Monday 30 June 2014

My Mislaid Mermaid #168


I walked them through my mermaid reveries,
Withstanding the tone of their infinite vagaries

Right!
Worthlessly they snapped
Whatever you say
The words were capped,
Horsepucky!
Cried girls from Kentucky,
Some silent hmm-s and reliefs
On my unstable Utopian beliefs

Well, in case you’re ready with your crusade,
They've already stolen my mermaid. 

                                                       
____________________________________________________________

The Ultimate Question- 
Are you on your way to steal my mermaid?


                                                               

Friday 27 June 2014

Saturday Photohunt

What better theme for Saturday photo-hunt than "skies"?!

I want to say so much about my love for skies, clouds, the vastness but I'm going to shut up and just post two photos that I took last evening. One while I was on my way to home. The other taken when I was home, from my window.

PS- Both are taken from my mobile, I'm sorry for that. Did not have a camera around. The quality is still not THAT bad. Have a look.

The one on the way home. ©SoumyaaVerma

This is the setting sun.



The one from my window, back home. ©SoumyaaVerma



Thursday 26 June 2014

Dazzled #FSF

This week's Five sentence Fiction is based on the prompt- DAZZLES





Wearing a skin-clutching blue dress, she took extra care to justify the occasion.
Sweeping eyelashes over her midnight blue eyes, pink lips, flawless defined curves, edged heels giving her elegance, teaser to the rest.  
While others could not have enough of a glance in her direction, she stood in the doorway, hair swaying by the wind, looking passionately as I arrived. 
Hands on her hips and arching eyebrows she gave me a sheepish smile, ready to receive plaudits.

Did she not know that she could dazzle me by her simplicity alone?


What it’s all about: Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. Each week Lillie posts one word for inspiration, then anyone wishing to participate will write a five sentence story based on the prompt word.

Monday 23 June 2014

What's your sign?- It's Euphoric

What's your Sign? 


Shuddering hands, blood red eyes, insatiable desire- a bottomless pit.
He looked around, his eyes landing on her.
A different wave this time- wild, hypnotic and jittery.  
420 piff, with me?
It was more than a choice of only the inner-city hipsters. 





Ps- For those having a little difficulty in understanding 420, here's a wiki link. You're Welcome :)

Disclaimer- The writer in no way promotes the consumption of cannabis. This article is purely fictional.

Check out other's signs here 
                                                                 

Saturday 21 June 2014

The Liebster Award

A newbie in your world- the blogosphere, I have only learnt to say a few words, I need constant care-taking and I'm still crawling. This is my first taste of chocolate and it's soo good I tell you! Who doesn't like chocolates anyway? My first chocolate is the Liebster and Crimson Curls brought it to me. She's an aspiring architect who has an HD quality imagination power, in her own words. As she says, she is obsessed with her own dimples. No, she's not showing them to us. She's also a newbie and was as excited about her chocolate as I am for mine. Thank you for sharing this feeling with me, Crimson Curls! I think I'm going to scream and shout and cry for more of these.    


                              
Okay, so here's the Liebster Award (chocolate for me) Official Rules:

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award and you choose to accept it, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. List these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!



Alright then, here's my acceptation deed:

My Answers to Crimson Curls' Questions


  1. Whats the one thing that can make you happy at any situation?
    Ans-
    Fooood! Bring me a well prepared dish, any cuisine, anywhere anytime and watch me smile ear to ear. I love food. Whatever my mood- sad, angry, excited, pityful, troubled, sleepy, tired, depressed, cold, bored or already happy, food can make me happy/happier substituting just any or all of the emotions.
     
  2. Name the person who inspires you the most.
    Ans-
    Has to be my mom. She's a single mother, working as the Headmistress in a reputed school. I am amused at everything about her, her poise, her attitude, her IQ, her love for her children, her grace, her honesty and dedication. She's my inspiration, like every mother is to her daughter.
     
  3. If you could be someone else (except your own self), whom would you choose to be?
    Ans-
    There are many, but all fictional. That's OK, right? If I were a male, I would choose Atticus Finch from the book 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' or Harvey Specter from the T.V series 'Suits'. But because I'm not, I'll choose either Jane Eyre, Nancy Drew or Monica Geller (Oh don't judge!).
     
  4. Your favorite color is? Ans- Orange
     
  5. Your hobbies include?
    Ans-
    Included in my hobbies would most definitely be reading, writing, playing basket ball, Instagramming, watching T.V series, clicking photographs, eating and TRAVELLING- to name a few.
     
  6. How you feel just after finishing one blog article?
    Ans-
    I feel a step closer to where I want to be. And also, phew!
     
  7. Whats your take on 'Love & Life" ?
    Ans-
    Love brings life to Life. Love for your parents, love for your friends, love for the under-privileged, love for all creatures big or small, love for yourself, love for books, love for what you do. The two are inseparable.
     
