Delhi is the first city that gave me a feeling of responsibility that comes along with freedom. I had spent three years at the Presidency College Girls hostel in Kolkata during my graduation. But, in 2002, when I moved out to Delhi for my first post-graduation, it was also for the first time that I realized the state of being very far away from home. During my two-years stay there, I made some wonderful friends and was exposed to multiple cultures, languages, cuisines, and festivals.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
After moving out to Bangalore in 2004, I never had a chance to return back here. Two months back, my husband had an opportunity to visit the city for his official work. Knowing my attachment to Delhi, he booked tickets for both the toddler and me. When we checked into the Taj hotel property, little did I expect the room to become a personal favorite! It wasn’t just the huge glass window pane that provided a gorgeous view of the Delhi sky but also the corner of the room dedicated as a working space that stole my heart. In the game of peek-a-boo between light and darkness, I sat down to write my second detective thriller.
(199 words)
This is the ninth post (nonfiction) written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign on the theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the seventh flash fiction around this picture prompt hereand the eighth one here. For the first six posts, you can click here.
Suchi fell in love with the hotel room instantly. The glazed window overlooking a lush garden and the skyline filled with high-rise apartments gave her a sense of liberty.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
Taking out her mobile, she saw that there was no message from her husband Subhash.
She brought out the most cherished possession of her life – a pair of ghungroos from the bag.
‘Girls of respected families don’t become dancers.’ Her father had thrown away her ghungroos after she turned fifteen. She was married into an equally conservative family who didn’t consider dance to befit their families daughter-in-law.
It was her teenager son Trihan who had discovered Suchi’s passion. Last month, he had sent across a video of Suchi’s dance to a national level dancing competition. Suchi made it to the list of twenty-five shortlisted candidates.
Both the families refused to support her decision. But it was Trihan who stood by her like a rock. He didn’t want his mother to give up another dream for her family. She smiled at the message that he had sent her,
“I believe in you. Win the competition and make me proud.”
Her upbringing had managed to bring a crack in the walls of patriarchy.
(200 words)
This is the 8th post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the other piece of fiction based on the same photo prompt here and the first six posts here.
For this challenge, I am using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. This is my second picture prompt.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter
Tanu checked into the thirteenth floor of the hotel in the city of her birth. She had found love here. They been best friends in school and moved on to different streams in college. Eventually, they had accepted and acknowledged their feelings for each other.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
But like most of the love stories, she had been left heartbroken. Her lover had married someone else under pressure from the family. Tanu remembered the nights of tears and pain. She had left the city thinking it would help her move on. But with time, Tanu had realized that loving someone else was never going to be an option in her life.
Last week she had received a mail. It read,
“Tanu,
Section 377 has been scrapped. I know it’s been eighteen years since we last spoke but do you think we have a chance now?
Sudha”
She didn’t know if there was a future but what she understood was that Sudha also still loved her. Tanu had decided to give it a chance.
Looking at the skyline from the glazed window of her room, her heart thumped loudly as she waited for the bell to ring. Sudha was due to arrive anytime now.
(199 words)
This is the 7th post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the first six here.
For this challenge, I am using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. This is my third picture prompt. Stay tuned to read the second flash fiction that I will write around the same picture in my next post. You could also consider subscribing to my blog if you like reading my stories.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter
The incident dates back to July 2011. I was heading a Bank branch in Mysore at that time. It was the first month after marriage and my husband had just relocated from Kolkata. I had a strange obsession with finding an accommodation near my office. Thus with every transfer or job switch, my address kept changing. The house where we resided as tenants were barely two kms from my Bank. Mysore was a town that thrived on human interactions, so almost everyone in the neighborhood knew about my doctor husband and his banker wife.
As per our daily schedule, my husband had to leave quite early in the morning while 8:45am was when I usually took an auto to the Bank. This made locking the house my responsibility. We occupied the first floor of the house and it had two open balconies. The front one led to the main entrance and the one at the back faced an area designated for a park. It had a large number of trees. My house owner had warned me about rechecking the locked status of both the balcony doors before leaving the house. It was for our own safety, he had wisely said. Unfortunately, I neither had a chance nor considered this piece of advice important enough to pass on to my husband.
