Rains Series : Part1

It was a pleasant day. I decided to go to an exhibition with my dad. The exhibition was boring and I was lost in myself. I had no interest in what that sales girl was telling me about a certain piece of cloth named PLAZo. She was enthusiastic and I was least interested. I was unable to concentrate anywhere because my mind was lost in him. I told my dad to drop me to my class and he agreed to it. We were on activa and don’t know from where, it began to rain heavily. Dad stopped the activa near a bus stop. There were some people who were already standing there. We occupied the nearest available chairs. My salwar was completely soaked in water and I hugged myself tightly. I noticed a familiar face gazing at me. He had worn black shirt and blue denims. It was him. I saw him after two long years. He looked changed. He had put on some weight. I wanted to wave but guilt overpowered me. A drop of tear rolled down my cheek. I had turned my face and began to notice rain. I was looking at the rain and somwhere, his eyes were not leaving my sight, waiting for the answers of his unasked questions. But, I had no strengths to face him.

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My dad shifted all his stuff in a plastic bag that he always carried. He looked towards me and said,”The rain is not going to stop for the next two hours. So you get an auto and go to your French class since you are getting late.”  I agreed to his suggestion and nodded. He looked for some auto. He looked for some autos and their he got one. My dad and he, both called for the same auto. I sat there and he was too there with me in that auto. I was in a state of tabula rasa and my mind was bugging me with so many questions, ” What if he asked me? What if he hates me now?” Suddenly there was a bump on th road and I was about to fell when he pulled me towards him. I was breathing heavily and my wet black-blonde hair were on his face. He met my black eyes and we both were lost in each other. After some nano seconds he carefully tucked one strand of hair behind my ear and whispered,” You still look beautiful and your heart even today beats for me. Your silence gave all my answers.” I was taken aback and kept flaunting his innocent eyes. The auto stopped and it was his destination. He stepped out and went away in the right direction. I kept looking at him till he was out of my sight. My heart was bleeding with pain. I wanted to call him but couldn’t. He was my past  which was like rain, that comes, makes you wet and goes. After that the rain stopped. I reached my class but still I could feel his warmth and his hypnotic voice.

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Wrong Means Right End by Varsha Dixit

Background : Wrong Means Right End by Varsha Dixit is a bitter, sweet journey of Sneha,a twenty nine year old woman. She happens to be the protagonist and the story revolves around her and her best friend Nandani. They are inhabitants of Kanpur who have been living Mumbai from quite a long time. Since school they have been Juno Swans. Nandani is married to Aditya whereas Sneha is a divorcee with a child named, Advey.

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Cover– The cover of the book is an amazing blend of colours andtwi figues could be noticed who are man and a woman standing opposite each other.

Title– The title has a great significance and the meaning ofthe title is cleared in the ending chapters.

Plot– Varsha has woven a well constructed plot  which captivates the readers to know more and more. Sneha’slife takes a turn when she comes across her old ally Nikhil Chandel and his cousin Gayatri who happens to be Aditya’s ex fiance and has come back in her best friend’s life to destroy their wedding. In this course, Sneha tries to take Nikhil’s help who is a rude, adamant, arrogant man and they both have their plate of histories. Things become interesting during the course of journey.

Theme– Well, this book has variety of themes. The very first theme is of friendship between Nandani and Sneha. They have been best of friends since they were in school and are ready to help each other at any cost. Nandani always tries to hook her best friend whereas Sneha does every possible thing to save her Sethani’s wedding. Even she crushes her ego and meets Nikhil whom she hates from the core of her heart.

The other theme is of motherhood.Sneha is a single mom who gives the love of mother as well as a father. She tried her level best to make her kiddo happy. And with the cutest responses one can make out that Advey also loves her. She feels complete with him.

One cannot forget theme of love in this chapter. The first lovers are Nandani and Aditya. They are married and are madly in love. They respect each other and at times rule each other. Aditya is overprotective towards Nandani which pisses her off and when she confesses her feelings, he understands her point and allow her to start her Advertising Agency. Furthermore, Aditya is a loyal husband who didn’t cheat his wife despite of being such temptations from Gayatri.

The other set of lovers are Sneha and Nikhil. Yes, from the start they hate each other but when they unite to help Nandani and Aditya, things began to change between them. They go through a heart change and are madly in love but both never accepts it  on face. When Sneha notices Advey’s attachment with Nikhil, somewhere feelings of love starts to bloom in her heart. They also undergo misunderstandings which are created by Nikhil’s ex wife Alisha and her friend Mona. But in the end they also unite.

