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My First Book Published! – Blank Space Anthology

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Hello hello… hope you all are doing great on this Wednesday morning. I am doing fine on this bright morning. Well, the reason for my chirpiness is not just the fine bright morning. I have news for you guys. I am finally an author now!!!  Yay… My short story was selected and published in an anthology and I finally have my author copies with me in hand. Yeah it’s my first publication so I am super duper excited! So if I am sounding too excited, excuse please. 🙂

And here’s the first look of my book for you guys. It’s called Blank Space – Filled with Inspiration. It’s probably the first anthology published with 100 stories from 100 inspiring authors. A big thanks to Dinesh Kumar Radhakrishnan and Propel Steps for compiling all these wonderful stories and co-coordinating with so many authors. Edited by Preethi Venugopal & Barun Bajracharya this definitely is a great collection of inspiring short stories.


And what’s more I have my Good Reads author page too. 🙂 So you can understand my excitement I guess. Now that I have the copies with me I am reading through the stories and feeling great about all the writers. Some are really worth applauding. I also read some good reviews by readers. It only makes me happy about it.

Blank Space – Filled with Inspiration is available on Amazon.in and Propel Steps Site. It’s available in a Paperback format as of now. It will be available on Flip kart also soon. I’ll let you know when it does.

And there it is – My story on pg 130


If you guys read and like the book, please be kind to let me know in a comment below, Tweet, in my FB page or you could mail me twinklingtina-at-gmail-dot-com.

Well there’s more in store. There are more stories in the pipeline! I recently took part in a blogging contest – Game of Blogs hosted by BlogAdda. You would have read the posts from Team ByLines ( if you are a regular here). And guess what our team ByLines won with our sci-fi thriller! And as a result we are getting published by Lead Start publishing. Isn’t that great news! You can read our Game of Blog journey in our Twitter Chat with BlogAdda.

There’s more, I have been selected in another anthology too. And this time it will be a love story. So 2015 is packed with my literary work! I love it already. Wish me luck people.

Will look forward to listening from you guys. Love.

P.S. My story in Blank Space is called “Live your Dreams”.

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A good company is all that matters – #Together

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Image Source: Wicid.tv
Doesn’t sometimes life get boring? Simple boring and mundane! You wake up, get ready, drive to work, spend the day at work in meeting, with bosses, cursing the bosses sometimes, get back home in the evening, do your usual stuff, watch the television, have dinner and you are off to sleep. And next day wake up and repeat the same. I am sure it isn’t only me who faces this.

Sometimes I feel I am running on an assembly line – routine life throughout the week and some household chores over the weekend with an occasionally movie or a shopping trip. When you are leading this ‘assembly line’ life there are times when you just can’t take it anymore. I feel like bursting out at times and just want to sleep for a weak or just go somewhere without the phone, without the laptop just away from everyone just to recharge my battery perhaps. Does that sound weird?? It might be.


But this wasn’t the case all along. When I shifted to Bangalore I chose to stay as a paying guest rather than shift in a 1 BHK studio apartment sort of setting. Because I simply can’t lead my life without talking to anyone all day long. You always need company in your life – company of parents, friends, love, colleague or whoever you are comfortable with. Making new friends might not seem easy when you grow up – but for a person like me it’s the easiest. In the four years that I have stayed in the PG I have made some amazing friends, I have had amazing roomies and great friends – whom I consider my soul sisters. There were times when we made sure we were back home on time so that we could cook dinner together and all of us could have dinner together, forgetting about all the weird work timings that we are forced into these days. Weekends were a party – we literally shopped till we dropped and made sure everyone had some fun.

But with time things move on, you go in your different directions. It’s specially tough for girls since you get married and settle down where ever your husband lives. Similarly our group disintegrated and got scattered across the world. The digital media is the only saving grace in these times of adversity.

Coming back to the present, during one of those phase when I wanted to burst out of this routine life I got to know two of my ‘besties’ had come down to my city from Muscat & US. That news itself was quite healing. And we decided we just had to meet over the weekend. Thankfully that wait wasn’t too long.

We met over lunch and relived our moments of staying together. It is in fact some of the best times of my life. Hours passed by and we didn’t realize it was dark already outside. When you are with your best pals you can’t keep count of two things – the time you spent, and the amount of positive energy that comes to you.



I got them over to my place for a sleepover and we had a great weekend together having our own Halloween party! It was really crazy time as we used to enjoy earlier. The next week and days after that I felt so rejuvenated. And it was just the togetherness of friends – not a trip to an exotic location and not even a quick break from work – it was just the right company at the right time that works like magic. I’m sure it does the same for you too. Doesn’t it? Well, that is the power of being #together. 

