. Isn’t that a wonderful thing in a book?

Thank you Sakshi.  The book and I both benefited enormously from your beta – nay – alpha reading.

She has written her experiences as a beta reader in her own words.  Read them here

The link to the book on Amazon

 

 

 

 

Investigation

We are a team called the Spellbinders.  We are collaborating and writing a story for the Blogadda challenge “Game of Blogs”.  The team is diverse, and we are having fun interacting with each other creatively.  To know about us, join us here

 

The team members are  Farida Rizwan, Sunita Rajwade, Bhavya, Ankita Singhal, Bushra M, Ryan Fernandes, Kunal Borah, Ankit Mahato, Deepa and me (Ritu Lalit)

 

The story up until now :

Chapter 1 Room No.4

Chapter 2  Table No 4

Chapter 3  If Looks Could Kill

Chapter 4 The Flower That Never Bloomed

Chapter 5  The Elephant Parade

Chapter 6 Chance Encounters and Changed Plans

Chapter 7  Relationships

Chapter 8 When Dreams Came True

Chapter 9  The Runaway Brat

Chapter 10  Where is Roohi?

 

 

 

Malik woke up the next day with a heavy head.  He had come home late in the night after grilling everyone who worked in the building the missing child lived in.  Habits are a pain, he thought.  When he was younger, he could sleep till noon.  He missed that.  The phone rang and he picked it up.  “Adil told me that you rang up last night?”  His wife sounded angry.

“I did Nafisa.  Good morning to you too.  I wanted to tell you this case will take time.”

“Tell your boss to give you a hefty bonus.  Did you have any dinner or were you trying to pin the murder on everyone you met?”

“I love you too,” he said.

“Altaf?” she said.

He sighed.  “I forgot to eat.  I will eat a good breakfast,” he admitted with reluctance.  “Don’t fuss.”

“Tell me,” she said.

Altaf said, “The body was soft.  The rigor had relaxed.  We can’t pin it on the mad man.  Boss does not want it to be the rich brat.  The girl belonged to a neighbouring chawl.  Kids from that chawl played hide and seek in the warehouse.  She must have gone to sleep hidden there.  Poor thing.”

“And?” she asked.

“Both men were at the beach.  Both do not belong to the area.  Both are suspects.  One is in jail, poor man.  The other sleeping at home, just because he is rich.  It gets me angry,” he said.  “What gets me angrier is the fact that I’ve not been able to meet the rich brat or question him.”

“He is young.  He must be on Facebook and Twitter.  Kids these days.  Their days are accounted for, so is their location,” Nafisa said.

He chuckled.  “You’re becoming quite a detective, my dear.”

She giggled, “I am Mrs. SP after all.  Don’t forget to eat.  Rukhsana is awake now.  Bye.”

“Bye,” he said with a smile.  Of course he had checked the Facebook and Twitter accounts.  But Nafisa had reminded him of something.  Cyrus had been in Jaipur and so had Tara and Roohi, they had come back the day Roohi had vanished.  In his long career in the police force, he had learnt there was no such thing as coincidence.

He switched on the television.  The news reporter was raising the same questions he did.  The man was in shock, he had a head injury.  So if he had an injury, who had caused it.

He had to meet Roohi’s mother.  She had not met her when he investigated the building.  Neighbours said her relationship with her husband was strained.  One of them even said he would hit the child.  To take out his frustration on his wife perhaps.  His gut said someone was pinning the murder on her husband.  Did they have enemies?  Shekhar seemed to be his own enemy.  He lacked the strong character of people who had bitter enemies.  His wife on the other hand …  His meeting with her earlier had been all too brief and she had been surrounded by her friends from the press.

…

Malik walked into Tara’s office and took a seat.  It was a plush office, with a mahogany desk on which were pictures of Roohi and Tara in various places, the beach, mountains, and on a boat.  Shekhar was not in them.

Tara walked in, dressed in a pale lemon sari with a red and lemon blouse.  Her hair was tied up in a tight bun.  She looked completely in control.  This was one tough woman!

“Yes, SP?” she said distantly.

Malik looked at her, the dark circles under her eyes were the only sign that this carefully put up appearance was a façade.  She was under stress.  He wanted to crack the façade.  He said softly, “Madam, I was just admiring the pictures of your daughter and you.”