Characterisation– Varsha’s characters are mixture of round and flat characters. Sneha’s character is being beautifully portrayed along with Nandani and Nikhil’s character. I know its hard to change the language when you describe about certain characters but she has made a perfect synchorization between the characters. Even Aditya and Advey’s characters were impressive. Advey’s character seemed difficult since once needs a lot of research for that and she has done her homework.

Villains like Gayatri, Alisha and Mona were also being looked upon perfectly. All have their roles to play and nothinglooked muddled up. The minor characters like Amla, Pradeep and the boss were also the key for such a perfect portrayal.

Style– Varsha is unique in her writing. She makes readers laugh and cry at the same time. Not only this, her crazy play with mispronounced abuses makes us share fits of laughter. The language is simple, lucid and clear. There are less errors and more flow of emotions. Next, the name of chapters are intriguing. To add more, the author has used mixture of sentences and has taken up third person narrative.

Spoiler– The names used for Nandani confused me in the beginning like Sethani and Kulta. I thought Sethani was a different person first. This could have been avoided.

Others’ Reviews– http://ghatasinghal.blogspot.in/2012/12/wrong-means-right-end-book-review.html

http://blog.fatema.in/2012/12/book-review-wrong-means-right-end-by-varsha-dixit/

http://thetalespensieve.com/2012/12/book-review-wrong-means-right-end/

Availablity– http://www.flipkart.com/wrong-means-right-end-8129120461/p/itmdcnmyfayuwdmf?pid=9788129120465&ref=982433c8-714b-4157-a285-954f6a785924&srno=s_1&otracker=from-search&query=wrong%20means%20right%20end?affid=pillairesh

https://www.goodreads.com/user/sign_in?returnurl=%2Fbook%2Fshow%2F16049361-wrong-means-right-end

About the Author

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Varsha Dixit, the best selling author of four successful contemporary romance books. Her debut book, Right Fit Wrong Shoe was a national bestseller for the year 2010. Varsha was a part of the Indian Television Industry and worked as an assistant director and an online editor. She considers herself a dreamer who thinks deep but writes light. Even though creativity is gender free,Varsha feels blessed and enriched to be a woman.Currently, with her family, Varsha resides in CA, USA.

 

 

 

Rukhsat The Departure- A Review

Rukhsat is an Urdu word which means ‘Leaven’ and in the context to this book it means ‘to depart’. Henceforth,  Rukhsat The Departure by Sujit Banerjee is a collection of twenty six stories with twenty six alphabets and names.

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Cover- The cover of the book is white in colour that has a pencil shaded background of a tree whose leaves seems to fall. The picture signifies the literal meaning of Rukhsat where leaves tend to fall down.

Title- The title is unique and has its adaptation from a different language named Urdu. The title is apt for the type of stories this book contains and has a glimpse of melancholy in it.

Structure- The book has twenty six stories with twenty six names and alphabets, thus making it different fromother collection of stories. The stories are highly descriptive and are written in either first person narrative or third person narrative. There are certain cliches in writing which makes it uncomfortable sometimes. There are references and allusions in the stories. For instance, O Henry’s The Gift of Magi.

Theme- All the stories have theme of sorrow, tabula rasa, guilt and melancholy. SInce, the departure is the time to leave and at this hour nobody can be happy. SO, all the twenty six stories revolve around these emotions.

Others’ Reviews- http://www.privytrifles.co.in/2016/04/book-review-rukhsat-departure-by-sujit.html

http://blogthepoint.blogspot.in/2016/02/book-review-rukhsat-departure.html

http://www.tbcblogtours.com/tbc-blog/book-blitz-rukhsat-the-departure-by-sujit-banerjee

Availability- http://www.amazon.com/Rukhsat-The-Departure-Sujit-Banerjee/dp/9352015452

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27507853-rukhsat-the-departure

 

About The Author

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Born to Bengali parents in Lucknow, I grew up in Patna where I finished my post-graduation in Psychology and ended up becoming a tour operator instead of a Psychologist! Which was
good since a Bengali born in UP and reared in Bihar does not make a great Psychologist! Am I now glad to be in tourism? It has taken me all over the world including places you would have never heard of. Eh? How about Tlacotalpan? It’s in Mexico.

Destiny had other plans as well so I became a reluctant healer. A crazy Shaman in Mexico set the ball rolling and it has rolled all the way to Delhi. Today I both heal as well as read Tarot cards. My wife thinks I am mad. My friends think I am weird. I guess I am both.

