The Tale of the Great Tease

This was ‘the Hottest Summer in recorded history’, hotter than last year which had been only the hottest in a decade. If they thought labeling it would make the heat a little more bearable, they couldn’t have been more wrong.
The only thing that kept the city going was the knowledge that Summer always led to Monsoons. Atavistic memories of the cool rain-laden breeze hitting you as you hurried home.

But Monsoon is a Great Tease. She threatens to come, then veers away. She makes you wait, and wait some more. And when you can’t wait anymore, she comes. Finally.
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Drabble (n) - an extremely short work exactly one hundred words in length.

It finally rained! The world is beautiful again.

The Universe in a Raindrop

This margosa plant was born last monsoon

Raindrops trickling down a branch

Ecstasy! Sublime ecstasy!

She lets her fingers glide over the firm flesh. Grasps it and fondles it with firm, even strokes. She can feel it swelling in anticipation, building to the climax. She makes it wait, then takes it in her mouth, and lets her tongue slide over the moist firmness. She gives a nip- gentle, but firm. She sucks- slowly at first, then harder. She lets her tongue and lips work their magic, till that supreme moment when the warm, sticky sweetness fills her mouth. She savors the taste, then lets it slide down her throat.

Ecstasy! Sublime ecstasy! Eating a mango.

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The June Blackboard project - drabbles from A to Z, with a special bonus on Sundays- only at the Burrow.

A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Christmas trees and Sugarcane juice

Unlike in countries in the temperate zone, the only Christmas trees you find in India are man made ones. In December, they sprout up everywhere. Beside the Road.


On the pavement against a backdrop of painted banana plants.


But what is it you see behind the tree?
A sugarcane crusher - you shove stems of sugarcane into it, rotate the handle, and the juice gets crushed out and collected to be sold at Rs. 5 per glass.

Catharanthus roseus/ Vinca rosea

There are the flowering plants that require a lot of tender loving care - you need to water then just so, you need to pluck dead-heads, you need to prune the plants, you need to feed them the right mix of manure, and you need to see they do not get infected by the various pests waiting to prey on them. If you do all of that, they occasionally reward you with a flower or two. My plumerias fall firmly into that category - I have one that has flowered only once in the three years it has been with me, and another that has never flowered. I love them, and tend to them, and hope that they will reward me with flowers some day.

There are those flowering plants, and then there is the periwinkle. I never even acquired the periwinkle- it must have been brought to my fifth floor apartment in the belly of a crow or by the wind. It took root in a pot I could barely reach, and I knew about it only after it gave out the first flowers.



In the years it has been with me, it has known only neglect, but it doesn't seem to know or care that the water I give it is given with sheer indifference. It takes what it gets, and it thrives. Never has a day gone when there hasn't been at least one periwinkle coloured flower on the plant, and when I last checked, there were a whole bunch of bushy shoots springing up all around it.
Unless something drastic happens, I can look forward to many months or years of flowers from the plant- not for nothing is it called 'sadabahar' in Hindi - 'always flowering'.

And isn't the same true for everything else- there are people and thing that need a lot of care, and there are people and thing which thrive in any environment. One is cherished. Unfortunately, the other is almost taken for granted.

Children's books

Almost as soon as I learnt to read, my parents introduced me to Enid Blyton, and for many years, I graduated from one set of books to the next. Sure, there were the occational Pollyannas, and the Hedies, and the Secret Gardens and, the March sisters thrown in, but for the most part, I stuck to reading and re-reading and re-re-reading the Enid Blytons. With the result that, though I spent the best part of my childhood reading, when it comes to Children's books, I am almost functionally illiterate.

Some months back, two European friends were arguing about whether or not the holiday home one of them stayed in resembled the house Pippi Longstocking grew up in. Considering I had only heard her name a couple of weeks back when I had read the first of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, I was incredibly inpressed by how well my friends knew their books. That weekend, while looking for books for my kids, I chanced up the Astrid Lindgren classic, and bought it for myself.

A couple of weeks after I fell in love with Pippi, I ordered a copy of Charlotte's Web, which for some inexplicable reason doesn't seem to want to vacate Mt. TBR (Mount To Be Read, for the uninitiated). But a few weeks after that, I was taken in by Matilda's grin, and brought her home along with The Railway Children. Both books I finished within a week, and I can barely wait till my next visit to the bookstore so can stock up on more 'children's books'.

The official reason for my interest in those books is that I am surveying the market for my six and a half year old. But given the fact that he is currently struggling slightly even at the Mary Pope Osborne level, I know that there is no way he is going to be ready for any of those books for at least another year.

There may just be something wrong in my internal wiring- but I have liked all the 'childrens' books' that I have read recently; genuinely liked, not condescendingly liked in that 'they are good for children's books' kind of way.

And if by reading them, I am better placed to introduce my kids to the magical world of books, can anyone ask for more?

And, and, since this is a great place to ask. Any recommendations?

Why do some books get written?

I was at the bookstore the other day, and found a book which could not have been anything but a slightly fictionalized account of the protagonist’s stay at one of the nation’s premier education institutes. Though the book was labeled ‘fiction’, there were enough parallels between the resumes of the protagonist and the author for anyone to know one was based on the other. To make it even more clear, the author took pains to thank, by name, the various classmates who ‘helped take her down memory lane’, and the standard disclaimer of ‘the characters and situations in the book are purely fictional’ was conspicuous by its absence. The author wanted the reader to believe she was the protagonist, and that was clearly the USP of the book.

This particular book caught my eye, and catalysed this rant, but it is actually just one more in a gloriously long line of similar books brought out by the same publisher. The formula for publication by that particular publisher is standard – graduate from any of the premier educational institutes in the country, write a self-congratulatory account of your stay there, get published. Whether or not the person can write, and whether or not the person has a story to tell, doesn’t seem to be the point. All that seems to matter is that the person have cleared the entrance exams to make it to that particular institute.

I can understand why books of that kind are popular. When a nation of a billion people has less than a dozen institutes that qualify for the tag “premier”, and when over a thousand candidates apply for every available seat at those institutes, people want to know what “actually” happens in those picture perfect campuses. When there is a market for such books, any publisher would want to publish the books, regardless of quality.

But what I cannot understand is why those books get written in the first place. All of them are in high paying high stress jobs – they are not doing it for the money, or because they have too much time on their hands. Why then are they doing it? Is the need to see their name in print so great they do not care what it is associated with? Are they living out their own personal ‘What ifs’ by writing those books? Or, do they genuinely believe the books are good and that they are great authors? And more than anything else, why can't the authors take the trouble to make up decent characters instead of borrowing rather boring people from life and dressing them up a bit?

Personally, I would love to read a well written book set in any of those campuses, as long as the campus doesn’t become the main character, and the author the protagonist. A cozy mystery, or a paranormal fantasy, or even an out an out memoir I would welcome. It is those books where the author is too lazy to make up characters that I object to.

Alot of Writing

First of June, and if you are participating in the BuNoWriMo challenge, it is time to gear yourself for writing Alot.

I’m (hopefully) winding up at my job this month, so what with ensuring that all the systems that I was handling are properly codified so they can work without me, and with handing over my multifold responsibilities to a multitude of people, and doing what I am paid to do, I know I am going to be stretched to the point of breaking. School also reopens this week, which means extra effort on the home-front till routines are set and coping mechanisms put in place.

Which means unless I am successful in locating a Time-Turner, I should not even attempt the BuNoWriMo challenge. Which is why I am wearing the “Rebel- and proud of it” BuNoWriMo badge. I’m going to participate, but on my terms - 30 drabbles in 30 days.
But if you would like to participate in the real stuff, or just hang out with some really cool people, there is still time to join up.

All you need to do is to request to join our Facebook group. Members can even request Joris to customize the BuNoWriMo logo in their favourite colours. Not only has Joris designed the logo, he's also created all the other cool graphics on this post.

It is going to be Alot of fun, and Alot of Writing.

Which brings me to Alot. I wish I could claim to be the person who invented Alot, but unless I am being truly dishonest, I can’t. Allie is the genius who came up with Alot. As a grammatically conscientious person, she has been forced to develop coping mechanisms to deal with what is passed on in the name of faster communication. When someone takes the phrase “a lot”, and condenses it into one word, “a lot”, she imagines the creature, “Alot". “Alot" is a cross between a bear, a yak and a pug, and it helps her deal with her compulsive need to correct other people’s grammar. Read all about Alot and more at Hyperbole and a Half.

No wonder we have unofficially adopted “Alot" as our mascot.

Happy writing.