She looked away, swallowing her agitation.  “Your husband is not in the pictures …” he added.

“Shekhar does not like to travel,” she said, her voice cold.

“The DNA report from the body has come.  It does not match Roohi’s,” he said.

“I told the officers that morning, the girl was not my daughter.”

“Yes yes, I know.  Your husband thought it was, strange.  But then how could he know?  Genetically his DNA does not match hers.  So there is a chance he got confused, am I right?”

She said in a cold whisper, “Get out.  Get out, before I kill you.”

The façade had cracked.  Her face had murderous rage on it.  He smiled, got up and said, “Just a sincere advice.  Do not threaten a police officer with murder.  I will be back for more.”  He added, “Good day to you.  We shall meet again.”

He walked out and paused outside the door.  Her intercom rang.  She said sharply, “No, I will not take compassionate leave!  The empty flat drives me mad, you understand.  Mad!”

He smiled and walked away.  He had succeeded.  She was now agitated enough to do something stupid.  All he had to do was wait.

…

He was eating lunch when his phone rang.  It was his old batch-mate from the time he got into IPS.  “Altaf, I hear you want to get to talk to the heir to Daruwala empire?”

“Yes I do.  I am calling in all past favours.”

“He will be at Otters Club, the swimming pool, at 4,” his friend said.

“Thank you,” Malik said.

“We are quits now.  Forget I called,” his friend said.

“My memory is adaptable,” Malik said with a smile and disconnected.  He finished his lunch and went to Otters Club.

Loud laughter came from the pool side table where Cyrus and his group of friends, men and women drank and ate a late lunch.  They were all dressed in swim suits.  Malik sat for some time admiring their young and healthy bodies.  Perks of the job …

When the waiter started giving him dark looks he sent his card over to Cyrus’ table.  Cyrus joined him almost immediately.  “Any news of little Roohi?”

Malik looked at the young man, his slim athletic body in a pair of swimming shorts, his upper body in a loose travelling robe.  His eyes settled on the earnest blue eyes.  Just like those in Roohi’s photo on Tara’s desk.  A smile came on his face.  So!

He said, “No news yet, Mr. Daruwala.”

“Call me Cyrus or Cy,” Cyrus said.  “Mr. Daruwala is my father.”

“How well did you know Roohi?” Malik asked.

“I met her and her mother in Jaipur.  She is a brat, cute and irritating little brat.  I wish she comes back home safe.  No one deserves the fate that little girl in the warehouse met,” he said.

“You said you were with a woman that night,” Malik asked.

“I was,” Cyrus said.  “No, I will not tell you who she was.  She has nothing to do with me or this case.”

“Keep your secrets, sir.  We have ways of finding out,” Malik said with a smile.  “We are trained for it.  Besides our usual job of escorting and guarding politicians is so boring.”

Cyrus frowned, “Damn it man.  Find the brat.  Forget the lady!”

Malik smiled and made a mental note to investigate the mysterious lady as well as why the rich brat was so concerned about a girl he had met by chance at Jaipur.  He got up and took his leave.

His next stop was not so pleasant.  It was at the jail where Shekhar was under-trial.

The man looked lost.  His prison uniform was stained with dal and his eyes were fixed on the wall behind Malik.  They seemed to follow an unseen movement.  Malik tried to prompt him to speak but Shekhar did not speak.  After a while he began digging his nose, ignoring all attempts at conversation.  Sighing heavily Malik went to the circuit house and began ringing up forensics for the tardy reports.

Investigations are the most tedious part of policing.  All he could do was chip away at defenses and hope that someone would make a mistake.  Wait and hope.  And yes, question …

Tara’s cold anger was the highlight of his day …

Or was it Cyrus’ blue eyes?

 

***

This is Chapter 11.  To read Chapter 12, click this link The Backstabber.

 

 

Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.

Where is Roohi?