My first story was published in a magazine when I was seventeen. The Editor made such a hash of it that I stopped sending out my stories but I continued writing. Then I broke my heart and started writing poems; first in Hindi and then in English. All personal collection. They still remain personal. I do shudder when I read some of them! Then the short stories came back and written over two years – now is a collection.

 

 

 

Spotlight Post


Book Blitz


With You I Dance

by

Aarti V Raman


 

Blurb


Meera Sagar had everything—the perfect job as a principal ballerina (for a prestigious New York ballet company) and a man who loved her as much as she loved him. But tragedy struck on the night

before her biggest performance, forcing her to do the one thing she never wanted to do—come back home. To Mumbai.Now, a year later, Meera is still trying to pick up the pieces, while fending off marriage proposals from her well-meaning but traditional Gujarati family, and figure life out all over again. By starting a ballet school in Mumbai. But she has two problems. One, she doesn’t know anything about running a business. And two, she can’t dance. Not anymore.

Enter . . .

Abeer Goswami. Hotshot junior partner at a South Bombay law firm and a man nursing a broken heart. When he meets Meera again, the woman who left him, he tries his hardest to be her friend, to help her . . . and not let the past get in the way.

And then . . .

There is the sexy Zoya Sehgal. Meera’s only friend in the city and the woman Abeer is currently seeing. They say triangles have pointy edges, for a reason. Will Meera find a new dream in her ballet school? Can Abeer and Meera find their way back to each other again? And, most important, has Meera danced for the last time?

With you I dance is a warm, funny, at times heart-rending, love story of second chances, true love, and finding yourself when your dearest dream has vanished.

Grab your copy on 

About the Author


Aarti V Raman is an established novelist in the romantic thriller genre (White Knight, Kingdom Come) with her third book, a contemporary romance titled “With You I Dance” out soon with Fingerprint Publishing.29 years old, she graduated from Mumbai University in 2007 with a degree in Mass Media focused on Journalism, which provided her the perfect background for conducting sound research on any project. She then went on to study Creative and Professional Writing at Deakin University in Melbourne for post-graduation in 2008. It was there that she learned to hone her craft and lifelong ambition of writing romances that had strong characters and stronger stories that remained etched in the reader’s minds.

While waiting for her big break, Aarti pursued commercial writing and gained a vast amount of knowledge (from fishing tackle to soft toys) that she claims have helped her with molding better stories. Her first novel “White Knight” was published by Leadstart in 2012 and gave her the impetus to continue writing. In 2013, her work was excerpted in the Tamil Edition of Mills and Boon novels. And in 2014, her short story “Post-Coital Cigarette” was chosen to be part of the Rupa Romance Anthology “An Atlas of Love” curated by bestselling author Anuja Chauhan.

Her latest novel “Kingdom Come” (Harlequin MIRA) has enjoyed a brief stay at the bestseller lists in Amazon India. Her work is represented by Red Ink Literary Agency, Delhi. And very recently, she was a speaker and panellist at the Goa Arts and Literary Fest 2014, Vth Edition.

She is currently expanding her skill set to include copy editing, content marketing, and creative writing workshop that help her explore the wonderful world of words in various forms.

Stalk her @

Tweet: Check out the latest release of @Author_Devika #SeducedInSpain. #Romance #TBR #RT http://bit.ly/1pCDRsuTweet About With You I Dance by Aarti V Raman

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Color Me Rich by Mohandeep- A Review

Color Me Rich by MohanDeep is a sensitive love story that is a blend of love, friendship, pain, agony, passion, lust and a suicide. Well, it is a high profile story where we find action, drama, tears and many more.

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Cover– The cover has manipulation touch which makes it look dazzling.

Title– The title ‘Color Me Rich’ is an apt one as the story revolves around different shades of a painter’s life.

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Plot– The plot of the novel sounds enthralling as the protagonists play a vital role in it. It is a saga of Akash and his passion for paintings. During the quest to prove himself he works really hard and during his path he comes across a rich lady, Zenobia Taraporewala who instantly falls for him and teh series of events takes place which leads to her death. Akash is accused of her muder. Thus, the story binds us till the end and we are more interested in knowing about the progress of the novel.

Theme– The main theme is of passion. If we have passion for something then nobody can stop us from success but when other things overpower us, we tend to lose our passion and suffer from a block where our ability to imagine things fades away.

The next significant theme is friendship. Suma and Pran have been friends till the end of the novel which makes it appealing. Suma sacrfices her dress from Akash’s suit which he later witnesses and realises her worth.