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This post is part of #Together campaign by https://housing.com/


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ReviewsBook Review

Book Review – Ramayana – The Game of Life, Shattered Dreams by Shubha Vilas

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Mythology and fictions based on mythology is the newest trend in India. Our ancient epics and mythological stories seem to be still intriguing the authors and of, course the readers. It is quite evident, from the success of the Shiva Trilogy and other fictions based on mythology, that our epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are still quite popular among the Indian audience.

 
Last week I was reading this new book of the Ramayana – The Game of Life series titled, Shattered Dreams by Shubha Vilas. It is in fact the sequel to an already popular first installment of the series Rise of the Sun Prince. And as the title suggests it’s based on the epic Ramayana. So how has been the book? Read on for the review.
 
Though I had not read the first book so I read this one without any anticipation and thought it would be the known Ramayana told in a different way. The story opens with King Dasarath’s turmoil and his decision for the coronation of his most able son – Rama. You have the scheming Manthara and queen Kaikeyi’s wishes that leads to Rama’s exile. The citizens love Rama and his valor and are devastated with this decision. It also describes the agony that Rama’s younger brother and Kaikeyi’s son Bharat goes through when he finds out the truth.
 
Shattered Dreams, uncannily is not a story depicting Sita’s love and sacrifice for Rama, or the might of Ravana – the kind of Ramayana we all are accustomed with. In fact, we see the author etch the other characters beautifully – something you don’t see in most Ramayana editions.
 
Have you ever thought why king Dasharath was named so? I never knew that before. He could move his chariot in ten directions at the same time and defeat ‘asuras’. I also didn’t know earlier that Kaikeyi was not only his wife but his most trusted charioteer and it was Kaikeyi who in adverse situation had placed her finger within the chariot wheel to support it and ensured maximum support to Dasarath in a war.
 
Shubha Vilas’s Shattered Dreams follows the Ramayana in its purest form. He has kept the essence of Valmiki Ramayana intact and has taken influences from Ramcharitmanas and Kamba Ramayana. The author doesn’t twist tales but offers minute details of emotions and devotion of people. He gives an extensive narrative of the journey to the exile. From emotions to the beauty of nature – he has made everything come alive.
 
As we all know Ramayana is the epitome of brotherhood. It is the story of devotion of brothers too. Characters of Lakshmana and Bharat have been developed pretty well here. They both stand true to their characters – standing by their elder brother and facing the different hardships.
 
You don’t see much of Ravana in this book, only a brief intro – I think he will be appearing in the next part. But there are several interesting anecdotes which tell you a complete new story about Ravana – who he was, how he got transformed and his encounter with Yama.
 
As you read through, you see these footnotes which offers good knowledge on the backstories and trivias. You might think you know Ramayana pretty well but there are several facets that you will get to know for the first time may be.
 
About the Author
 
Shubha Vilas is a motivational speaker and a spiritual seeker. This is his second release after the successful Rise of the Sun Prince. Apart from being spiritual he is also a law graduate L.L.B Specializing in Intellectual Property Law : Patent Law. He also blogs at Thought Sutras.
 
My Rating – 3/5. Overall a nice read of the already popular epic.


BOOK DETAILS
Publisher Jaico
ISBN-10 8184955316
ISBN-13 978-8184955316
Genre Mythology
Number of Pages 404
Publication Year January 2015
Language English

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

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Fiction & WritingFive Sentence FIctionMicro FictionUncategorized

Five Sentence Fiction – Sound Sleep

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Writing a tiny fiction after a long time. Hope you’ll like it. 

I have not written these five sentence fictions for sometime. 

But since I am back on my second spell I hope to not take a break again too soon. Not in next 2-3 months at least! So go on, read and enjoy.  






SOUND SLEEP

For some moments Hazel couldn’t believe what lay in front of her, when she returned from the store.


She couldn’t fathom who could do this to her.

Her son Rowan was too little to do something as crazy as this, then who could it be?

And then she spotted Mr. Teddy happily sleeping on the couch as if nothing had happened, but the fallen confetti on his head gave his story away.


“Teddy, you just spoiledmy entire Christmas decoration and you’re happily snoring…wake up now”.

Image Source: Lillie McFerrin



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This post is for Lillie McFerrin Writes Five Sentence Fiction for the prompt SPOILED. 
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One bold decision for a new me

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu
Image Source: www.starresults.com
You know how Indian families are – close knit and overly protective. They stay together and are together in thick and thin. And being a single daughter means being in the protection a little too much. While growing up I have enjoyed a lot of luxuries of having dropped to school in our car to being picked up from the school bus stop (whenever I took a school bus). I didn’t have to take a local bus or transport ever till I reached college and insisted I travel by metro like my friends. I am sure my parents only wanted good for me and felt I should be comfortable and safe.

