soniasmusings

Memories from 2018 – Recap series (Feb & March)

The first post of Recap series had featured my most precious picture from January this year. Moving on to the memories created in the next two months, I realized that both these pictures had a feeling of a homecoming for me.

FEBRUARY

The month of February saw us visiting my father’s ancestral home in a small village called Balia in Bengal. My father had spent ten years of his childhood in this village before moving out to a town for higher studies. He finished his graduation from a college in the same town and then shifted to Calcutta for his post-graduation. After becoming the University topper, he chose to return back to the same small town and join as a Lecturer at his alma mater. I have never seen a man so content to give up lucrative offers and opportunities to stay close to his family in a place which gave him a sense of belonging. Even today at the age of 70, he ensures to visit his ancestral home at least once a month to meet his eldest sis-in-law and my cousin brothers. This February, we decided to take our toddler to Balia to let him have a feel of the emotions that define his maternal grandfather. It was a delight to see him enjoy and explore the place which still retains some memories of the bygone era.

MARCH

Celebrating the festival of colors.jpg — Celebrating the festival of colors

Continue reading “Memories from 2018 – Recap series (Feb & March)”

Memories from 2018 – Recap series (January)

NaNoWriMo in November has been quite an exhausting journey. This month, I have barely managed to write just two posts until now. However, I must admit that I have consciously started practicing the concept of a mindful break for a quarter now. So, I decided to let go of my guilt for not writing enough and instead cater to the need of my mind and soul.

Yesterday, I had been running through the pictures gallery on my laptop thinking of utilizing them to make another personalized item. I have a huge fetish for anything personalized – be it a notebook, a calendar, a mug or picture frame. It was during this process of reliving memories that I decided to do a series capturing the most special moments of this year every month. This has been a quite significant year both personally and professionally. So in the next series of posts, I would be sharing twelve different pictures from each month of this year featuring my most precious memories.

JANUARY 2018

Saraswati Puja - Jan 2018 - Recap series — Saraswati Puja – Jan 2018

Continue reading “Memories from 2018 – Recap series (January)”

Exploring the world through blind dates over the years #SayYesToTheWorld #TheBlindList

#IndiBlogger #campaign #winner #SayYesToTheWorld #TheBlindList

The blog has hardly seen any activity for more than a month now. With my focus on NaNoWriMo last month and trying to bring the novel to a convincing climax this month, I doubt how soon I can get back to the groove. And then a mail arrives this morning from IndiBlogger team saying that my post submitted for the #TheBlindList campaign, the pan India contest has made it to the winning list. This is the second time that a post of mine on travel writing has made me a winner this week. I guess it is time to get back to my Wanderlust stories soon. Thank you IndiBlogger and Lufthansa for this win.

You can read the winning entry here.

soniasmusings

I grew up as a single child in a small town in Bengal called Berhampore. Every year my Professor father ensured that we had two vacations. The first one was always planned and it took us to Kolkata, then Calcutta. My mother had her parents staying in that city and I was amazed at how different a metro city was from my town. But what I would look forward to was the unplanned vacation to a new destination during summer holidays. My parents would keep me guessing until we reached the spot. As I grew up, I would try to open the bags to see if winter clothes were packed because that would mean a vacation in the hills. Every year that I went back home, I took back fond memories of places I have visited and left a part of me in those places.

Victoria Memorial Kolkata

Much later…

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The importance of a mindful break in the life of a solopreneur – Guest post for A to Z challenge blog

A couple of days back, I won a slot for writing a guest post on the international blog for the A to Z challenge that takes place in April every year. I chose to write on a topic that has become extremely important in my life recently – the importance of mindful break.

My journey as a writer began in September 2017 but the pace increased to a crazy dimension when I participated in the A2Z challenge in April this year. As per the rules of this challenge, I was publishing articles every day of the month except Sundays. I ended up writing twenty-six posts in the month and reading even more posts per day. May was even more hectic as this was the month when I made my debut as an author with my novella ‘Deal of Death’. This was followed by the Write Tribe Festival Of Words in June that needed me to write every day for a week on certain creative and photo prompts. July was about Bar-A-Thon wherein I was writing every alternate day for two weeks at a stretch. August turned me into a storyteller on camera after I won the Lights, Camera, Chatter contest by Blogchatter and the event Breaking Barriers by Women’s Web in Kolkata made me take the plunge into becoming a public speaker. September was about My Friend Alexa campaign turning me into a flash fiction writer as I experimented with a particular theme. This was the phase when my articles were getting their due recognition and I ended up winning badges on BlogAdda, getting featured posts on Women’s Web and having top posts on IndiBlogger. I was flying high.