We are a team called the Spellbinders.  We are collaborating and writing a story for the Blogadda challenge “Game of Blogs”.  The team is diverse, and we are having fun interacting with each other creatively.  To know about us, join us here

 

The team members are  Farida Rizwan, Sunita Rajwade, Bhavya, Ankita Singhal, Bushra M, Ryan Fernandes, Kunal Borah, Ankit Mahato, Deepa and me (Ritu Lalit)

 

 

The story up until now :

Chapter 1 Room No.4

Chapter 2  Table No 4

Chapter 3  If Looks Could Kill

Chapter 4 The Flower That Never Bloomed

Chapter 5  The Elephant Parade

Chapter 6 Chance Encounters and Changed Plans

Chapter 7  Relationships

Chapter 8 When Dreams Came True

Chapter 9  The Runaway Brat

 

Where is Roohi?

Shekhar sat up and looked around with bleary eyes.  His head throbbed.  No, his jaw hurt, there was a dull ache at the back of his eyes.  He reached out for the place that hurt, the side of his jaw and his hand came away bloody.  He tried to focus.  What happened?  Why was he not in bed?  And why was he injured?

Wait a minute, all of his body hurt.  His senses slowly came back to him and now he realized the place stank.   Something was dead.  A stray dog?  He saw that his slippers were off his feet, and looked around for them.  The place was dimly lit by the pale sunlight that filtered through the broken skylight of what seemed like a warehouse.  He could hear the sound of tide, they were near the ocean.  Then every sane thought vanished as he saw that he was sitting in a pool of blood which came from a small figure in a frilly dress.  “Roohi!” He screamed.  He stood up and slipped in the blood falling face forward on the child.  She was cold.  He howled and tried to stand up again.  “No!  Roohi,” he wailed crawling back and coming against a wall.  He stood up, petrified and soiled his pants.  The stench made him sick.  He ran out of the warehouse, unmindful of the fact that he had lost one slipper.  Her eyes looked at him accusingly, his daughter, his Roohi.  He had never loved her when she was alive, never kissed her.  He closed his eyes to avoid those opal blue eyes, expressive, wary that followed him as he put distance between him and the body.  His little child …

“Are you okay man?” a man’s voice disturbed him.

Shekhar looked around; he was sitting on a beach.  The man, dressed in shorts and a vest looked concerned.

The question was so amusing, he began to laugh, a high maniacal laugh that ended in a sob.  “Very fine, man.  I just killed my daughter,” he said.

The man backed off.  Shekhar began rolling himself in the sand, trying to rid himself of the stink.  “Very fine,” he said, laughing louder.  He did not notice the crowd that gathered or the men dressed in khaki who roughly grabbed him, cuffed him and pushed him into a jeep.  “I killed my daughter,” he said calmly.  “Now tell her eyes they’re dead, they should not bother me anymore.”

***

SP Altaf Malik, a slim bespectacled man with salt and pepper hair sat in the Circuit House studying the photos and newspaper reports.  The reports were scanty and the photos gruesome.  His pleasant face and non threatening demeanor was misleading, something criminals cooling their heels in various jails all around the country would vouch for.  He took a sip of his coffee and scowled, “Nafisa you forgot the sugar,” he said.  It was just the thing his wife did to tease him when he was too involved in solving a case.

Oh damn!  He wasn’t at home, in Nausar.  He was in Mumbai, at the behest of the DGP, his boss to investigate the murder.  He had agreed, thinking it was an open and shut case.  A mad man had confessed to murdering his own daughter.  But here was the catch.  The dead child was not the mad man’s daughter, the DNA reports had come in.  Moreover, the child had struggled; her nails had bits of skin, hair stuck in them.  The man had no marks on his body, the initial medical reports said.  The reports of the residue stuck in the nails were awaited.

The same morning, the son of the media baron Darius Daruwala was found wandering near the beach.  He said he had been robbed in the night.  He had scratches on his body.  He denied involvement in the murder, said the scratches were made by a lady he had slept with.  He refused to name the lady.  The DGP wanted Malik to pin the murder on the mad man.  Who cares? He had said with a wink.

I do, damn it.  I don’t like people killing girls of my daughter’s age, Malik thought.

He hated rich men, especially rich men’s sons.  They thought they owned the law!

Malik had the air of dogged determination, the kind that actually enjoyed going up against opposition.  He recalled the short meeting he had with the missing girl’s mother.  She cared too.

He looked sadly at the empty cup of coffee, he had drunk it without the sugar.  Sighing, he rang up his home.  His son Adil picked up the phone.  “Yes Abbu?”

