Ready to Commit?

NaBloWriMo?
National Blog Writer’s Month, that’s what!
NaBloWriMo was the first real blog event I participated in. Blogging every-day in the month of October wasn’t a big thing for me in 2009- had been doing precisely that for the previous fifteen months.
But after an unscheduled blogation, which almost became a goodbye from blogdom, committing to blog every-day for an entire month is a big deal. I am so not ready, but I wasn’t ready in April either, and yet I managed to get through the A to Z challenge.
Traditions die hard. For the third year running, I’m in!
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Are you ready to join in the maddness? Drop a word, and let them know.

Happy Birthday, Google

“Mamma, just google it, will you”, said my older one in exasperation, when I insisted I didn’t know how many volcanoes there were in the world.

Google!!! Till a few years back, the word didn’t even exist in my lexicon, and now Google’s become so much a part of my life, I sometimes feel I should set a place for Google at the dinner table.

When I was a kid, I depended on often out-dated encyclopaedias for information; my kids need only to “google it” out using my phone.

But now that’s Google’s a teen, will he continue to behave?

Happy 13th Birthday, Google

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

When is a record not a record?

If you are a female and you have run a marathon faster than any other woman in recorded history, you’ve set a world record. Right?


Wrong! For the time to be a world record, it needs to have been set in an all-woman competition, of which there are practically none. So Paula Radcliffe’s time of 2:15:25 hours is only a World Best, even though she set it fairly.


Which leads me to wonder. If sometime in the future, women marathon runners become faster than men, would the male world records be declared void, because they were set in “mixed events"?



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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

It was one of those classic cases of people bitching about you behind your back, and the stories coming back to you with seasoning added. I could have responded, but chose not to sink to the same level as the people perpetuating it.

Met with stony silence, the stories died down, as they eventually will. Except, they thought it was a victory, and decided to don the cloak of martyrdom, and injudiciously fan the flames again. This time, they got what they deserved- strong, unequivocal, but dignified.



When will people learn that silence is not always a sign of weakness?
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

I'm not a Writer

Over the last few days, I have got more than half a dozen invites on Facebook, asking me to confirm that I am indeed a "Writer". Much as it pains me to do so, I rejected all of them. Because, whether I want to admit it to myself or not, I am currently not a writer.

Yes, I love writing. Yes, the stories are there in my head. Yes, someday I hope to write something people would want to read.

But today, I am not writing, so I cannot call myself a writer. A friend of writers, I'll call myself.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.


Not being a writer doesn't mean I can't write about writing. After an insanely long break, I am blogging at Burrowers, Books and Balderdash, on Local Flavour: how much is too much?

Get it????

The older one was reading a book where the villain dislikes his “silly name” and retaliates by forcing everyone to change their names to silly ones. On the cover, the author’s name had been scratched out and replaced by the ‘silly name’ arrived at by the villain’s formula.
“You know what the author should have done”, my son asked. “He should have said, “Hey you, don’t forget you are just a character I made from my imagination. If you try to change my name, I will write you out of my book. Get it?””


At eight, he’s already got it!
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Yes, I am back

No matter how hard you petition it to, the Earth refuses to slow down and give you more hours in a day. And by the time you are done with life, and kids, and job, and passions, there is no time left for anything else. And at some stage, you realise that if you are to retain your sanity, you have to cut back.
It wasn’t a conscious choice, but after nearly three years of blogging daily, I JUST STOPPED. Unplanned, therefore unannounced.
But life remained hectic. So now, I am back.

And thank you, all, for staying with me.

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

"You are looking absolutely gorgeous"

“Wonderful meeting you”, I told Shirin through a hug. “You are looking absolutely gorgeous.” And despite her facial scars, she was.
It was the bounce in her walk, the confidence in her smile, and…. the whimsical red hair-ornament perched on her unruly tresses. The same feathered concoction that I’d picked on an impulse and never dared wear. To successfully carry that off, you need either youth or personality. Shirin has it, I don’t!

As we spoke, I noticed something new. My eyes were wandering over her scars, and she was letting me. To me, she no longer even looked different.

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[Shirin and I worked together briefly, and remained friends long that.
Thirteen years after the incident, on her face, she carries the burn scars left by the acid her husband threw on her face. A husband who, incidentally, escaped unpunished.
Initially, I never knew how to act around her, but she taught me to "see" her scars because they were an essential part of who she was. If anyone is a HERO, she is. Because everytime she steps out of the house, she has to battle insensitivity at so many levels.
Her story deserves to be known.]

And, for those who wondered, yes, I am back. And yes, this is a drabble :-)
Once was enough. I will not disappear without warning again.