Uncategorized

A to Z Challenge Day #4 – Word theme Depression

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Before you could know we are already on the fourth day of the A to Z. For D my emotion is Depression. And my fiction lies below. Guy’s let me know if you are liking these sets of short fictions. It will keep me motivated through out the month. 

Now last few posts were longish so keeping in that mind I kept this post short … quite short about 200 words. So don’t wait, hop in the fiction world. Ohh.. you can read the rest of my posts for the A to Z Challenge here.

He wanted to Fly

Clint loved watching these birds from his window, how carelessly free they were… how happy they looked with their wings spread far, he knew they were flying away in joy.

Clint wanted to be a bird in his next life… a free bird, which can fly anywhere it wanted, however it wanted… there will be no restrictions, there will be no rule, no law, just fly away as far as you want.

He turned back from his window and looked at himself.

The sight brought him back to his reality… a reality that was tough to digest.

The all of 21 young Clint Bridgeman now lay in his bed… he was confined to his bed for ever… ever since he met with the terrible bike accident and lost senses in his spine and lower body.

He lay all day with his paralyzed body and thought why he had over sped that day. The doctors had given up, and he knew he had to be in this state for the rest of his life. This Depression was eating into him but he kept himself motivated with his books. And these birds gave him some solace… He wanted to fly away leaving the depression behind, just like these birds.

Photo Courtesy : Dreamstime.com (which is quite evident from the watermarks!)
———————————————————————————————
Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #4 – post starting with D. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
I am also participating in this challenge from my cook blog. Visit Twinkling Tina Cooks for awesome indulgent recipes, and show some love. 
———————————————————————————————
Leave a comment below if you liked the flash fiction and if you want me to write more. Your comments mean a lot to me.


3 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Uncategorized

A to Z Challenge Day #3 – Word theme Cry

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Hello beautiful people. Day 3 is here and so is my post. I am writing fiction on human emotions this season (incase you hopped on to my blog for the first time) and my third emotion with C is Cry. You think it’s an every day emotion, happens every where…. yeah it’s like a regular emotion but wait till the end and you will get a story. 


Okay today’s post is not as long as yesterdays. It’s about 450 words. So read on. Read the rest of the posts of A to Z Challenge here.


A day at the Park

“Komal don’t go too far… play here only”

“Okay ma”, said little Komal as she ran on the soft green grass of the park .

Komal and her mother came to this park every evening, the only time when mother got some rest from the house hold works and Komal could run and play as much as she wanted.

Today mother was sitting on a bench and knitting a cardigan for her.

Komal liked the swings at the other end of the park, it was free today and she wanted to sit on it before any one did. But mother asked her to play nearby.

‘Can she see me if I go there? May be not… I’ll go there quickly and come back after sometime’ she thought.

She ran towards the swing and finally sat on it. She was so happy that it was free, the park was not that crowded like other days.

“Baby what are you doing here? Your mother is looking for you everywhere, she has called you there at the gate at once…” said Billu the peanut-seller from whom they bought roasted pea-nuts often.

 “She asked me to get you to her at once… come with me…”

“Okay”

Billu picked up Komal and walked towards the exit gate.

“Where are you taking me? Mother was sitting on the bench that side”

“No your mother has already hailed an auto and is waiting for you this side”

Billu gave her a pack of pea-nuts to keep her busy for the moment. When he came out of the park he walked towards the white car parked at the side.

“Where is mother?”

“Just behind the car”

Looking around Billu didn’t see any suspecting eyes. He cleverly took Komal inside the car with dark tinted glasses, where his partner was waiting. They blindfolded little Komal and gaged her so that her wails could be curtailed.

***
The car stopped near a tattered house in the outskirts of the town. They carried a now tired and weary Komal inside the house.

“Sit over here, and don’t make a single noise, if you try to run away I’ll kill you, and I will kill your mother and father one by one”, whispered Billu into her ears as he opened her blindfold and took out the plug of cloth from her mouth.

They left her locked in the cold dark room with her hands and feet bound, leaving her with a bottle of water and a packet of biscuit. Komal let out a cry but no one was there to listen to her plea. She didn’t know what to do… she just wanted to be back home with her mother. She wished she had not gone to the swing in the park that day.

image source: http://joah.typepad.com/
——————————————————————————————–
Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #3 – post starting with C. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
I am also taking part in the challenge from my cook blog. Visit Twinkling Tina Cooks for a month full of Indulgent recipes.
—————————————————————————————————
Leave a comment below if you liked the flash fiction and if you want me to write more. Your comments mean a lot to me.




3 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Fiction & WritingFive Sentence FIction

Five Sentence Fiction Challenge – My Companion

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Lot’s of blogging happening and I am enjoying it. In between all the fictions for A to Z I’ll also try and post the other regulars in my blog so that I am not out of touch or the readers don’t miss out. 