“Son, tell Ammi that I won’t be back for another week.  This case will take time.”

“You tell her.  I won’t,” said his son firmly.

“But son, she must be watching her soap.  I don’t want to disturb her,” Malik said.

“Coward,” his son whispered and added, “No,” in a louder voice and slammed the phone down.

Even the boldest of police men are as meek as sheep while facing their wives.

His driver knocked, “Sahib you called?”

“Are you married?” Malik asked.  The driver shook his head.

“Good, then you have only one boss, me.  The most I can do is sack you.  When you have a wife, she can do worse.  Let’s go and talk to the security guard of the missing girl’s building.  He was the last person to see her.”

 

Me and my team are participating in ‘Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.

The Game of Life

I’d written this poem a long time ago, thought of bringing it out, dusting and shining it, now that Blogadda has announced the Game of Blogs.  I am a humble team member of a team called Spellbinders.  We also have a nice shiny logo

The team is fun, young and full of energy.  As a fiction writer, my writing has been a solitary exercise.  Me and Madam Muse go for walks where we converse with the characters.  Madam Muse and I then argue among ourselves on how the story moves forward.  Sometimes she wins, sometimes I do.

Mostly the characters win.  Some of them, like Sumit in my latest book His Father’s Mistress simply take over.  In Chakra, Mickey the scamp overshadowed everyone.  Characters …

For me it is a new experience to collaborate with others and write a story.  Overwhelming too.

The Game of Life

Life is the ultimate chess game

Uncertain, exciting, full of thrill

It can set your blood aflame

Living a lifetime requires skill

There are no best moves

No one gives you cues

Sometimes you win, Great!!!

At other times you are the bait

White is not at all evil

Black is not the devil

Pawn can become King

Skill makes you win

The game of life is chequered

There are no magic catchwords

Its all about patience and strategy

Its no place for a cry baby

So plan your game, use your pawns

Live life fully from dusk to dawn

Gamers adept are playing having fun

Last man standing the game has won

We are writing a book, each team member has a chapter to write.  The kind of ideas being thrown up every minute is sheer insanity, but so far we have managed to keep to the schedule.  Go Spellbinders!  This poem is for you.

Team members:
Farida Rizwan, Sunita Rajwade, Bhavya, Ankita Singhal, Bushra M, Ryan Fernandes, Kunal Borah, Ankit Mahato, Deepa and me

Here are the chapters written so far

Chapter No. 1 : Room No. 4

Chapter No. 2 : Table No. 4

Chapter No. 3 : If Looks Could Kill

Chapter No. 4 : The Flower that never Bloomed

We are participating in the Game Of Blogs’ at BlogAdda.com. #CelebrateBlogging with us.

Toast to my teachers on Teachers Day

Toast with Peanut Butter to my teachers

This teacher’s day, I’d like to raise several glasses

To toast those who taught me more than my school classes

First a toast to life, the greatest school

And to romance, it made me a fool

To enduring love which really uplifted me

To kind friends who now mean more than family

To passionate sex that taught me the value of being bendy

To being broke, for it taught me to look beyond money

To misfortunes that taught me more than course books

To sleazeballs who taught me to undervalue good looks

To religion that made me seek God away from temples

In solitude, in nature, where no crowds assemble

To my children, they kept my feet on the ground

And if they say I-told-you-so, they will be drowned

These are the teachers who taught me under pressure

How to live life, how to smile, the lessons I truly treasure

 

 

 

The book tag

 

I’ve been tagged by many people over the last few days on Facebook to do the book tag.  I hesitated

Help me, Lord, I am trying to be good here.

Ten books they say.

I have four books out in the market and the son has four too.  That makes it (gasp) 8 books in all.  How could I miss the chance to recommend all of them.  Guys, you tagged me!  So don’t object.

Okay, I’ll stop being cheesy and refrain from doing a shameless Me-n-Family-self-plug.  Before you heave a sigh of relief, let me tell you I am only refraining because I am scared you will stop reading me.

Ten books are a selection so hard to do, so I will just tell you about the books I’ve read recently which are brilliantly written.  What I like about these books is simple.  To me a book makes the mark if it is not cliched.  Well written, taut, with characters that are life-like and a plot that is so unique that it makes you wonder.

