Preethi Venugopala's Blog, page 41

Enigma

Sanjay was an enigma to Payal. She didn’t understand why he always reserved a seat for her in the college bus next to him and then kept mum throughout the journey. He would always be busy reading books on his kindle. She wondered why he was named as chatterbox in his gang when she had hardly heard him speak. A few syllables accompanied by hand gestures was all the response she could elicit from him. She hated him and his silence.
Then came the day when they were paired as Darcy and Elizabeth in the drama of Pride and Prejudice as part of an ongoing literary fest in their college.

“My feelings won’t be repressed. Please allow me to tell you how ardently I love you… ,” Sanjay said enacting Mr. Darcy to perfection during the rehearsals.
The light that shone in his eyes kindled a spark somewhere inside her heart and secretly she began to consider him as her own Darcy.
The constant interactions made her re-discover Sanjay, her senior by two years, and everyday brought in new revelations. One day she learnt that he was a good singer and the next day she learnt that he was their class topper. When he joined in with his guitar for the onstage chorus, she adored the musician in him. Every day she wondered what surprise he had in store for her that day.
On the day of the drama, she was tense as it was her first stage performance. He spent time with her cracking jokes and complimenting her about her looks, she wondered what had made him so eloquent. Was he trying to put her at ease? The Victorian gown was making her feel like a cow. But Sanjay looked handsome even in tailcoats and vests and every moment she fell a little more in love with him.
“You have bewitched me body and soul. I love ...love you. Will you marry me Miss Bennet?” said Mr Darcy and Elizabeth nodded. As he leaned forward to kiss Elizabeth, the lights on stage dimmed and the curtains came down announcing the end of the Drama.
The lights came on a little later amid thunderous applause and all the actors came on stage to take the final bow. Mr. Darcy was still holding Elizabeth’s arms and all the other members of the team had a mischievous sparkle in their eyes.

Behind the curtains, in the dark, Mr. Darcy had sealed the promise with a kiss. From that moment, Sanjay had ceased to be an enigma to Payal.  
Linking this to APRIL A-Z Challenge.

Desire

With a smile on her face, she ticked off the last item on her bucket list, which had 101 items to accomplish before she died.
Taking a five-year sabbatical from her hectic job as a top marketing professional, she had roamed the world, met with people at various corners of the world, and even published a best-seller novel based on her travels.
In the deserted lanes of Palestine, she had met Arnold, the famous American photographer who courted trouble and desired her.
She didn’t want chains, she wanted to be a free bird and couldn’t allow even love to clip her wings- they parted as friends.
Deciding what to do next, she fired her laptop with glee and opened the Google search page to prepare a new list; it was time to name new desires, discover new goals.

C is for Colours

Holi, the festival of colours was Radha’s favourite festival and she always loved the ambience of colours that it brought into her world.
Today when her neighbourhood kids splashed buckets full of colour on her and dragged her out to join them in splashing colours on everyone, she did not know that miles away, the best colours from her life were slowly draining out with every passing second.
Two miles away from the border, Sanjay shot the last infiltrator in front of him before succumbing to the injuries that the enemy bullets had given him.
His fingers alone moved for a few minutes as though he was searching to find the warmth of his loved one while he was bidding farewell.

His soul broke free from the pain and trauma, rushed towards Radha and took in the beauty of his wife’s laughter, the lovely colours that adorned her, all the  while appealing to the Gods to keep her bathed in colours till eternity.
Linking this to APRIL A-Z Challenge.
I wrote a 5 sentence fiction in this post for letter C. 