Read the complete article here –

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2018/12/the-importance-of-mindful-break-in-life.html?m=1

But The Ideology Needs To Live On…My winning story for Muse of the Month August @Women’s Web

The Muse of the Month series by Women’s Web focuses on stories that pass the Bechdel test and are written on inspiration from a new prompt every month.

The requirement to pass the Bechdel Test is it should have at least two well crafted, named women characters

who talk to each other
on topics other than men or boys.

This month, the prompt was “Just Living Is Not Enough…”

and story “But the ideology needs to live on..” made it to the list of top five winning stories for the month.

Here’s a snippet of the story –

Mukti confirmed the late running of the train with the coach attendant. Keeping the Miss Marple novel on the tray in front of her seat, she dialed her father in frustration, “Baba, you can reach the station by 10:30 p.m. The train is late by an hour and I am not even halfway through my journey yet.

After hanging up, she felt bad for her father who was staying up late tonight to escort her back home. With the rising incidents of crime in her hometown, she had stopped pretending to act indifferent and chose to exercise precaution instead. She was considering a call to her boyfriend when the train screeched to an abrupt halt.

Suddenly the AC compartment had an inflow of goons carrying lathis, rods, and sickles. They started scanning the faces of the passengers, especially that of the ladies.

Mukti was scared to death. She had started dreading the annual trip to her native Bhirugram of late. The town with more than fifty percent of the tribal population of Adivasis had seen a marked rise in Maoist activities. Despite the fact that her house was far away from the jungle where the Adivasis resided, people in her locality had also started getting affected by the ongoing tussle between the police forces, the State Government and the Adivasis labeled as Maoists.

Her father, a school teacher in Bhirugram had been disappointed at her decision to move to Mumbai for her doctorate but chose to stay supportive. She had been pestering her mother about their relocation to Mumbai since her father was due to retire in less than a year, but her pleas went unheard.

Read the full story on Women’s web here.

Happy Diwali and update on NaNoWriMo

On behalf of soniasmusings.com, I wish you and your family a very happy and prosperous Deepavali/Diwali. This is also the time when we, as Bengalis worship the power of Goddess Kali. May this festival lights bring happiness and peace in our life as the Goddess showers you with strength and blessings.

The toddler at a Kali Puja Pandal during Diwali

In case you have been a regular reader of my blog, you might have been wondering why there hasn’t been much of an activity on my site recently. Well, I realized that I have been writing continuously since the month of April this year and as solopreneurs, it is our own responsibility to take a break for our physical and mental well-being. The festival of Durga Puja was the period when I had some time to introspect and I consciously decided to take a little over a week-long break from writing. My next post for the month that I intend to publish next week will talk about the importance of taking mindful breaks for a solopreneur/entrepreneur/self-employed individual.

Come November which is known for the NaNoWriMo campaign. It is the national novel writing month where authors work round the clock to finish that novel of minimum 50,000 words or more. After the love that my first novel Deal of Death received, I had been planning to write the second book of the Raya Ray series. So the happy news is that I have finally started working on it through announcing the book The Corpse Connection (tentatively named) as the second novel on the NaNoWriMo official site. With the hectic schedule that NaNoWriMo demands and daily writing target for a set word count, I will be in a condition to post just one article per week.

In the meanwhile, you might want to have a look at my previous posts categorically here –

Writing Challenges/Fiction

Fun Challenges/Photography

Food/ Restaurant reviews

Movie reviews

Parenting

Book reviews

I wish you all a safe and fun-filled Diwali. Also, please remember to pass on the spirit of celebration through sharing and caring.

Love in the age of technology

Zain glanced through the messages of his old school buddies Whatsapp group. Most of his friends had pictures clicked during the ongoing Durga Puja as their Whatsapp status. Some of them had updated Whatsapp status video related to pandal hopping and celebration.

Despite belonging to a different religion, Durga Puja had always held a special place in his life because of his best friends, the twins Samay and Srestha. But the equations changed on a different night of Puja, twelve years back.

The three of them were soon to leave for different cities for higher studies. Zain had been dating Srestha for six months then. Before he got an opportunity to talk to Samay about their relationship, Samay had walked into Srestha hugging Zain on their terrace on that unfortunate night.

Samay had asked Zain to choose between their friendship and his love for Srestha immediately. Zain had picked their friendship at the cost of breaking Srestha’s heart. Zain left his hometown next month with a vow to never return again.

Srestha had been married to Samay’s senior in Engineering college three years back. This year, she had returned back home with a broken spirit and bruised body after months of physical abuse by her husband. Zain had come to know about it through the Whatsapp group.

