Twenty- five Seven

Obsessed #TheDailyPost

August 12, 2016

It’s 6 am and the city is still waking up. A man walks by with his dog and an old granny hobbles to the 24×7 grocery store. I’m alone at the bus stop. A man soon joins me. He looks down at his phone then up at the sky. Waiting for the bus to come. Another woman joins us and then another and another. They all look at their mobiles.

They take their eyes off the screen only when they swipe their cards . Then once inside the bus they continue looking at their mobiles. They stare obsessively , not bothering to look up save a minute before their stop. Everyone on the bus is busy with their mobiles.

And I see the same behaviour on the next bus that I take and every other bus. At any given time, I notice that all the passengers are obsessed with their mobiles. They are constantly looking down, fiddling with their headphones or swiping their screens.

Even those who come in groups , look at their phones and not at each other. Not a smile is exchanged nor a polite hello. Each person is obsessed with his hand held device. There is a sense of urgency, an impatience even to be connected every moment of the day with people who are on the other side of the message , tap, tap, tapping away.

And it is the same in the train and the tram and every public place.
Lego a timeless toy for endless joy #FridayReflections

August 12, 2016

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A toy from childhood

Undoubtedly Lego remains my favourite toy from childhood. Today when I see my grandchildren bring out the Lego their mothers ( my daughters) played with, I am immediately transported back to my own childhood. Oh ! Those endless hours my brother and I spent with our huge wooden box of Lego.

My father had the box specially made for us and every afternoon we took it out of the toy cupboard, like a treasure chest .While the whole household slept, my brother and I would transform our bedroom into a tiny township, or a hotel, or a hospital or a playground. And along with his collection of dinky toys, we’d spend hours playing out different scenarios that our imaginations let create.

In my time, the Lego was simple – small plastic bricks in red, yellow, white and the occasional black. There weren’t too many options to choose from either but even at 3 and 4 , our little fingers were adept at making castles , buildings, farmhouses and almost anything we wanted. As the years went by, the Lego became more detailed and my daughters collected sets that were age appropriate in bricks that were suitable for baby fingers, little fingers and finally adult fingers. This graded approach to building actually reduces the level of frustration that little fingers often face when trying to pry apart the bricks.

The Lego of my grandchildren is even more different with its bright Duplo bricks and figures that make building worlds.

A childhood classic

This building toy is truly ageless and classic – with bricks that have stayed true even after fifty years. Our vintage Lego set still lies in my mother’s loft in the old wooden box that somehow has shrunk with age. Nor is it as heavy as it seemed. But once opened, it remains a source of magic – a toy with endless possibilities and hours and hours of fun.

This is my response to the prompt A well-loved toy from my childhood as I join other bloggers at #FridayReflections hosted by Corinne and Sanch
#WritingWednesday – a memoir in a moment

August 10, 2016

On writing a memoir

Writing is always a therapeutic exercise for me.Once I was going through a personal issue and I used to call out to the Universe to help solve it. It was like releasing the pressure of a cooker , the moment I articulated my request .

In a lifetime of a fifty years there are lots of memories that flit in my mind. Some pleasant and some not. Writing a memoir only about pleasant things would be fun, interesting and uplifting. Writing a memoir of bad memories is not a very good idea.

Conflicts sell

Unfortunately a memoir of pleasant happenings won’t meet with commercial success because happy times aren’t good news. Only conflicts hold a reader’s attention. People love reading about how others solve their problems .

Consider these two scenarios for a memoir in a moment –

The blue umbrella

One bright summer day I decided to shop for a blue umbrella. Within minutes , I got into a bus and was at the swankiest Mall in town. I spotted just the umbrella I wanted, the perfect shade of blue and one that folded easily. I was thrilled! I paid for it and walked out happy, licking the ice cream cone I treated myself to on the way out.

Now some one reading this story is bound to say ” so what?” Even if I embellished it with a description of the mall, the glorious day and described very evocatively my whole experience, it won’t grab many eyeballs.

On the other hand, consider this :

One bright summer day, I set off to the Mall looking for a blue umbrella that I long wanted. Unfortunately two buses that went by were full . It was hot and I was getting impatient. Finally, decided to hitch a ride .

I put out my thumb and within minutes a young gentleman stopped his car and asked me where I wanted to go.

The Mall was on his way to work , he said, so I stepped inside . The boy looked too young to be driving such a swanky Mercedes, I thought while getting in.

He seemed to sense my question because he suddenly slowed down and poked my waist with a cold , hard, steel knife .

“One word and you’re dead,” the man cautioned. I instinctively broke into a sweat.

As he drove past the Mall I began to panic. Where was he headed and why did he pick on me?

Twenty minutes later he turned towards the Expressway. Obviously, he was headed out of town. And I was part of his getaway plan. I was frozen with fear and I didn’t even want to think how it would end.

Just then my phone rang.

“If I don’t answer it,my family will panic.”

He nodded his consent and lifted the knife so that I could get to my phone.

I took my chance and immediately yanked the bag and hurled it at him. He dropped the knife. At the same time I pulled the brake and the car came to a halt. Another car crashed into us and the young man was confused: to run or not to run?

To cut a long story short , the Police arrested the young man praised me for my sharp thinking .

I never did get that blue umbrella but I learnt a lesson for life.

Which story did you like?

So my response to today’s prompt for #WritingWednesdays would be – if I really do have the guts to tell things as they are, I would write a memoir. But honestly in my ordinary life, there has been nothing extra ordinary to merit a full length memoir.