I ran to him anyway – Blogadda.com WOW prompt
It so happened that on a particular morning in July, I had to leave the house much before my usual time to attend a meeting. I had wrongly assumed that he would check and lock both the doors before moving out. The meeting had been a full day event and I returned home directly from the venue quite early in the evening. My house owner, who was generally a pleasant man had a very disapproving look on his face. Without thinking much, I walked up the stairs to open the door.
The word ‘shock’ would be a very mild term to express my reaction next. For every nook and corner of my apartment was occupied by a bunch of monkeys. They seemed to have had a satisfying meal of fruits, chips, biscuits and whatever they could lay their hands on. The flat resembled a house struck by a tornado. I let out a scream while wondering how to get rid of the monkeys. In a while, there were neighbors from the surrounding areas near my apartment churning out ideas about how to chase the monkeys away. Some of these ideas were so bizarre that they could put the word ‘innovation’ to shame. To anyone willing to lend an ear, my owner kept talking about how he had cautioned me about the danger of keeping balcony doors open. I honestly had no clue that when he spoke of how unsafe it was, he had monkeys instead of humans in mind.
Half an hour had passed and the monkeys couldn’t care less. They had comfortably settled in. I was getting worried about the uncertainty of being a resident here anymore. Suddenly I spotted my husband getting out of an auto downstairs. I started rushing down the stairs. Mysore was still considered as a conservative city with a good percentage of my neighbors falling in the category of senior citizens. I knew that at that moment they were looking, but I didn’t care. I ran to him anyway just like Kajol in the climax of the Bollywood movie DDLJ. I couldn’t resist myself from hugging him tight though I knew we were in the streets and all pairs of eyes were on us. My husband was still not sure why there was a crowd in front of our house and my sudden public display of affection but the actions of newly marrieds are rarely justified. He had attributed it to my overflowing love for him while in reality, I was breathing a sigh of relief that I finally had someone who would probably be a little less scared than me.
Finally one of my office boys arrived with a group of people who managed to drive away the monkeys out of the house. They grudgingly left but not before eating away all possibly edible items, throwing away quite a few things including one of my oldest mobile phone sets and creating havoc in the house to such an extent that the effort required in fixing it led to a slipped disc injury in less than two weeks. But that’s a story for another day.
Amay inhaled the fresh air with a feeling of nostalgia. Looking at the hills through the window, his eyes brimmed with tears. He was back home. He remembered his childhood spent amidst luxuries in a plush Government bungalow. But his father had died of lung cancer when Amay was barely five.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
His mother had been employed by the same organization on sympathetic grounds but they had to vacate the bungalow. With the meager salary, they could only afford this small house on rent. Amay had grown to love the slopes, hills, and fields in the surrounding. He kept excelling in academics and his school supported him through scholarship.
Seven years back, he had made it to one of the top medical colleges. Despite some earnings through private tuitions, financial constraints would have shattered his dreams hadn’t his mother taken up odd jobs to support him.
Dr. Amay Mhatre had returned as a doctor in this town hospital. He recollected the stunned looks of the interviewing panel when he had asked for a posting here instead of a metro city. But Amay knew that his mother felt a sense of belonging here and for him, her happiness was the biggest priority.
(200 words)
This is the 5th post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the other piece of fiction based on the same photo prompt here and the first three posts here.
For this challenge, I am using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. This is my second picture prompt.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter.
The girl looked out of the one-roomed house at the dark clouds. The breeze sweeping through the Kans grass smelt of Durga Puja. A year back, she had celebrated their biggest festival with her parents in Bengal. Now she didn’t even know which part of the country they had kept her hidden.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
She had been kidnapped on the way to school. The kidnapper had gagged, blindfolded and sexually abused her. He had sold her at a brothel in a faraway hill station. She had been shocked to see his familiar face by chance.
Night after night, she bared her body to strangers as they raided it to satisfy their lust. She cried for the first few weeks and then converted her soul to stone. Last night she had spotted her kidnapper. She had covered her face and lured him into the room for the final act.
She turned to look at the brothel women watching the TV. The inspector spoke, “The man, stabbed to death has been identified as the maternal uncle of the girl who had sold the teenager for money. She lost her life due to strangulation during the struggle.”
But she had succeeded in seeking her revenge.
(200 words)
This is the 4th post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the first three here.
For this challenge, I am using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. This is my second picture prompt. Stay tuned to read the second flash fiction that I will write around the same picture in my next post. You could also consider subscribing to my blog if you like reading my stories.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter
Through the classroom window, Tiya spotted Raisha slouched on the ground. She ran down the array of stairs to call Arjun. They needed to carry her back home immediately.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
“I had to give up my cricket match for this wasted friend of yours.” Arjun sounded annoyed. “You have been trying so hard but she doesn’t want to cooperate at all.”
