Sumeetha Manikandan's Blog, page 17

Aftereffects of watching 'The Conjuring'

After a failed attempt to watch 'mama' at home with my cousins. 'We' collectively decided to watch a nice horror movie in the theatre so that we can avoid distractions like raks. And my baby cousin suggested 'The Conjuring'.

And I booked the tickets for the most scariest movie ever to hit the screen. The day dawned and each one of arrived from our homes to the theatre. I told raks that I was going to the doctor and she pointed out that this was my second visit since last week (the first one wa...

Movie Review: Conjuring

The movie begins with the introduction of Ed and Lorraine Warren, Paranormal Investigators who are giving a presentation about various entities and demonic possession cases that they have investigated.

And parallel to that we see Carolyn and Roger Perron moving into their newly bought country house with their five daughters. But their family dog, Sadie does not come inside the house and keeps barking for some reason. Next day, Carolyn wakes up with a bruise in her leg and the family finds that...

Raks at Varalakshmi Pooja

The past two days raks and I have been busy with lot of activities. The first being, what to wear for the Varalakshmi Vrata puja. While I tried to get her interested in a salwar kameeze she had already packed the peacock hued silk blouse and skirt that she had been itching to wear for a while.

We hurriedly left for the puja for my uncle's house in the morning. And due to time constraints that involved searching for raks's blouse and skirt (which she hid behind the TV for safekeeping btw) we se...

Musings about Independence Day

For a long time Independence Day meant only one thing for me. Holiday!
I remember that my grandfather was not happy with this attitude. So he used to give us long lectures about how our martyrs sacrificed everything to win us our freedom and how we should be honouring them instead.
So to please him, we would get up early in the morning and go to the neighbouring park where the local politician would give long lectures about what his party and he himself in particular was doing for his nation....

A Chapter Reading from 'The Perfect Groom'

Download, share or listen online to Sumeetha Manikandan’s reading of her first chapter from 'The Perfect Groom'.

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Audio Clip of my Journey to The Perfect Groom

Sumeetha Manikandan tells us how she came up with the story for The Perfect Groom in this brief audio clip.

http://www.indireads.com/sumeethas-jo...

Monopoly with Raks

Monopoly is and will always be my favourite board game ever. My sister and I have played it when we were young, trying to bankrupt each other and many longer and viciously ruthless sessions with our cousins, where I became worse than a third world debt.

Needless to say, I was itching to introduce the game to raks hoping that she gets to learn how to manage, save and prudently invest money. On her fifth birthday, she got a junior monopoly game from a friend of hers. She played it a couple of ti...

My Journey to ‘The Perfect Groom’

My journey to The Perfect Groom began on a lazy afternoon when I got an enthusiastic phone call from a distant relative. Her daughter’s marriage had been arranged and she gushed on about how good the groom was, how rich his family was and how happy she felt that her daughter was going to be in the US.

I congratulated her and made polite conversation for a while. For some reason, her conversation kept playing on my mind all through the day. ‘He is such a perfect groom’, ‘He is all that I wanted for my daughter’, ‘His family is rich and he is the only son’. And I was reminded of an anecdote that an old friend of mine told me about a girl, almost a decade ago.

That was when I got the idea to write a story about that unknown ‘girl’. I had no details about her except for what had happened in her life. But I instinctively knew that she was bold, caring, broad-minded and yet innocent and naive. And my heroine Nithya arrived on my pages. I am sure that Nithya’s perilous journey through love and relationship will capture the reader’s heart and hold it.

I do not know what happened to the girl whose anecdote inspired me to write this novella. Hopeless romantic that I am, I wish with all my heart that she found a man like Vasu to share her life with.

P.S. A special thanks to my friend Anupama who shared that anecdote with me all those years ago.

Celebrity Preview of Chennai Express

My long weekend began well, when my husband was invited for the celebrity preview of Chennai Express. Now who wouldn't want to land amidst flashing cameras with nice blow dried hair and a designer dress.

I happily went shopping (an activity that I had not indulged in a long while) and made appointment at the beauty parlour and came home with an aching feet and a happy thought.

Around nine, my husband calls me saying, "Hey listen, Actually the preview is today. I am coming there within an hour....

Never Say 'OK'

20 years ago... My grandfather said, "Do not sign a paper without reading it." An old adage that is true even now

Sadly he didn't say, "Do not say 'ok' to everything blindly" I wish he had warned me. But it was a lesson learnt hard.

It all started with raks of course. I was busy, in the middle of an article with over 20 websites open on my laptop laboriously editing and tweaking, when she came by and asked the following, "Can I watch TV? Can I have a chocolate? Will you download the latest make...