  8. You forgive people easily or one has to plead for long time?
    Ans-
    Oh I do not even remember what wrong did people do to me, to be able to forgive them for that! I do not remember asking anybody ever, to be sorry. Pleading for forgiveness is no where near. I don't expect (yes that's humanely possible, ask me), so they don't disappoint me, I'm not hurt and hence they needn't be sorry!
      
  9. What would you choose: 'sweet','salty', 'bitter' or 'sour' ?
    Ans-
    Bitter. More because I cannot have any of the others in excess. Bitter, I can handle that.
      
  10. If one thing you could change about yourself, what would that be?Ans- I'd be more result-oriented rather than being lost half-way through. I have an unstable mind, and I ask for some stability now.  
  11. Do you like sarcasm?
    Ans-
    Love it! Until I'm following, obviously.

11 Random Facts about Me

I have already mentioned some in the 'about me' page, but Okay, here are some others-
1. I love to do karaoke. Like, LOVE.

2. I love collecting lip-glosses and lip balms. 

3. I maintain a diary in which I right down what I learnt from the day's experiences. That way I  make a conscious effort to learn something everyday. 

4. I once jumped out of a moving car only because my friend, the one who was driving, challenged me to. I'm not crazy, the car wasn't moving at a speed higher than 30Kmph.

5. Hritik Roshan is the Greek God for me. Once, I stood in heavy rains for 3 hours only to be able to meet him. I can do the same for Ryan Gosling.

6. Living in Vadodara, the cultural capital of Gujarat, I love Garba. That's my favourite time of the year.

7. I've played basketball at national level.

8. My family members all called me by different names when I was younger than I am. Few of them are- Gal fullo, Rani, miyaLaado, chinky, soya et al.   

9. Idleness exhausts me like nothing else does. I need to keep working. 

10. I put Jalapenos and olives in almost anything that it can be put in, even in my maggi. And always extra in my subs.  

11. This year was my first vote, and I voted for Narendra Modi from Vadodara, of course. Whatever you say, I'm all for Modi!

Now here's where I nominate my fellow bloggers for the Liebster Award


  1. Vishal from Vishal Bheeroo-Scripting the Story of my life
  2. Shailaja V. from The Moving Quill
  3. Kalpana Solsi from Gemini In The Sky
  4. Usha Menon from Kuch Khatta Kuch Meetha
  5. Uma from My Musings
  6. Ankita from Humming Words
  7. Shriti from Hidden Secrets Of Her Life
  8. Nadig7 from ThinkersCap
  9. Zainab from A Mom's Blog

My Questions to them would be-
  1. How tall are you?
  2. What's the biggest personal change you've ever made?
  3. What would your dream holiday be like?
  4. If you could be a farmer, what would be on your farm?
  5. Will you ever accept an offer to reality shows like Bigg Boss? 
  6. Who's your favorite literary character?
  7. What's the longest you've gone without sleep and what was keeping you awake?
  8. Who's that one extraordinary person that you know? 
  9. Are you a bad loser or a good loser? (For the record, I'm a bad loser)
  10. What chore do you absolutely hate doing?
  11. If ghosts can walk through walls and through human bodies, why don't they fall through the floor?

Thank you once again Crimson Curls! Congratulations to the nominees.

Until next time. 
Cheers!

Sunday 15 June 2014

The sound of him


"See you at dinner tonight" were his last words before he left for hunting that afternoon. 

Now she is fragile and enervated, but only physically. 

Every evening she stumbles her way towards the door and opens it to someone. Maybe she hears him come. Maybe he’ll come.





                                                      

Friday 13 June 2014

The Shooting Wishes

This week's word for five sentence fiction is - Wishes. Here's my take.

As I blazed across the sky, a family lying on the footpath closed their eyes together and wished for four walls and a roof.

On seeing my streak through her french windows, the little girl from the chateau ran towards the window and wished she had someone who'd hold her hand tightly in their's and pull her closer.

Crowded by fellow dancers and appreciators, the woman wished on me to have her husband's client meeting postponed that evening- he never had the time.

Out of the bar, just in time to catch a glimpse of my fainting trails of flame, the man looked up and wished for a job soon for he was tired of spending the day at JoJo's.

I shot my way across the other stars in the night sky and wished I did not have to see the begging faces every night.

______________________________

Wishes. Will we ever have enough of them?


Lillie McFerrin Writes

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Entering the Acceptance Mode

Sitting at the shack by the sea, I see the coarse black sky. The wind blows against my face and a remembrance of the past hits me like the pangs of penury, but it doesn’t hurt. I am elevated, I feel open and free. As I decide to turn a page of my life, acceptance seeks further inside. I’m falling in love- with myself, again.

The world today encourages constant communication. Living the extroverted life now has newer connotations. These necessities have made it hard for me to keep up because I’m not somebody who attracts the crowd by my mere presence.