In an aside, has anyone seen the movie Inception?  Crazy plot, but for a couple of days I wandered around wondering if the top stopped spinning or not.  That for me is the litmus test.  A book that makes me pause and think.

 

These books are really in the order that they pop up in mind, all of them awesome.  I can’t say I like one more than the other.

One such book is Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood  It brings to life so vividly the politics of girlhood which any girl who grows up among girls knows.  We carry it in our subconscious.  I wondered for a while after reading the book how the author re-visited her childhood in such vividness.

Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry  I loved Renee the concierge, but I loved the obnoxious and judgmental Paloma more.  Most of all I loved the playing with societal expectations and how it all unravels.  Do we all play to the gallery?  More importantly, do we take the time to look beneath the masks that people wear when we meet them?

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi  What can I say?  I love science fiction, I love shooting aliens, and I love book series.  One book is such a come down.  I want to live the world of the book.  I picked this up.  Brilliant plot, wonderful characters.  I had a book hangover with this one that lasted for days.

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult   Oh I am so jealous.  Jodi Picoult did the unthinkable, she gave us a book where there is no villain.  One empathizes with the child, her parents, her brother, her sister.  That takes talent.  There are no bad guys, no good guys, no cliches.  It is such a hard book to digest, such an emotional trip!

The Thornbirds by Colleen McCollough  A story of forbidden love, but is it?  It starts out as a romance, but this book pushes the envelope.  It becomes a family saga of the sort that spans generations.  I read it as a teenager and it left such an indelible impact on me.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier  Oh the characters, oh the descriptions!  The author had serious talent.   “Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again.”  Such a simple sentence and it swallows us whole into the book, into Manderley where the ghost of Rebecca takes us for a ride.

She by H Rider Haggard  I read this as a teenager.  Ayesha stayed with me, she still does.  How does a woman, a queen no less, wait for two thousand years for her lover to return to her?  Some story!

Carrie by Stephen King  The build up leaves me breathless, always.  Stephen King is a genius.  This book really shook me up.

Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore and his Norwegian Wood.  The elegant writing, the mix of mundane everyday observations with the surreal … if I just had a smidgen of his talent.

So many others, I almost forgot the Potter series, the other books that I love.  Billy Bunter for instance.  

Billy Bunter was the first anti hero that I fell in love with, fat, conceited, racist, mean but oh so lovable.  His antics in Greyfrairs School was the prelude to the antics of children at Hogwarts.

This is a hard tag to do …

 

 

 

 

 

Divorce, anybody?

*Inspired by a post on Facebook*

Mr. Worried parent is pacing in the living room.  His daughter has returned home in tears along with the grandchildren.  He can hear hushed voices of his wife and daughter coming from the guest room.

Mr. Worried Parent is close to retirement.  He does not want any legal case, but also knows that if things have become this sour, he can’t wish it away by sending the daughter back to her marital home.  He lights a cigarette and then stubs it after taking a drag.  He does not need nicotine.  He needs legal advise.  

A simple man, he never had cause to step into a court room and does not know lawyers.  On an impulse he dials directory enquiry and asks for some phone numbers.

Two minutes after he disconnects the phone rings.  It is an unknown number.

 

Divorce Lawyer : Hello, Hello, Sirji, myself divorce lawyer.

The voice is oily with a strong accent of a man imperfectly educated in Central India.

Worried Parent : How do you know I need a divorce lawyer.

His accent is clipped, voice low, almost accentless.

Divorce Lawyer :  Sirji, sorry.  But you asked directory enquiry.  Myself referred.

Worried Parent :  Okay, so?

D.L. : Sirji first of all, vakeel for self or for son?

W.P. (Snapping) Daughter.

D. L. : No any problem Sirji.  If daughter not getting along with husband, many many ways to get divorce Sirji.

W.P. : What?

D. L. : Sirji, very easy to build case.   We can build case of Love Jehad.  You heard of Love Jehad yes?

W.P. : No.