So here is my post of the Five Sentence Fiction Challenge from Lillie’s Blog. I’ts short and sweet so hop on people.

Read my previous Short Fictions here.

My Companion

Neeraj had lost his trail in the jungle trek, it was getting dark… he knew he had to find a way out and the constant creeks of crickets and insects were not helping either.

Sensing being followed he kept turning around to check his back but could see nothing, being a wild life enthusiast he knew he was only safe on top of a tree and without wasting any more time he started climbing up a tree when he heard the ruffling on the dried leaves… Neeraj knew this was the sound he didn’t want to hear and in one breath he jumped on the nearest thick branch.

Looking down he spotted a tigress trying to jump towards him but he was at a good height and safe from the tigress which was now holed up below the tree, Neeraj couldn’t fathom what he could do.

He took out his phone and saw it still had a feeble weak tower, he quickly sent his GPS location from his smartphone to his best buddy hoping he will be able to rescue him.

Months later today, memory of that evening is still fresh in his mind and he is thankful to his phone, his companion for saving his life, he has promised to never let go of his lucky phone.  

Photo Courtesy: 3mmi.deviantart.com
———————————————————————————— 
Word theme for the current week is COMPANION.
————————————————————————————  
Lillie McFerrin Writes


Leave a comment below if you liked this short fiction and if you want me to write some more. Your words mean a lot to me.




0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Uncategorized

A to Z Challenge Day #2 – Word theme Bereavement

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

It’s Day 2 of the challenge and my word is Bereavement for alphabet B. Now, I had told earlier that i’ll keep the posts short, but when I sat down to write this one, I couldn’t keep it as short as 300 words. It’s a little long but that’s exactly what was needed for this because of the complexity of the situation/plot. 

So read along. All my A to Z challenge posts can be read from here. 


Why Don’t they Kill Me?

 “If we don’t do it now, we can never make it Birju”.

“Can you do it? Will you manage to do it?”

“They are coming tomorrow Birju, we have to do it now and if you are with me I can cross any hurdle”, said Rani and she knew in her heart this was the only way.

And it was decided next day before anyone could see the dawn, Birju and Rani will leave this village… they will leave this land for ever. Rani was scared for her and Birju’s life here with the staunch patriarch rules of the ‘khap panchayat’. Rani barely in her teens was fearful that if she didn’t leave the village her family will marry her off to the 48 year old man from the neighboring village, who offered them a good price for her recently.   

Rani’s heart lay with Birju. He was a good and bright lad, one of the very few who went to a big city for college but kept his heart back in the village… safe with Rani.

Rani lay down on her little bed beside her mother. She lay patiently waiting for everyone to fall asleep in the house. But her mind steered towards Birju. He was tall and good looking, in fact handsome amongst all the young men in the village, and he was focused on getting himself educated, unlike many around. He was the perfect man and any family would give him their daughter willingly… but only if… only if they were from another village.

Rani really didn’t understand why the elders of the village Panchayat was so hell bent on avoiding any marital union between families within the village. Her 16 year old mind never understood what was her fault that both of them were born in the same village. Her father would rather sell her off to the already twice married old man because he, like all others, believed it was wrong for a girl to chose her man and that too from the same village was as good as sin. Rani opened her eyes and thought this was the time, to run away and take refuge at the government shelter in the city till Birju could start earning and till she turned 18.

She escaped from her house late in the night and met Birju in the fields.

“Let’s go fast Birju… I don’t want anyone to see us”

“Yes Rani, now it’s only a wait of three hours and we will be safe after that”

Rani was already in her dreams, sitting in the back seat of the two-wheeler. She was finally about to get her freedom from this village and its regressive ways, she closed her eyes and took in the fresh breeze of the new day, a new day of her new life. With a sudden jolt she found herself banging with Birju’s back and heard the screeching sound of the break. She quickly opened her eyes to check but her world stood still when she saw ahead.

Her father, brother, uncle and some of the village elders stood still blocking the way near the village check- post. Her blood froze when she saw the long barrel guns and hockey sticks in their hands. Before she could understand anything she saw her father pulling her down from the bike on to the grounds where her brother pinned her down.

“You thought you will elope with my daughter so easily?”

“No.. no.. chacha..”

Before Birju could say anything every one surrounded him and hurled their sticks and batons on him and Rani could only hear Birju’s cry for help, he was overpowered within seconds and in spite of all his efforts he was failing. Rani brought all her energy together to push her brother aside and run towards her love to help him.