Book Review: Just You, Me and a Secret

Author: Ganga BharaniPublisher: Tales4 PublicationsPublication Year: 2013
ISBN: 9789351267119
Pages: Paperback, 168 pages
Buy From FlipkartAmazonBlurb: " Pitch dark. Extreme Silence. Felt like vacuum. I opened my eyes and found nothing familiar. Where am I? First of all, who am I? Ashruth says I was head over heels in love with him. He says our wedding was fixed. But there is no trace of love for him in me. I don t remember anything. Why would I have loved this pumpkin? San was drunk but I got intoxicated. I had fallen for him gradually. I can t imagine marrying anyone else. But how do I stop my wedding now? Don t say I am dead. I am all alive, standing right in front of you. I am not dead. Trust me. And the secret comes to light. Just you, me and a secret -A battle between past, present and the nothing called future"

Just You, Me and a Secret, is a book that is intriguing from the word go. There are many ingredients that made me finish reading the book in a single sitting. It is a thriller, a romance and it is well written.
When the protagonist Meera wakes up in a hospital room with a memory wiped clean, she struggles to deal with the revelations that comes to her one after the other. Ashruth, the doctor to whom she is engaged tries to make her understand the circumstances of their relationship. She finds it difficult to believe that she had fallen in love with Ashruth as she cannot find anything that convinces that she could have fallen in love with the silly man. Even after her personal diary reveals the secrets one after the other, she is battling with her own inner voice, which screams that something is just not right.
 Why does she feel attracted to her cousin Santhosh? Why does her own parents appear like strangers to her? Meera battles with her past to find the reasons that will allow her to be at peace with her present. At the end, a Secret that has in its power the ability to destroy many lives emerges.
Memories are what make a life worthwhile. When those moments vanish from one’s mind’s eye, everything appears vague and senseless. Meera’s battle to find herself, her identity, forms the crux of the novel.
Ganga Bharani, a debut author, has done ample justice to her work. She manages to hold the attention of the reader with a clear and crisp narrative. She also throws in surprises which makes the reader turn pages one after the other. A great achievement for a debut novelist.
Enter this giveaway contest where you can win copies of the book Just, You, Me and a Secret.Click HERE to enterPick up the book if you like intriguing thrillers which has a dash of romance as well.
Linking this to A-Z April Challenge 
Today I have used letter B for Book Review.

Absence is to love what wind is to fire

(The Quote Source )Anne waited for her email to ping the whole day on Friday. It stayed silent, killing her hopes as each second ticked away. Even when she closed her tiny office at the end of the day, the email had maintained its status quo.
Had that small fight the day before escalated into something from where there was no return? She regretted the words she had spoken; she regretted the words she didn’t say.
As Joseph had switched off his mobile, she had shot off many emails asking for forgiveness. After all, she hadn’t known that Joseph had planned to take her on a weekend trip to his home with a purpose. She had fought with him instead saying she had made different plans already with her girl pals. One thing had led to another and Joseph had stomped off from their house after she accused him of being a heartless monster who was bent on making her life miserable.
She hadn’t known then that he had intended to propose to her at his family home. They had even arranged an engagement party.  When Joseph’s mother had called and confessed about her disappointment at the cancelled plans, Anne had cursed herself for not understanding the man she loved more than anything in the world. It didn’t matter now that she was the one always eager to be wed.
Every passing hour tortured her and she waited eagerly for her mobile to ring, for the sound of his key turning in the lock. She opened his wardrobe and hugged his shirts, remembering how it felt to be embraced by him.
The weekend dragged past and by Sunday night, Anne was miserable.
Early next morning, Anne woke up and felt  a familiar warmth next to her. Her Joseph had returned and he was lying next to her with his hands caressing her face and his face nuzzling her neck. She wept and then hugged him with all the love she felt.
“Never again, darling. I am sorry. These past three days were a torture for me. I missed you and I love you,” she whispered amidst tears and sobs.

“Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great. I love you more now than ever,” he said and pulled her closer.
Linking this to APRIL A-Z Challenge.
I used a quote in this post to weave a story around it. 