The other theme is love. We notice unconditional love of Suma and Akash who didn’t need to say those three words. There care and love for each other said it all which in the end jealoused Zenobia and became the reason for her Nadir. Further, an instance of conditional love is seen between Akash and Zenobia. It is noticed that Zenobia knew very well that how passionate Akash was for his paintings so she targeted that point and won her heart. She thought the fame and name would make him fall for her but after the wedding, Akash felt gloomy as he was not used to the luxuries and missed his greed to work hard. He went through a block which made him irriated all the time. After marriage he had lost his peace of mind.

Style– The style of the novel is simple, straightforward and moves in flashback technique followed by a third person narrative. The news reports sounded telegraphic. Further, we find glimpses of Hindi, French languages and use of some jargons makes it appreciable. The highlighter is the perfect editing and some lines.

Spoiler– Well, I felt the name of chapters could have been better instead of todays and yesterdays. And the spacing between different chapters was not symmetrical. It could have been arranged in a systematic way.

Others Reviewshttps://travelknots.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/colour-me-rich-mohan-deeps-after-eurekha/

http://www.iluvfiction.com/2016/04/book-review-color-me-rich-by-mohan-deep.html

http://www.filmfestivals.com/blog/siraj_syed/color_me_rich_fact_fiction_or_faction

Availability– http://www.amazon.in/Color-Me-Rich-Mohan-Deep/dp/8192678520

http://www.flipkart.com/color-me-rich-english/p/itmeeya4avs4g6kg?pid=9788192678528

About the Author

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http://www.mohandeep.com/

 

 

 

Generation gap won’t let India to grow

A few days back, I was attending a wedding of a family friend and suddenly my uncle called me. It was a group of like eight people sitting together and discussing something. My uncle asked, “So what about future, what do you want to become?”

I replied, ” Currently, I am meeting and making connections with high profile people. So in that occassion only I want to do a business in future.”
My uncle laughed, “Hahaha!…..business? Why are you studying then?”
Another uncle said, “Nothing is good as compared to government jobs.”
My uncle said, ” Absolutely right, bas sarkari job lag jaye ladke ki, fir to bas aish hai. bas 1-2 ghante kaam karna hai fir ac main bethkar mazze plus job security, fir pension aur life mast”
AFTER 5 MINUTES:
Someone started another topic and all of them started feeling bad about what is happening in India.
One uncle said, ” India will never rise, ministers won’t let that happen.”
Suddenly I realized something and I left the place.
I realized how can someone expect India to grow when their own mindset is to sit free in government jobs.
Its so easy to sit together after a long time in groups and pity ministers of India but when the question is asked to those groups “beta kya karna chahta hai? and the reply is ” sarkari job lag jaye, aish hai fir toh”
CONCLUSION:
Personal Transformation is National Transformation.
ABout The GUest
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Yadhuvir Singh is a sales and marketing coach, a motivational speaker, a writer, a lifestyle coach, a spiritual teacher and at last an engineering student.

Challenges I faced in Writing

Guest Post 2

Thank you for hosting me at your blog, Surbhi. Today I would like to talk about the challenges faced by writers.

Writing is the process of translating thoughts and images in your mind to the keyboard or the paper as the case may be. In as much, it looks to be a fairly simple process. But when you are writing fiction, those images and thoughts have to follow a particular cadence. They have to be woven into the pattern of logic and sequence. Ask any writer and they will tell you, writing – serious writing – is the hardest thing to do, especially over long periods.

Let me take you through the challenges I have faced as a writer. Let me know if they resound to you.

Initial stages:
When I first thought about writing and ventured to write, I often found this question staring at me in the face and echoing in my ears. Why are you stuck to the keyboard? I had no idea that taking a character through internal monologue could take up a WHOLE EVENING! My family was often exasperated at the amount of time I spent on writing. Their expressions conveyed that they thought I was wasting my time. Their attitude changed with time, but starting out that was a big hurdle to face. I couldn’t explain that the problems of the characters had become more important than the mundane chores of daily routine. Try saying that aloud and you’ll get the idea. We writers live so much in our heads that it takes time to unwrap our concerns from fiction and transfer them to fact. Unfortunately, people around us have no idea what we’re going through. However, I stuck with it, formed a sort of writing routine, disciplined myself not to let writing encroach on family time and eventually they realised writing was here to stay.

During the learning curve of discovering writing was not just art, but also craft, I learnt about:

  • Grammar
  • Characters’ motivation.
  • Realistic setting.
  • Convincing villains or indeed any secondary characters.
  • Am I riveted to and surprised by this story?