Watching Rani’s brave feat Birju got an unknown force of strength in his body which helped him rise up and give a punch or two to these men. He caught hold of Rani’s hand and started to run, but he could only limp and move two steps when he heard a deafening shot behind.

Rani felt deaf with the sound of gun shots, her world became a blank when she saw Birju going down. Blood gushed out from his back, his head… he lay on dirt… he was still, not a single finger moved. He was gone.

Her brother was pulling her up but she felt numb, he had no sensation in her body, her vision was blurry as she saw her man lay dead in front of her. They killed him, her fears turned true, her short lived moments freedom was gone in a wink, he left her in this bereavement with no one beside in this wide wild world.

‘Why don’t they kill me?’ Rani spoke to herself as she was getting engaged to the old man that afternoon.

Image Source: Imagebazar.com and you have it here with the watermark, so I hope I am complying with their agreement.

————————————————————————-

Disclaimer:
All characters appearing in this post work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 

I have written this work of fiction as a voice against the prevalent cruelty of Honour Killings, Khap Panchayats and their rules which is found in Northern Rural India.
————————————————————————-

——————————————————————————————–
Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #2 – post starting with B. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
—————————————————————————————————
Leave a comment below if you liked the flash fiction and if you want me to write more. Your comments mean a lot to me.



10 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Uncategorized

A to Z Challenge Day #1 – Word theme Anger

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Hello guys, so April 1 is here, and I am super excited about my first ever A to Z Challenge [like how I have been writing in my last few posts.] Now I will brush up again on my theme once and move on to the post.


My theme is Human Emotions and I’ll be writing short fictions on 26 human emotions which we come across often. 

My starting emotion isn’t what I look forward to [or any one for that matter] but Anger it is. I will write with either a general theme of the emotions or using the emotions within the story/characters. So without much ado let’s get into the business.


The Heart needs Love… the Heart Needs Respect

“We are on a date Julian”.

“I know…”

“Then why are you going through my phone?”

“Who is this guy?”

“Why do you want to go through my Whats App every time we meet? He is a family friend”.

“What family friend you b***@? He is a guy, and I don’t want any guy messaging my girl friend. Is that clear Ella?” yelled Julian.

“Don’t raise your voice”.

“Why won’t I? You are my girl friend, why do you make friends with boys? I don’t want you to talk to guys, and I don’t want boys to send you messages or stupid jokes…

…you are mine and promise me you won’t talk to guys”.

“Julian what kind of a thing was that? Why won’t I speak to guys? Why do you have problems if I speak to a boy? They are just friends not my boy friend!” explained Ella trying to make sense of where the conversation was going. She hoped Julian won’t create a scene here at the restaurant.

“Why the hell you want to speak to other boys? Speak to me… I am here all the time, ready to speak to you”.

“But that doesn’t mean I stop talking to my friends! You cannot try to control me…. who I speak to… or who I make friends with… that’s sick Julian”.

“I knew it Ella, you are flirting with other boys, you don’t love me… Don’t you love me Ella?”

“Julian I love you but why is your thought so weird? If I talk to boys it doesn’t mean I am flirting with them”

“Then why the hell you can’t stop talking to any other man” Julian banged his fists on the table as he rose up from his chair.

“Julian don’t create a scene here and don’t shout at me”   

“You deserve to be shouted you w*@#*”

“Enough!” blurted out Ella as she rose up from her chair.

“You are a psycho Julian… your thought so dirty. My friends had warned me about your aggressive nature but I had thought my love will change you. But no, I was so damn wrong… I wasted two years of my life believing our relationship would work out. Only thing you have inside is angerand you can only doubt me, not love me. Better go and enroll yourself in an anger management class. Like this you will never be happy with anyone”, yelled Ella whose face had turned red when she sensed everyone else at the diner was looking at them fight. She had hoped the relationship will work out but Julian’s anger and over possessiveness was getting worse and had a fight yet again on a date. She had to take a step because she didn’t want to repent later. Ella picked up her phone and hand bag to leave.

“Ella, where are you going? Sit down now” he Julian.

“You know Julian, I am tired of your sick mind. Don’t bother to call me ever”.

Ella left the diner with a tear in her eyes, but she knew she will overcome it, and probably have a better life away from this mess.

Image Source: Thinkstock

———————————————————————————————————-

Linking this post to A to Z Challenge 2014 for Day #1 – post starting with A. 
Visit A to Z and read awesome posts by bloggers. 
I am also participating in this challenge from my cook blog. Visit Twinkling Tina Cooks for awesome indulgent recipes, and show some love. 
—————————————————————————————————

Leave a comment below if you liked the flash fiction and if you want me to write more. Your comments mean a lot to me.