Yummy Breakfast Ideas

Breakfast has been proved as the most essential meal during the day for an individual. It makes the body function healthily after the long fasting period during the night. If it is light and nutritious, the better we feel.
I confess- making breakfast is the job that I hate most. I always dream that I had someone at home who would cook breakfast, I could eat it and rejuvenate myself. But alas, at my home I am the only cook. I have to cook for the three of us and we don’t share the same love for the common breakfast items. The breakfast I like most, my son would not touch. The ones my husband likes, my son or I won’t like. So it is always compromise when it comes to breakfast. My son being the youngest almost always gets his wish fulfilled.
On Sundays when I feel lazy, we order breakfast from outside and that means unhealthy food. Oily food often leaves me lethargic throughout the day. I prefer simple foods for breakfast. South Indian food from outside often come loaded with oil and spices. I get sick most times.
Kellogg’s cornflakes is a blessing for mummies, working women and of course, all bachelors who are away from home. When I first heard about the Kellogg’s Wale Guptaji, I couldn’t wait to taste their breakfast. Mrs Gupta is rumoured to make yummy breakfast using Kellogg’s corn flakes. She has the help from her chef bhaiyya Ajay who helps her come up with innovative breakfast ideas.
Pouring milk over a bowl of cornflake was my only breakfast idea until now. When I visited their YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/kelloggindia, my eyes popped out with happiness. They have so many recipe videos.
Check out five of them here.Honey Nuts cornflakes ( Chup karane wala nashta)Cheesy corn flakes (Line pe lane wala nashta)Coconut cornflakes laddos ( Best tiffin wale nashta)Cornflakes fruity Yoghurt cup ( Smile wala nashta)Cornflakes Jelly Shake (Kellog's wala nashta)
See the tag line she has come up for each recipe. Cute, right?
My son is such a fussy eater and I always worry about how he will get the nutrients that are so necessary during the growing up phase. He likes cornflakes and I believe I can use these recipes to create yummy breakfasts and snacks for him. I can take a sigh of relief.Mrs Gupta is supposed to have created 100 yummy recipes using cornflakes. My god, I can’t wait to have breakfast at their home. Kellogg’s is updating their channel with newer recipes every day. As cornflakes is a healthy breakfast item, I can also adopt many of these for the whole family. I like experimenting in my kitchen and the recipes that are already shared are so easy to make and yet tasty and very healthy.When we have a ready bunch of such yummy recipes available online, why should we even hesitate? We often have corn flakes stored at home. And the ingredients of the recipes are items that are readily available in almost every household. So what are you waiting for, visit the Gupta’s and find out their reason for happiness.



This post is written for https://www.facebook.com/anaajkanashta and https://www.youtube.com/user/kelloggindia.

Seven Shades of Happiness

Happiness is the first review of your book
Happiness is your passion Happiness is when your work is appreciated. Happiness is also when we follow our passion.Happiness is when readers take time to give their reviews to stories that I have written. Happiness is when a friend takes time to read a your 60K manuscript, writes in long hand a review about it on paper, take a photo of it and post it in your Facebook inbox. Happiness is also when a short story you were writing attains denouement after giving you headaches for days together.
Happiness is your kid Happiness also comes visiting when my son is appreciated by his teachers and is acknowledged to be a star among the other kids. Happiness is when while asleep he turns to me, hugs me tight and whispers that I am the best mom in the world and that he loves you.Happiness is also when he tells everyone around that his mom is his best friend and that his father and mother is his world. Happiness is when he comes and hugs me randomly. Happiness is when he welcomes me back into the home with a bright smile after I have been away from home for long.
Happiness is cooking for family Happiness is when a dish that you make turns out tasty and the whole family devour it as though it is the tastiest dish in the world. Happiness is when you can feed home cooked food for your family that has all your love added to it.
Happiness is in Compassion Happiness is when there is safety in your surroundings, when you can trust people. Happiness is also when you find people doing random acts of kindness and then refuses to take the credit for it. Happiness is when strangers pitch in to bail you out of a difficult situation.
Happiness is beauty of nature Happiness is in that elusive sight of a bright moon during a cloudy night. Happiness is rain on parched earth. Happiness is also the smell of freshly baked cakes. Happiness is in the song of a merry bird. Happiness is in the dew that lingers on flowers on a happy morning.Happiness is watching the sunrise from my balcony.

