29 Jun 2011

Of Nobel Winners

The reason I picked up Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys from Archana was that she spoke so well about it. Her description made me extremely curious about the book. That’s not the reason why I borrowed the book on erotic short stories from her! But that’s another story.

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24 Jun 2011

Papyrus: How Does It Begin?

A gaggle of women have come to hear me read from my book, Cloud 9 Minus One, at Priti’s house. For Priti, time is a stretchable commodity. She had committed to me in April that she would host this event, but it is now finally November when I’m doing this.

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18 Jun 2010

Lost Character

There are some words that simply mustn’t be allowed in English literature, or any other literature. Sex, whore, pimp, fuck and all its colourful variants, also anything to do with bodily effluents, and so on. These terms, and activities related to these terms, are a bad influence on one. I wonder if Shakespeare knew about [...]

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5 Jun 2010

My New Kindle

The first time I heard about Kindle, I dismissed it out of hand as a non-reader’s fake toy. People who weren’t ‘into’ books bought the gadget, or people who were into gadgets, or show-offs, anyone but a true lover of books. I little realised that I was being the show-off here. Like a true snob, [...]

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1 Jun 2010

Storytelling – The Female Way

The other day I found myself including a long sambhar recipe in a story that had nothing to do with sambhar or indeed food of any other kind. The inclusion just happened. I stared at what I had written, wondering how it got there. It had got there, of course, because I had typed it [...]

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27 May 2010

Writing 101

Unlike what many writers will declare after the event, writing is a damn hard thing to do. And since it isn’t easy for me to write this, I shall put together the following bullet points for new writers, and I shall call it Six Tough Rules to Writing Well:

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26 May 2010

Eeny Meeny Miny Friend

‘I wish I had known,’ said Divya. ‘Just a hint.’ And she started crying, small sobs that were threatening to rise to large gulps any moment. After some time she settled down, and took a deep breath to drown out the sobbing. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

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25 May 2010

Times of Trouble

Rhonda is beautiful and blonde. She has short hair cropped close to her skull, and smiling lips. Her eyes radiate peace. She wears a skirt suit, with an olive green tank top underneath, and low-heeled black shoes. In her ears she wears tiny diamond studs, and around her neck a small diamond pendant on a [...]

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24 May 2010

Forever Who

Akash was a 47 year old alcoholic. His first wife left him because he loved his second wife more than her, and his second wife left him because he loved whisky more than her. His parents abandoned him because divorce was a disgrace for their family, and a double divorce was inexcusable. His children couldn’t [...]

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20 May 2010

Hobby Horse

My mother never had a hobby. There was no time for one. She cooked and she cleaned the house and wiped our asses when we were babies, and stitched our clothes from scraps of fabric gifted to us by various relatives, and after doing all this, she went to work as a schoolteacher. And when [...]

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