Life Inspires

2nd January 1996 – I was taken away on this day. Kidnapped, if you would like to use the word. I was only an hour old then. My mother had planned this long before I was born. If I turned out to be a boy, I would stay in the family, grow up with them, and one day help on the fields. One day I would bring in a wife and then help create a son to carry on the family name. However, if I turned out to be a girl, I could not stay. I had to leave. So my mother had arranged with the widow who lived at the end of the village to sneak me out and take me to the Mahila Kalyan Sanstha and then leave me there to find my destiny, to fight my own battles. And as the fate would have it, I was born a girl. My father did not want me. My grandparents did not want me. I was useless to them. And my mother knew this very well. She knew secrets that were thought to be buried so deep that no one could ever uncover them. She knew why so many baby girls were born dead in the village. She knew why after nin...

Based on the fairy tale "Princess and the Frog" in which a princess kisses a frog that turns into a handsome prince upon being kissed. As always, they live happily ever after. Click here if you want to read the whole story. "Kissing a Frog" is my take on the fairy tale. Kissing a Frog It was the most beautiful night possible. High up in the sky, a full moon shone brightly and around it twinkled countless little stars. Fireflies fluttered from shrub to shrub and the moonlight reflected off delicate drops of dew. The whole landscape was bathed in a silver light. There was hardly any noise except harmonious sounds of little creatures of the night. Things were as serene as they could be and the air was cool. Tired birds had just started to fall asleep in their little nests when they were cruelly shaken out of their stupour by the sudden, crashing noise of Princess Greta emerging out of the shrubs. “I will catch him tonight,” she exclaimed loudly to the wilde...

We always assume that we are going to be around for years. And as every step takes us closer to our own respective deaths, we philosophically ponder about what awaits us after death. In the process, we often forget about the present. Jenny Downham’s first novel, Before I Die, successfully shocks us out of this pointless reflection and brings the focus back to life before death rather than after it. Though the book is targeted at young adults, it lingers on in the readers’ thoughts once they have read it, irrespective of their age. The book does not advocate stoicism, it does not set rules, instead through the eyes of terminally-ill, 16-year old Tessa Scott, it sets out to reflect on Tessa’s and her family’s constant struggle to hold on to the time that is slipping away. Tessa Scott, the novel’s central character is perceptive and analytical, wise beyond her years. This is most evident when she reflects upon her father’s unique position and surmises that “his shambling protecti...

It was a game they used to play often. They would sit across on a table and stare into each other's eyes. The one to blink first would lose. For Anand, it was an opportunity. Anand sat with elbows resting on the table and both his hands under his chin. Mamta sat straight back right across. And they tried hard not to blink. "Deep blue just like Pacific ocean!" he thought as he considered the unusual hue of her eyes. "How lovely would it be if I could just look at her like this every second of my waking hours!" The tables, the chairs, the walls, and rest of their friends disappeared gradually to be replaced by angels playing harps on cotton clouds. A deep fragrance, possibly her new perfume, filled the room. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for while. "Caught!" she cried. "I win again." (This was done as an exercise on the flow of time in fiction during one of my classes today. The first sentence of this short piece of fiction is it...