Even after so many years, he had kept his heart sealed for Srestha. He waited for the day when Samay could display the requisite faith in their friendship to let him take his relationship with Srestha to the next level. Until then, Zain kept the flame of hope alive in his life through his unrequited love for Srestha.

Durga Puja – facilitating social reforms – Berhampore edition #TheBlindList #SayYesToTheWorld

I have often written about how my mothers demise changed my approach towards Durga Puja – the biggest festival for any Bengali. But things changed last year after I realized that I need my toddler to enjoy moments of celebration so that he grows up creating memories. This year, our return trip to my home town and also my husband’s native Berhampore was decided months ago because we wanted the toddler to enjoy puja with his grandparents.

Bhattacharya Para Puja that had 25kgs of gold jewelry

When I decided to go pandal hopping last year, the venue and pandals were predecided evety single day because of my meticulous planning. It wasn’t meant to be any different this year. But like the saying goes, man proposes and God disposes. The toddler who had been unwell for the last one week fell critically ill after reaching Berhampore on Friday. His respiratory infection aggravated so badly that we had to nebulize him. The families were of the opinion that he needed to take rest and might be able to visit pandals only after getting fit which probably meant on the last couple of days of Puja.

Haridasmati impressed me with the Kerala style temple

Haridasmati idols

It was really difficult to see the disappointment on my son’s face. With new clothes meant to be worn on days designated to be enjoyed, it was so painful to see him sit at home. Day before yesterday when his condition improved slightly, I decided to take him on an impromptu visit to few pandals. Some were the famous ones like the Puja at Bhattacharya Para which came into limelight for the 25kgs gold jewelry gifted by Senco Jewellrs but some took my heart away through the minimalist approach and some impressed my toddler with innovative Asuras (he calls Asura his friend even today) . We ended up covering six pujas before heading back home.

Abhyudyay Sangha had an interesting theme on Kedarnath

Continue reading “Durga Puja – facilitating social reforms – Berhampore edition #TheBlindList #SayYesToTheWorld”

Exploring the world through blind dates over the years #SayYesToTheWorld #TheBlindList

Much later, when I asked them about this game of suspense, my Dad had disclosed that he wanted me to feel the thrill of exploring the world without any preset ideas. He believed in striking a balance between bucket list, which helped tick off items after fulfilling of wishes and #TheBlindList which taught me to keep my heart and mind open to experiencing new things. This is how began my journey of travel to explore new destinations. Darjeeling, which was one of the first ever vacation spot for me is a personal favorite even today.

As I grew up, I moved to Kolkata for higher studies. This was my first date with the world. An eighteen-year-old was trusted by her parents and Permitted to stay on her own so that she could pursue her dreams. There were deterrents in the form of discriminatory behavior in college, heart breaks in the form of relationships gone wrong, harassment by random men that led to cringeworthy moments but I didn’t let the negativity ruin my journey.

Continue reading “Exploring the world through blind dates over the years #SayYesToTheWorld #TheBlindList”

Passing on the joy of celebration – Mahalaya special

It’s that time of the year again when the wait for the biggest celebration for a Bengali household comes to an end with the arrival of Mahalaya. For the next ten days, all that one can hear a Bengali talk about is how Durga pujo is nothing short of an emotion. It doesn’t matter in which city you are going to celebrate pujo this year. It could be Berhampore/Murshidabad, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, New York or London because the level of excitement always stays the same.

A pandal created out of drums -Pujo 2017

Mahalaya in my childhood meant the beginning of school holidays. Preparation began the night before as Ma pestered me to sleep early while ensuring that Baba kept the radio station sorted out for the wee hours of the morning. Sharp at 4 am, she woke up every year to turn on the radio. I would snuggle up to them with sleepy eyes as Mahishashur Mardini was aired on All India Radio. Birendra Krishna Bhadra chanted the verses of Chandi Kavya/Path while devotional songs played during intervals.

Throwback - Pujo 2017 — Throwback – Pujo 2017

And then Doordarshan came up with a Mahalaya special episode of Mahishashur Mardini. My parents would watch till the end as I dozed off intermittently. Baba would next go to the local sweet shop Mitali and get us Kachori, Aloo Dum and misthi. I still feel those were the only motivating factors for me to wake up so early.

Open Air Durga Pujo - Pujo 2017 — Open Air Durga Pujo – Pujo 2017

I normally spent the day reading books that I would stack up for the last few months. These were called pujabarshikis because these annual magazines were published only during pujo. For me, Anandamela pujabarshiki meant the world though we also got Shukhtara, Desh, Sananda and Anandalok. This hasn’t changed over the years. Last year I had written a post on how this is a gift from my father that I eagerly wait for every year. This year, I am hoping to get it when I travel to Berhampore this 12th.