Happiness is books and authors:
Happiness is when there is plenty of books to read. Happiness is ordering that book from flipkart that you have been dying to read.Happiness is when your favourite author becomes your friend. Happiness is when you meet your favourite author in person. Happiness is when you come to know that the person is as awesome in real life as well. Happiness is clicking a selfie with your favourite author.Happiness is listening to her talk about her writing journey. Happiness  is having your question answered by her.





Happiness is family: Happiness is when your husband encourages you to pursue your dreams and lends helping hand in pursuit of it. Happiness is when your siblings achieve success. Happiness is when your mother calls and talks for long about things that you have long forgotten. Happiness is talking long into the night with your sister discussing random things and laughing your heart out.
Happiness is always in finding random things to be happy about.




This post is about CoCa-Cola India (http://CokeURL.com/96jnc)

Six Habits We Can Learn From Kids

My son busy playing
(I was invited to contribute to the website,  www.worldofmoms.com recently. This is my second article for them.)
Children can teach us many things. Usually we learn many of our virtues once we become a parent. We learn to be patient, we learn to be better cooks and we learn to multi task. But there are habits that are unique to kids that will help us become better human beings. Let me list six of them.
1)  To be happy in the moment:
Kids are always happy and find ways to remain so. They can play with their LEGO blocks for hours together without getting bored. They can play ball with their friends, unmindful of time or weather. Once we grow up, we learn to become the worriers, the strategists who will always live either ruing over the past, which is gone or worrying about a future, which has not yet come.
2)  Try, Try, Try again :

Have you ever seen a kid who stops playing a game because he/she is not good at it? They persist until they succeed. They have this unique gift of remaining focussed on their item of interest that they will try to master it repeatedly. We can take a leaf out of their book to learn this.
3)  To look at new things with enthusiasm
Kids like to experiment with new things, and show a unique enthusiasm. Every change is interesting for them. Take them to a new shop, mall or park they look around with enthusiasm. They look forward to meet new friends, play at a new park and adjust to things like ducks to water. We grownups worry over every single change that we have to face. Wouldn’t it be nice to learn this virtue from them?

Read the rest of the article HERE

#1000speak - Bullied for being Dusky

Image Source: Oxford Dictionary

The word Bully was a term of endearment in the sixteenth century, the time of its origin. Read the above screenshot from Oxford dictionary website. But in real life, bullies all have a common origin. They all are unhappy creatures dealing with their own inner demons. They are often victims of bullying themselves, are frustrated with their own life, unhappiness is killing them or they simply don’t realize that their bullying badly effects people.
That does not justify in anyway the habit of bullying that people indulge in. I have faced bullies in my life and still face many. And yes, most of the bullies were insecure beings when I come to think of it now.
When I was in school, I was often called names by school bullies. I was the darkest in my class and I would be called names such as Adivasi (a dark skinned tribal). These bullies adopted this tactic when they were failing to achieve something because of me. I was good in sports. When I was about to win and someone passed a comment calling me an Adivasi, I would feel this weight weighing down my heart and all my enthusiasm and energy would evaporate. I eventually will lose the match.  I used to feel numb with pain. It was not a crime that I was born with a dark skin colour.
I didn’t have the courage to speak out or complain about these bullies to anyone. For the longest time, I cursed the skin I was born with. Then one day, a good friend of mine told me how much she admired my talents. I told her it didn’t matter because no one recognised me for what I was. I was merely the dark skinned girl who was always the target of bullies.
Her words still ring in my mind.
 “Have you noticed that the bullies who taunt you are good for nothing fellows? They are frustrated because you are winning while they are losing continuously. Why should you bother about the opinion of someone as mean and vile as those fellows?”
That was when I started to notice who my bullies were. The ones who called me Adivasi looked more like one than me! And these were fellows who never got good marks or excelled in any extracurricular activities. They were clearly jealous of me. Why should I even care about what they thought of me?
Still some of the hurt lingered but I learnt to turn a deaf ear whenever someone called me names. I was a pet with teachers as I was the best among the girls in my class in studies as well as good in co-curricular activities. I went on to become school vice-captain and Captain of my house many times.
The colour of my skin was an issue the entire time as I was growing up. What started in school continued later on, as the society took on the role of bullies one after the other. When it was time to put me on the marriage market, I often heard whispered talks between my worried parents that the boy who had come to ‘see’ me didn’t like me because of my skin colour.
Some marriage brokers even said it aloud in my presence. I cringed. But then I met my husband. He liked me for who I was. And that was a miracle as far as I was concerned. I guess it instilled a new confidence in me. He was a well-educated person, good looking and came from a good family. And love is capable of healing all wounds.
The colour prejudiced Indian society will never accept that we all are brown-skinned people. The fairest among us will still be called brown- skinned by the white- skinned foreigners. We have myriad shades of brown throughout our country and still we have this prejudice that fair-skinned girls are pretty. Dusky is dirty or ugly.
Will this attitude ever change?
All human beings love being appreciated. It is a weakness with everyone. If we laugh at people targeting their weakness, we are in fact rubbing salt to their already hurting wounds.
Over the time, I have faced bullying repeatedly but with every incident I have grown as a person. I have learnt to love myself more. I don’t need anyone’s opinion to make myself feel good anymore.
I believe firmly in Karma and I have seen bullies get bullied by greater bullies. So bullies, all the best for your act of bullying from my side. Because what goes around, eventually comes around my friend!