D.L. : Very long tradition in Kerala.  Very very old.  North India found it now.  Yes?  There the Hindus and Christians got together and invented it, after lot of thinking. Yes, Yes Christians. In Kerala they are like Hindus only. Very clever. Now if your daughter is good Hindu girl and she gets married to Christian boy and she is not getting along at home, we accuse the boy of Love Baptism. You know they put people in the water and baptize them in that religion so we call the scam Love Baptism. In severe case we can also say Love Crucifixion. Like you know, like pose on cross.

W.P. :  Choking sound as the water he was sipping gets swallowed the wrong way.  A paroxysm of coughing.

D.L. :   No, No Sirji, we vakeel very sickular.  We have a package for all religions. We are very Love Sickular.  Now if your daughter is good Christian girl and she is not getting along with her Hindu husband we make a noise in the media two ways. If the boy is spritely, and full of energy, we say he used the devious strategy of Love Yoga.  You know what Love Yoga is yes?

W.P.: In a tormented voice : No!

D.L.:  We say he taught her religious Yoga positions, and bedded her. If the boy is pale, and fat, and religious we say the girl was a victim of Love Kirtan, in which the boy took her for religious ceremonies, and slipped into her panties. We have one for all religions, Sirji… We are very, very, Love Secular.

W.P. :  What the hell?

D.L. : You Muslim Sirji?  Yes?  Now if your daughter is good Muslim girl and got married to Buddhist boy, and she wants to get out of the marriage then we accuse the boy of Love Renunciation, where the boy convinced her of the joys of leaving her family, and all the good things in life, for his bed. Or even Love Levitation, where it was promised she would float on a bed of roses for the rest of her life.

W.P. :  Who the hell gave you this number?

D.L.: Sirji no offense.  The law very sickular.  Is your betiya rani gets married to a Sikh boy?

W.P. :  Bhen*&^  Madar#$@  Phone rakh!

Now the poor parent has forgotten the need for discretion.  The door of the bedroom swings open and his wife and daughter rush to him

Divorce Lawyer :  Sirji garam kyun?  You Hindu?  Son in law Hindu?  No any problem.  We  drop all the love shove nonsense and we go straight for good old Hindu style dowry and beatings Sirji… Dowry, beatings, and even the boys old grandmother will go to jail. Dowry and beatings are the way to go…

I guarantee you, huge settlement money.  Sirji when we can meet?

Sound of phone being thrown on a wall …

Disembodied voice of operator “Aapke duara dial kiya gaya number is samay vyast hai … The number you have dialled is busy.  Please dial after some time.”

 

 

The Ice Bucket or the Rice Bucket

The last week has been strange hasn’t it?  First off, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge.  The upside was all celebrities dunking themselves with ice to raise awareness for the disease.   Well thank goodness they were just pouring the water on themselves, not hitting themselves with the ice bucket

Even the live in help wanted to know what ALS was.  He asked me, “Aunty ye ALS WayLS kya hai?”

I congratulated myself on my foresight.  I had googled it using the free-for-me office net, so I explained it to him.  I however do not think he understood the concept of muscles atrophying.  And then I noticed that he added extra desi ghee tempering to the vegetable he was serving to the boys.

“Not that much desi ghee” I protested.

“But Aunty, they need strength,” he said.

And it sank into my thick head.  One of my offsprings name-withheld-for-valid-reasons loves to bathe with ice cold water in summers, he even keeps a large saucepan filled with tap water in the freezer to put into his bath water.  I hate it, there is hardly any space for ice cream or ice for lemonade in the fridge.  The help thought, quite naturally that lazy muscles needed ghee.

I could have told him a kick in the posterior would serve the purpose better.

Now celebrities raising awareness makes sense.  Bush has water dunked on him and we google ALS.  Bush also asks Clinton to do the same.  Wow!

What we do not realize is that these guys make a substantial donation too.  Us jumping on the bandwagon, in a country where clean water is scarce makes no sense.  We could make a donation, it would be better.

Just a thought.

Or take the rice bucket challenge …  It is much simpler.  Just take a bucket of rice and donate it to someone needy.

Agreed that this August is warm, what with rains being scarce.  But my nerves won’t take kindly to a dumping of cold water on my head.  Giving away a bucket of rice gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.  I can give one away every month, in the name of ALS or which ever health condition we may chose to highlight.

[image error]

That is if people from rice eating states do not smell a controversy in the act or accuse us of creating some kind of shortage.