Unaware of the gift I had of being an introvert, as a child I wanted to be one of those kids who had the other kids following them. When children my age were hiding and seeking the hidden, I sat in my room carving out personality traits I needed to be able to titillate their interest in me. My family kept telling me that it was okay to go unrecognized in class, that there will be a time when they will all listen to me in anticipation.

“What do they know”, I kept underestimating their experiences.

As I grew up, I secretly aspired to be like one of those plastics in my class (Let’s name her A). With my nerdy hairstyle and a bag full of books I planned to finish in one day, A’s flowy dresses and her straight, silky hair always had me going. I tried to adopt her gregarious personality, failing miserably of course. I couldn’t, rather wasn’t willing to be expansive like her and let loose. I had a clenched fist and an opaque shelter around me, which wasn’t open for people to enter. I cursed myself for being who I was and decided I would die in isolation.

I rejected my qualities of being able to keep calm and be patient in every situation life brought me to. I wanted to create a ruckus like A did, to exaggerate and gain sympathies.

As days passed, my shelter only grew smaller in size, now choking me inside it.

Then came graduation. I stepped out into a superior world- a world where nobody knew A, where I, A, B, C and all of us had to carve a niche for ourselves. This world did not stop at the pomp and show of A. I realized this world was beyond the ramblings of a High School life.

I felt stupid in this world. I gathered my childhood had been wasted behind unnecessary cravings, that being an introvert could be my biggest strength. My shelter expanded and air blew in like the sweet fragrance of the spring.


Google Image


 I now understood the quietness in my life. It wasn’t loneliness; it was a nice kind of quite like the sound of a page being turned in a book. Normality that I was trying to achieve all this while was something to get away from.

As an introvert, I am my best friend now. I watch movies and go on dinner dates with myself. I sometimes take trains to places I’ve never been before. I enjoy the party in my head. I’ve shared some of the best moments of life with myself , my inner self.

I’m not anti-social. No. I only need to get away to refill my energy. It assures me, no matter what may-hem is happening around, I can always turn inward.


As I sit by the sea tonight, I steal a little piece of freedom from the water and the wind. 

___________________________

Writing for the yeah write weekly. 


                                                                         

Monday 9 June 2014

Grace-fully silent

She had always put work before him, before the family. A day before their trip to Switzerland he heard his voice call beep, "Honey, I'm soo sorry but i had to reschedule our trip. Don't get mad yet, listen to me now..." But the door shut behind him. Her last words were, "..so just pack the bags, we're leaving in 2 hours!"

Saturday 7 June 2014

Skywatching attraction

You all know how much I love the sky- the clouds, the stretch, the soothing blue color! No? Well now you do. I develop a certain affinity to a place which has a clear, gorgeous view of the sky and I swear I do not know when my hand slides into my pocket/bag and pulls out the capturing instrument.

I have a photo of the sky from wherever I've been on vacations. I must mention here that I plan to travel each and every nook of the world. So this way, when I die and if somebody cares, they could compile all my sky photos and almost have in front of them an image of the entire sky that surrounds the earth.  How cool is that?

How then could I stop myself from posting a Skywatch Friday and a Photo-hunt Saturday prompt, though it now is a Sunday?

Anyway, here it is.

That's the sky 7kms from where I live, in Vadodara.
Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

This one is taken from my phone, while travelling on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway.
Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma



This one is from Diu, one fine summer morning.
Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma


The next is the sky on the Mumbai-Pune highway. I was on my way to Mahabaleshwar.
Image copyright- Soumyaa Verma

There are many many more I want to add here, but I'm sure that's not what the prompt setters expected me to do. The theme for PhotoHunt Saturday was Azure.

The sky is something that amazes me everytime I look up. I literally mean EVERYTIME.

If you have any photos of the sky from your land, do let me know through the comments section below. I'd love to see the pictures!

Thursday 5 June 2014

Sanjani's own celebration

Photo Courtsey- Doug McIlroy
Diwali is a festival of lights, of hope, of life, of togetherness. A national holiday is proclaimed not for no reason. Amidst all the blare and the buzz of the crackers bursting in the country outside her window, Sanjani managed a sneak into her pursuits. 


She could be helping her mother prepare for the big Pooja , or cheering her younger siblings while they lit their bottle rockets and fire flowers. But she had an escape planned to the place where her dreams looked real. 

She retired NOT because she wanted to escape, but because she had tried before and our world had failed to amuse her.

__________________________________________________

Another lovely photo prompt from Friday Fictioners. How we love writing for these prompts, Rochelle. 

Monday 2 June 2014

You're caged and you sing

Wishing farewell to the most revered poet of her times, Maya Angelou. This take is based on her phenomenal poem Caged Bird


Not knowing what your wings are for,
You're bounded and you savor them
You rubberneck twin engines of your like,
Your oblivious sleep besieges you.

But confined however you are,
they cannot hitch your discordant voice
You gather its your only asset,
to attune, you fancy unfettered and you sing.