“We have been dating for two months now but do you know how scared I would feel to even walk down these stairs alone? When I shifted from Jhansi to Delhi, I was bullied incessantly in the campus for my looks and accent. Raisha barely knew me yet she stood up for me. When she realized that I missed home, she started finding excuses to take me to her house. Her mom made me feel like family. Raisha had grown up without a father but when she lost her mom to cancer three months back, she sunk into depression and turned towards drugs. How can I abandon her today when she needs me the most?”, tears rolled down Tiya’s cheeks.
Arjun held Tiya’s hands firmly. Together, they would help a friend retrace her steps towards a normal life, he promised.
(200 words)
This is the second post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’. You can read the first post written around the same picture prompt here.
For this challenge, I will be using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. Stay tuned to read the third post that will be about this picture and its significance. You could also consider subscribing to my blog if you like reading my stories.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter
This year, T and I completed two decades of being friends. This is inclusive of the few years of dating and seven years of being married. I had written a post some time back describing how it took us a decade, a broken relationship each and three cities to realize that we were destined to be together. This time, I thought of writing about the fate of romance post marriage.
We were married in June 2011. During that period, my Banking job had me posted in Mysore and T relocated from Kolkata to enroll in an M. D. course there. The initial few months were filled with fun, frolic, and food. We realized that we had so many things in common. We loved movies, experimenting with food and traveling. While I loved the mountains, he preferred the sea but we considered that to be an opportunity to explore different locations together. If there was one area that we never wanted to visit, it had to be the Forests. That is why despite being so near, we never planned a trip to Bandipur or Masinagudi. Truth is that I’m actually scared of any creature bigger than a cockroach. So from lizards to elephants, I would not want any kind of rendezvous with them.
Romantic story – forest, envelope, burglar, balloon
Birthdays and special occasions meant grand celebration with cakes, flowers, balloons, and gifts. Life couldn’t have been more perfect.
Mir Rehman walked inside his office room in the palace.
The rumors about the palace being haunted had led to a decline in visitors. But having worked as a Diwan for 38 years here, Mir rubbished such claims.
Of late his relation with Amir Ali, the last Nawab had become sour. Amir’s obsession with alcohol and women had been eating into the palace’s revenues.
Photo prompt – copyright@soniasmusings
The creaking of the door made Mir observe Amir’s entry with another man.
“Anjan, finalize the hotel deal and give me the money.”
Anjan said, “What did you do to Mir who had threatened to inform the local police about your unlawful activities?”
“I killed him in his sleep and rolled his dead body down the stairs outside. The police and the local doctor helped me cover it up as an accident from tripping.”
But Anjan had turned pale on spotting a ledger in the air, held without any support.
Next morning, the newspapers carried details of Nawab Amir Ali and liquor baron Anjan Seth’s demises. Amir had a fatal fall from the stairs while Anjan had passed away from a heart attack.
For Mir Rehman, it was work as usual in his corner office room.
(199 words)
This is the first post written as part of the #MyfriendAlexa campaign as per my theme ‘Shades of Perception’.
For this challenge, I will be using four photos as prompts to weave two flash fiction stories and one real story behind the picture. Stay tuned to read the second flash fiction that I will write around the same picture in my next post. You could also consider subscribing to my blog if you like reading my stories.
I am taking my Alexa rank to the next level with Blogchatter
Shubha gasped for breath as she broomed the floor of the Iyer household. Heavy work coupled with inadequate diet had led to her failing health. The Iyers who paid her the highest salary among the five employers were famous for mistreating people of her class.
Shubha looked at Mrs. Iyer offering sweets to the deities. Shubha felt her stomach crying out for some food. Her alcoholic husband had run away with all her savings last night. She had barely managed to feed the kids and had to sleep without a morsel of food.
Photo courtesy – Yinglan
In another corner of the house, Iyer’s toddler son was emulating his mother’s actions. The deities had been replaced by his favorite toy called poochie – a dog made out of clay. The little one placed poochie on top of his favorite donut urging it to eat.
“Please let me be born as a toy dog in my next birth. In our world, an inanimate object gets better treatment than people like me,” she spoke to her God with tears in her eyes.
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