 This post is a part of #1000Speak- Building from Bullying Campaign

Story Of Tublu: A Book Review

Click here to Buy the Book from Flipkart 

BOOK DETAILS Publisher:           LiFi Publications Pvt. Ltd.ISBN-10:               9382536752Number of Pages:           204 PagesPublication Year:             2015Language:           EnglishISBN-13:               9789382536758Binding:               Paperback
Blurb : Devastated by floods, Bipin and his little boy Tublu move to a faraway land, where they meet the Sharmas. This marks the beginning of a long and enduring relationship between Bipin and the Sharmas, and the growing friendship of their children Tublu and Maina. The book captures the journey of this friendship through childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. From some interesting school and college humour, the story progresses on and develops into a mature narrative. As years pass, Tublu’s plain and silent crush on Maina develops into deep love and longing, which bears the potential to conquer all of life’s challenges. The story has its share of drama that entertains; humour that makes one reminisce; love, friendship and emotions that define the amazing journey that is, life.
About the Author : Jahid Akhtar is a software developer by profession. He was born and brought up in Assam and resides in Bangalore with his wife Anjali and their little daughter, Jia. Jahid enjoys writing about some unforgettable moments, in his blog titled Flashbacks.When I received this book, I was intrigued by the title. It is Tublu’s journey- from being a dependant in the Sharma family to becoming an independent and successful citizen. Tublu changes as a person through the journey of life but all along the only thing that is constant in him from the time he meets Maina is his silent love for her.
The book describes the life of the main characters in the same endearing style that Jahid writes his blog posts. Straight from the heart narration, from start to end, it doesn’t deviate anywhere. Major characters that come into Tublu’s and Maina’s life bring in humour, adventure and even love. I found the sudden changing in narration from one character to another a little abrupt at times. And even places and events changed fast.
The adolescent adventures of Tublu and his friends is narrated with frankness. Ragging, embarrassing moments, crushes, love stories, the book is filled with anecdotes from Tublu’s life.Tublu emerges as a person who has lived a simple life and one who is focussed on achieving his goals. Be it his career or his personal life. Even though he is the son of a dependant in their household, the Sharmas consider him as one of them, sees to his education and he is with them through their ups and downs.
Maina, didn’t appear as someone suitable for Tublu. She appears a shallow character who doesn’t show any depth in her love towards anyone in her life. But as first loves often remain unforgotten, Tublu is obsessed about her.
I finished reading it in three hours straight. It was a tension free afternoon read for me.
Pick the book up if you want an escape from the gore and tensions that fill many of the books that come out these days.