Dear Friends,
I have a few words to say to dear Juthatip aka Tippy, as she would have me call her. First and foremost is or course a warm thank you for zeroing in on my work, which I'm sure happened quite by accident!
Nevertheless, thank you Tippy for pondering over my creations and coming up with uncanny conclusions behind my motivation for writing these pieces.
I must also share that although our researcher chanced upon the story at a website showcasing the work of Indian writers, the story found place in an anthology called Voyage published by dear Nagasuseela and Gopichand of Guntur University, Andhra Pradesh. ...
Saarc spoken word event, Agra, 2011
Posting this call for submissions for my dear friends Gopinath and Nagasuseela who have Organised a commendable poetry festival at Guntur year after year. In addition, they have brought out wonderful anthologies of the selected poems. To pull this off consistently each year and make it a grand success every time requires tireless dedication and immense zeal.
Although Visiting Orchids is a fictional story, it is based on reality.
Most Mumbaiites will be aware that in Bandra, street urchins whisk away fresh flowers from graves and cemeteries and sell them to passers by at traffic signals. The patiently waiting executive at the wheel of his car at the signal lights is soft target for selling these fresh flowers. ...
Dear Friends,
I have a few words to say to dear Juthatip aka Tippy, as she would have me call her. First and foremost is or course a warm thank you for zeroing in on my work, which I'm sure happened quite by accident!
Nevertheless, thank you Tippy for pondering over my creations and coming up with uncanny conclusions behind my motivation for writing these pieces.
I must also share that although our researcher chanced upon the story at a website showcasing the work of Indian writers, the story found place in an anthology called Voyage published by dear Nagasuseela and Gopichand of Guntur University, Andhra Pradesh. ...
Words Not Spoken is a potpourri of poems written over a considerable stretch of time. Some poems go back as far as 1997. I decided to include them in this collection, amidst the other contemporary poems because I could still relate to them emotionally. Besides, this being my first published collection, I did not want to miss any step of my poetic journey. ...
I started writing at age five. My first poem was predictably on my doll. Writing ‘progressed’ from there to my collections of shells, to friends, to school days, then to college, marriage, son… until one fine day it came right back to me.
The years dedicated to the task of writing have been few and far between. Life very clearly revolved around the family. They were always the priority. But even so, deep down in my heart, the joy of writing lived. Actually it palpitated and came to leaping, jumping life at the remotest nudge…
Years of being a daughter, a wife, a mother, a couple of jobs in between and a few freelance assignments and some publications later, I find that the blood has blended with the ink in my veins but it is still there…I am whole because I have these various parts.
Now, as if twilight had suddenly acquired the power of a million torches, I find the beautiful gift of time on my hands. Time is the soil in which the seeds of inspiration are germinating. Once out, they will be lovingly nourished by a writer’s soul now set free.
It was never in chains, but some exiles are self imposed…
For all those who are in my life, no words of thanks are enough to acknowledge their presence, but for those souls who are no longer with me I must say this -
This is all for you mother, Ironically, in losing you, I lost a part of myself and yet you live wholly in me.
And for our dog - dear dear Dino who taught me what love is in the true sense of the word.