Once I graduated from college, I decided I need to move out of my home and be on my own. That is not what most people do in India. But I feel it is quite important to learn to be on your own and take your own responsibility. Now convincing my parents to just let me out and be on my own would have been simply stupid since it would have got rejected even before I spoke a single world.


The best I could do is get a chance in a good college or university (which were better than those in my city) in another city or abroad. Because I always knew my parents had very high regards for education. Since my dad is an alumni of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, convincing him of letting me go abroad wouldn’t have been a problem. So all I did in my 3rd year of graduation was researching on universities, colleges, courses, student work permits, and also checking out universities in other cities in India.

After college, I went and met student counselors of some of these British universities and process of ILETS and TOEFEL – and all this without the knowledge of my parents. But I knew I needed a backup plan too – being in India at least. And just as I had expected when my mom got to know about all these plans she had a lot of problem why I wanted to go away to Leeds (that’s the one I had chosen!). She couldn’t fathom I, their only daughter will go away and stay miles apart! She also had assumed I’ll get into a relationship with some white guy or even worse some Pakistani!!

But thankfully my plan B worked. I had gone and given admission tests and interviews in universities in Delhi and Bangalore and got through all the three that I had applied for. So I chose to take up media studies in Bangalore. My mother was relieved with only one thing – you can reach Bangalore in 2 and half hours and not some 16 hours!! So when I went with the proposal of shifting to Bangalore they agreed without much trouble.

There began my journey of being responsible. It was a baby step to arrive in a new city but it a Big Bold Step in itself – being alone in a new city. I didn’t allow my parents to fly down to Bangalore with me so that they could help me settle down. I decided to do that all by myself. And believe me, the years that I spent in the paying guest accommodation are the best formative years of my life. I had no experience of managing anything forget about finances – but there I was managing even my food. And its in those years I discovered a self taught and self styled chef in myself.

This one Bold Decision has made me fiercely independent which is a trait that I like in myself. And I am happy I carried it forward while getting my first job (not from campus placement though, a much better than the ones in campus) and also after my marriage.

Life is beautiful and has a lot to offer, you need to take that step and #StartANewLife.  



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This post is part of #StartANewLife campaign by https://housing.com/.


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The Happy Baby Story

by Tina Basu
written by Tina Basu

Aren’t babies the most wonderful creation of god? Innocent little souls who only know how to give overload of love and joy to their families. Why only families, isn’t a cute little grin of a new born little baby the most amazing thing in the world for anyone?


On the other hand a baby doesn’t ask much from you. They give you love unconditionally. But when you have a new born or a little toddler in your home it’s not always rosy specially for the mother. When you become a mom it’s like a full time job without any leave, but the joys you get to see your baby give you a smile is worth it.

My little nephew had this amazing talent of knowing when to get cranky to get all the attention. Aren’t babies’ big attention seekers? But that is exactly what makes them so cute. It was a great deal putting him to sleep – he always decided when to sleep when he was just few months old. Staying awake like an owl was his habit which eventually was forced upon everyone around!

You need to be very careful with infants on what is bothering them – are they feeling cold, feeling hot, hungry, wants a diaper change – I could never guess why my nephew was crying! Specially when they are cranky in the mornings when they wake up. We had a lot of permutation combination experimented on changing crib location, softer sleeping clothes, more pillows. But for a long time we had no idea what was wrong. There were several SOS calls to the child specialist and loads of advises from elders in the family on what to do, but not everything helped for long.

Then we figured out may be he is not feeling dry enough with all the dampening of diapers through the night. Cloth diaper was a big no no as we didn’t want him to have rashes or feel wet. But the diapers were not dry enough. We had tried out almost all sorts of diaper brands available in the market but night time things failed to keep the little guy dry on his skin.

My sister changed to the new Pampers Baby Dry Pants to see if it worked as it promised. And guess what he woke up a happy kid with a wide grin. It was amazing to see him sleep peacefully and wake up happy. The diaper not only soaked everything brilliantly and was dry outside without any leakage it was also dry enough inside. It saved all the irritation and redness that he was facing.

He loved all these peppy Bollywood music – we played the music in the morning and he was happy to give a little shake and a wide smile. As he started growing up he picked up a liking for these songs and loved to jump around in his baby chair whenever they were played. We hope and pray he grows up to be a happy and good human being.

Visit http://www.rewardme.in/tag/Pampers to know more & get a free sample

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