You might take a note of these things as a checklist for your book.

During the publishing journey:

Like every new writer, I had some vague idea that finishing a book was all that was required to become an author. This was dispelled rapidly when I clicked the submit button and offers of raving publishers failed to materialize. Rejection. Just that word is enough to set up any writer’s back. When we can see the gold in our work, why are the publishers so oblivious to it? It took some attempts to finally have it sink in that finishing a manuscript is just the beginning. Getting published was a real and Avenger style seemingly implausible hurdle. Eventually, I hit upon bright times. I gained a lot of experience. It is not wrong when they say, the failures are those who give up. When you stick to it, the breakthrough comes to you. However, at every step, a steep learning curve awaits you. During this process, I learnt three things:

  • Contracts are never fair to the writer.
  • They are not that unfair once you get used to it.
  • You have to decide what you want out of your writing career: i) Money ii) satisfaction of being published iii) independence to make your decisions regarding your work.
  • Writing is best regarded as a hobby, not a profession.
  • Above evaluation is subject to change.

Those are quite hard lessons to learn. But as they say, what doesn’t put you off, you makes you better. Well, they don’t say it. I do J

After getting published:

I’m sure most writers can’t figure out why they are compelled to write. There is just an internal drive. Sometimes it can fade out when the rush of everyday life takes over but it comes back before long. Publishers only accept a handful of submissions depending on the ‘brand’ that they are maintaining. So self publishing makes a lot of sense. However, before stepping into it, it’s essential to review the pointers above.

Once I had taken the decision to self publish, it still didn’t hit until much later how much work was to be done. In self publishing, you are on your own. So, that was really exhilarating in a sense because, well, you OWN your book, blurb, font size, cover and what not! Then it slowly began to sink in that I’d have to work and build these things. And build them to a standard competitive to the publishers’. I was staunchly fixed on one decision. I wasn’t going to splash a lot of money on writing. I had no idea what kind of returns there would be, so lean spending seemed a sensible option. I bought least cost pictures, got hold of free cover maker software and took the plunge. After two months, I was seeing money. It seemed pretty unbelievable at first but gradually, the steady trickle became an accepted fact. However, the moment I relaxed my hold and stopped looking at numbers, the sales fell. It sank in that I was losing writing time because I had to take care of spreading the word about my books.

Marketing

Let me not even touch the subject of marketing. It’s a writing time eating insect which throws you into a perplexing soap opera of doubts. If you are a relatively introvert type like me, you don’t want to have to do anything with it. However, unless you have written just to get rid of the story in your brain with no desire to reach anybody, you want your book to be seen. I heard and absorbed terms like platform, social media, promotions, blog tours. Took quite a while getting used to, I can tell you.

Time management

This is where the crux of the problem lies. Once I had got used to social media and blogging, I found the enemy of writing was time.
The most important thing in any project is the learning part. In writing also one must hone and sharpen the knowledge of the writing craft. The second most important is planning your schedule so you leave some time for writing and reading on most days, if not every day. The third is sticking to it. Even on days you don’t feel like writing. It is by allotting a fixed time period to writing that a project is finished. However, allow yourself relaxation on some occasions. If an idea jumps up and bites you, you have to make room for it and go a little off course.

This is what happened to me when I was penning my latest book. Writing His Christmas Delight was a challenge because it took me right out of my busy schedule. It was supposed to be a short story written to take part in an anthology. The anthology didn’t materialize but Jay and Myra became people with troubles and I had to get them out of the situation they had got themselves into.

……………….

About the author:

Summerita Rhayne writes contemporary and historical romance with lots of emotional conflict. She first got published in 2013 and has won contests with prestigious publishers such as Harlequin and Harper Collins India. Her pet belief is, if the inspiration is strong enough, the story characters will find a way to make the writer pen them down, even when writing time is in short supply. When cerebrally confronted with the sizzling interaction of two Alpha characters, the only way to get peace is write their book!

At heart, she’s a family person and even though she loves her profession, she happily becomes a homemaker when not at work. She loves winding down with music, romcoms, cricket (strictly watching only) and social networking.

Author links:

Follow her at Twitter @SummeritaRhayne

Add her books at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8505238.Summerita_Rhayne

Follow at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Summerita-Rhayne/e/B00MZQ0PUC

Subscribe to her newsletter to get a Free ebook:

http://summeritarhayne.com/about-me/183-2/ 

 

Blogger’s Note: Well this is my new account hence the first blog post is on my other blog and you can check it at:

www.reviewswithsur.blogspot.in