8 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Uncategorized

I want a proper road – NO ROAD NO VOTE

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

These days I am driving to work, because it’s getting too hot, and I don’t want to get into a bus these days, mornings fine, but evenings sometimes it’s a disaster. I have no idea when I will get over on any particular day I get late often. Getting into a local bus that time is tricky. Forget about space to sit, you can barely stand. Yes this happens in the AC Volvo buses (those are the ones that I take but still suffer in the evenings when I am late).

I absolutely despise the people who don’t care about fellow travelers and have their sweaty armpits for display. I mean, please guys invest in a deo at least or the ones they tell about ‘only perfume, no gas’, but don’t murder other passengers with the bad odour. Anyways that’s precisely the reason I am giving myself some respite and driving down from Electronic City to Old Airport Road [yeah that far and for those who don’t know it’s about 20 kms, one side.]

The newest trends that I am listening to during my drives these days are the political radio ads. I will do one more post on them and link it sometime later. But believe me guys they are hilarious and then they get irritating. I mean how many times am I going to listen to the bullshit of “Jisne meri Zindagi Badli” and “I am development I am coming to India because he is coming”!!! It’s not funny anymore.

Not when I see the condition of the roads that I drive through. Specially the one that is right in front of my house. The Neeladri Road in EC Phase 1 is the single most important road that connects Electronic City residential areas to all the corporate big wigs like Wipro, Infosys, HP, HLC and I don’t know how many. You should look at the condition of the roads and you will know why I am writing this post. It’s been like this and worsening by the day for about a year now and with complete Govt. apathy.



So definitely ‘meri zindagi to badly hai nahi’ and I have no idea how much ‘development’ Bangalore will see. These are some of the snaps before the start of the monsoon this year. And with the rains starting we need to invest in boats, I guess, and keep our cars locked in the garage!!!

This road connects Bannerghatta road to EC and you see many taking this route to avoid Jayanagar-BTM-Silk Board Route.

If you try to understand why no road repair has been happening here then you will get to the classic Indian case of ‘it-is-not-under-me’ syndrome and so no organization/board wants to take the responsibility. The residents and commuters instead face the brunt of this apathy every single day.

BBMP says they are not responsible, ELCIA (the body who is supposed to look after the development and infrastructure of EC) says we will maintain only till Wipro other than that they are not interested, local MLA says, we don’t have money so a Pvt. builder will maintain the road. The builder wants some recognition and wants the illegal encroachment to be taken off first and the PWD says they have no idea how to take off the encroachments on road!

So you can see the loop is still not closed and it’s like those elastics which you can stretch and keep going round and round till you forget what you were doing!

There are also these entities who are the so called individual small builders. You can see  two kinds of properties in EC – one by reputed builders (don’t know how reputed but at least they have clear papers) and the second are the famous ones who doesn’t pay any developmental fee to BBMP/BDA but rather pay bribe to get their project sanctioned. You can see these single building apartments mushrooming in every nook and corner and they neither have a proper drainage system nor have any clear papers. So the BDA says, they have not paid money we are not going to work there.

Now who the hell is going to lay the roads??

It has become an accident prone zone, there aren’t any more potholes, they are craters and you have heavy trucks, construction trucks, cars, buses everything plying through them. I can’t believe a road like this can exist in a city like Bangalore. What must be the situation in smaller towns in some other state! It is especially bad for all the expecting ladies to commute through these roads, if they meet with a tragedy it will be their loss not of any other organization/board and thus they are just not bothered.

And just before the election you will find all MLAs going from complex to complex asking for votes and doing hundred promises [like the one in the recent Idea Cellular Advert – yes that ‘no ullu banaying’ one]

So this time these guys better do the work first, do something good and then we can think on voting. I can see many things have already happened with Change.org, Bangalore Mirror reporting, I remember watching an episode on NDTV citizen journalist on this road issue, but that has been happening for more than a year. As usual NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. We have only wasted time and energy and have done rounds with MLAs, their secretaries, CM’s office and god knows who all.

This time around we have decided on NO ROAD NO VOTE. Enough has been said and nothing has been done, and if you don’t stand up to it nothing will ever happen. They better lay the tar road (which you can see now like some sprinklers, as they are hardly there). I am going to participate in this campaign, because truly, these guys don’t deserve a vote.

The way things are going the Govt might want you to repair it yourself one day. Today the people on Neeladri Road are facing this, I am sure there are many more such cases waiting to see the light of the day.   

If you are facing such a problem nearby don’t wait for someone to listen to you, and if you are staying in Electronic City Bangalore join the movement. There is a demonstration on 27th March 8 AM to 10 AM near Genesis Eco Sphere apartment one Neeladri Road. You can follow #neeladriroadblore on twitter or https://www.facebook.com/saveneeladriroadon Face book.
  

1 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts