Melange

The dinner date

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Archana K B / 5 Comments

She waited at the table for him as the dinner started. The table was set, and people had started to pouring in. He came in late making all excuses of work. This was not how she expected it to start.

She had never seen men coming late for dinners. The ladies made excuses. Men were supposed to wait, and then waive it off, when the women made absurd rants of how the dress was not fitting, and how the make-up went over to start it all over again.

The conversations were minimum. There was nothing much to talk about. They had the dinner quietly, with him asking occasionally about the restaurant and the food. That may have been the conversation starter. But it became like the sugar, blending and melting when stirring up the whole milk, and disappears. She did not want to bring up any chance to ruin this nearly perfect peaceful dinner.

After dinner, they walked around to the parking lot, crossing over a artificial pond and bridge. The night will end soon. She had to make advances. This was her last chance.

She stopped in her tracks and turned to him. As he stood still wondered, she planted a small kiss on him. Their eyes locked lovingly, and they stood there as the midnight bells chimed away in the far distance. He smiled and kissed her…

The evening seemed to get better for them. They drove home in their scooter, back to the real lives, where they earned each penny to live their dreams again.

For their tenth marriage anniversary celebrations, they relished their dream of having a five-star hotel dinner date, their first ever.

****
Linking in to Light and Shade Writing Challenge.

Stories

Innocence

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Archana K B / 8 Comments

“Mamma, I want to go to her house now..”
“You went there only this morning, why you want to go again? play here for now..”
” I am so bored here, you don’t say stories like her..Can I go once?”

Mamma gave her a confused look which concealed suppressed sadness of her inability to keep her engaged, before nodding yes for her child’s happiness.

Years later, as she nodded yes to her child, she wished she knew that then what she knew now, the truth of how much the innocence of a child could hurt the pride of the motherhood….

*****
Picture source
Linking in to Write Tribe Saturday prompt and Five sentence Fiction by Lillie McFerrin.

Articles/Thoughts

Difference of opinions

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Archana K B / 5 Comments

NB: Long rant ahead.

People are meant to be different, aren’t they? There are so many varieties in every species in this world. If everyone had the same characteristics, this would have been a different world altogether. Every human being need not be the same, though the processes and life they go through in their lifetime is the same. But still, social media has turned out to be a virtual battle field where people judge, criticize and bash up each other because of the behaviour.

Sharing, Likes and Tweets:
Facebook wisely created the concept of Pages for business purposes. I remember adding one of my school friend, and she had started a store. All the updates from her feed was the promotion of her business, clogging my timeline. By the time it tested my patience, and before I could turn her notifications off, she wisely created a Facebook Page for her promotions. If she had not, how could I convey to her, that though I appreciate that you have become an entrepreneur for which I am whole heartedly glad about, I am not interested in her business pictures. The same applies to my tweets too. I rarely would take part in “promotions” but would happily “share” your blog posts, if I liked them. Its not discrimination as such, but my way of handling and organizing my online social accounts.
Continue reading →

Mélange – Random Tidbits/Thoughts

Inspiring yourself

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Archana K B / 8 Comments

I missed the morning sun today. I was awake, but was immersed in the laptop and mobile. Electronic products which consumes us though they give the pleasure and connections when required. A kind of addiction. How else am I to dispose my brooding thoughts which carve into my inner strength.

There are days when I have not left out of my cocoon, the shell, the home, wanting and waiting for someone to pull me out. It never happens. Mostly I have to pull myself. There are times, when I feel I chained my daughter along with me to this four walls by not sending her to summer camp in May. I get so tired if I take her out, since within minutes of walking, she would get tired, and then I would have to carry her till I reach back home. This invokes my inner mind to ask me, why not get a vehicle, to which I would answer it, “please convince my husband”, as an excuse. The problem is, even if I get a vehicle, I am not sure of myself that I would use it.

This reminds me of the sandwich maker. I love grilled sandwiches, where the bread gets browned with the ridges formed on the surface because of the grill. I was so sure that I needed one, and we finally brought it to our home. But now if I think back, I have done sandwiches only on countable occasions.

So back to the problem again. Her age is to hangout, while the hindrance is my nature. I am a rebel to everyone. I can’t resist questioning, and doesn’t follow blindly. It also makes me vulnerable, and innocently foolish when it comes to the decisions. I never gets the joke at times, and I keep expecting others to pay attention to me, when in reality it need not happen all time. Though I dream of being part of a girly gang, the conversations happens in my mind. The ideas and words rarely come out, and when it does, it would be something unwanted and foolish enough to be discarded. Along with the expectations comes the disappointments which can test my patience and irritability limit.

Isn’t this too personal to write about. Its pessimistic, but that’s the truth. This is what is clouding my actions. For many other people too. The question of ,”What will others think about me, if I do this?”. There are times, when I want to post in a Facebook group, or shout to the world, that I feel lonely, or feeling down, then I realize even if it brings help, ultimately I have to come out myself.
And there is the “What if”s. What if no one responded. Its a human tendency, which people are now aware of, to waive off the negativity and look at only the positive people. Would I respond to a stranger or acquaintance, as in a Facebook groups or twitter, when they post something like this?
Only close friends can ask what happened, but if they were real, I would not ever have asked the question itself.

The sun is now shining onto me. Strange how the elements of the universe, the sun and the moon bear witness to all of your thoughts and actions. A reminder that they can be your true friends if you accept them. The universal energy. Same as your inner strength of the soul.

***
Free write prompt by Write Tribe

Stories

The unbearable truth.

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Archana K B / 3 Comments

The winter had set in, and the roads were filled with snow. The woollens were brought back from the suitcase which were hidden in the loft, all the summer months. There were three layers of clothing she wore today to school.

The teacher and other students were busy involved in the art class that was going on. She was supposed to paint with the brush, but couldn’t paint any more.

She realized that she could no longer hide the truth.
She went near the teacher and tugged at her sari, lifting up her little finger with the other hand silently.

blog-related/blogathon

A-Z Challenge Reflection Post

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Archana K B / 9 Comments

Another monthly challenge is complete. Though unlike the blogathon in January, it was harder, but nevertheless complete.

Since I had a theme of Fiction Fragments, I tried not to write personal stuff and instead churn up more stories. If not a proper short story, I wanted to write some form of fiction infused with the personal thoughts which came across my mind. Of the 26 posts I had to do in April, the last week towards the end, I couldn’t come up with any story and rather had to rely on the “Thought Bubble” to speak for me. Though the theme was not mandatory for the challenge, I also cheated many times. There were days when I even had to back-date the posts.

Since there was an active Facebook group going, I had the chance to gain many blogger friends,by just interacting back or leaving comments on their blogs or sharing the posts, but I still couldn’t break out of my shell to do so. I have never been inclined to post comments for the sake of it, or to say the formal words “nice post”, “nicely written” etc. I was more interested in short fiction this month, to inspire my creative mind, and hence kept visiting blogs of Shailaja, Shipaa Garg, Leo, Ishithaa, Sreeja Praveen and Nabanita though I rarely had anything to say for commenting. Srilakshmi, Shailaja, Tulika, Suzy, Carol Graham, Aditi and Rajlakshmi kept commenting for support this month and I did enjoy their marriage advices and the jigsaw puzzles.

And it was due to this challenge which ruffled up the sparks in me to write “Anamika“, that I got published in Writer’s Ezine magazine. Though I have loved creating stories for the challenge, I realized the genes are not fully developed for writing. But since I got so many appreciation for the few fiction I wrote, my aim would be to improve the writing skills further. So back to more writing prompts from Write Tribe and Lillie McFerrin for inspirations…