Hometown for immigrants

I have had this blog for over a decade now.

This place has probably been the reason that led me to become a writer in the first place. Did I start writing seriously for the first time in this blog? Maybe not. But I have written and lived my life through words. And a lot of them are inscribed upon this blog. 

I do not honestly remember what made me take up writing on this blog. This was not my first blog (and perhaps won't be the last). But it has always been a trusty friend, every time I have wanted to come back to it. The last time I returned to the blog was nearly a year ago. It was with the promise to write more, write stories and tales. But it never happened. 

I feel that I harbour the notion that a lot of writers have, across the globe - that I am not really a writer. I haven't written as much as I should have. Or would be willing to. The ideas and words have come in spurts and short bursts, but never like a steady, flowing stream. When it did, I managed to churn out a short story. And in the offhand case, even a novel. While it is not a published piece of work, I am moderately proud of it. Purely because it saw completion. Completion comes rare to me, unless and until I drag myself over the finish line. 

I strongly feel that every single time I have tried to pressure myself or promised myself to get back to writing in earnest, I have failed. So this time around, I shall avoid it and simply see if I can do this. 

I haven't written a story in months. And the fact has been nagging at me. I look for remedies in reading, endless errands that I manage to run, just to avoid writing. And I  do not believe that there is a lack of inspiration. Or ideas for that matter. I often find it difficult to take things to a fruitful closure. And this (probably) is a reflection of my life as well. Sticking to a line of action has always been troublesome for me. Validation or looking for it, has also been something that has often driven me to do certain things, and even led to achievements. I remember how, when I finally started to get some traction on this blog, I realized that there was more that could be done. I could write stories. Move people with what they were reading. And I kept doing it for a long time, years even. A whole selection of my writings from this blog would become 'Cold Feet' - my first work in print, published by an Indy press that would shut shop in the future. And after Cold Feet would come 'Revenge', a novella that would be created within a week of writing while being at work in Hindustan Times. The short stories would continue being created, one at a time, in short spurts of creativity. One of them would find space in a UK Anthology of Horror Stories. Two others would find a place of pride in two Indian anthologies. One carelessly doodled comic strip would also end up being featured in a short comic by Amar Chitra Katha. Even this would shut shop in a few editions time. The fate of magazines, publishing houses, or much rather, anything associated with the written word seems to be imminent death. And that is a depressing thought. 

Which makes one wonder. Isn't all of Everything headed the same way? A world that will eventually collapse on itself sometime in the future?

When I started writing this post, I was mulling over how people move from small towns to bigger cities and capitals for higher studies or to find jobs. I am a part of the same bandwagon. When I moved to Delhi in 2003, I was a small town boy at heart. Fifteen years later, I am still the same. The wonders of a big city never cease to amaze me. I still walk around, open-mouthed, if I end up going into a plush building at Cyber Hub or walk through the high-sheen corridors of a DLF Emporio, the air heavy with exotic scents. But that is not what I wanted to talk about.

When I return to my hometown once in a while, I look around, trying to connect back to places that I grew up in. The alleys (where I went shopping), my school (doesn't look as big anymore) and endless other places. But there is a strong sense of time being stagnant. I have seen flyovers and buildings crop up around me in Delhi over the years. The city has been evolving over time and it is easy to spot. When I go back home, it seems little has changed. But, this is not true. There are multiplexes there and big malls, just like in Delhi. The consumerist beast has spread its jaws far and wide. Perhaps, there is some secret circuitry that refuses to let me see the change that has happened in my city. It still feels the same. Or maybe that's how it will always feel. A city, built on the foundation of my memories of it.

Which is what this blog feels like to me. It is like the hometown for immigrants, a place where you come back years later and feel that nothing has changed. But things have. Almost all the blogs I followed back then have shut down. Blogspot isn't what it was anymore. Hell, I don't even know if blogging is the same anymore.

But, hey. I can still blog. In this place which feels like home.

But will this turn into something that has a pattern, a form? Something I can hope and bank my writing career upon? I do not know. And like everything else, I am worried about leaving this garble of thoughts and ideas incomplete once again. I started writing this yesterday and couldn't finish it, so it definitely needs to be completed. Baby steps. This is like flexing of muscles or the time I tried to take up running. Maybe my writing muscle will grow over time. It is critical that I put a Finis at the end of this. So I will pretend that this is an end and stop right here. 

A new beginning

A writer, during his lifetime, shall have many ends.

Each end will spell the culmination of a chapter in his life - an affliction, a period of happiness, the short sojourn of a love well spent. Each of these will leave small marks, dimples on a moon face, scarring it, disfiguring it for a lifetime. Each will tell their own remarkable tale of love, hate, angst, loneliness, boredom, intrigue, jealousy or plain heartbreak. But all of them would add up, fishes of a school, to become the same moon face that would be looked at and be wondered at by everyone gazing at it. How lovely is that moon that casts its light upon our vast, desolate lands! How, in spite of the marks upon your skin, you continue to be a beacon of beauty for bards to quote and poets to write of.  How corrupted yet fulfilling. How marked, yet virginal.

The writer shall rise from each end, borne upon the shoulders of his unfinished narratives and decaying, half-baked characters, a looming presence upon the horizon. He shall land upon the empty shores of white prose, and sow the seeds of new narratives. Marking plot after plot with his mighty pen, he shall continue demarcating small pastures for growing different tales. He shall then proceed to water it with the blood of creativity, the sweat of his diminishing wit and the tears of his failed attempts at literary glory.

And you, the reader shall be witness, yet again. The witness to this new beginning. A fresh sprout, the tender sapling of a newly forming story. A tale so tasty, so magical in imaginings that it shall make your flesh goose-up like a freshly dried-up lake bed.

Prepare, for the spring of stories is about to begin. Scribblers Inc is back.

A tale of tales

Let me tell you a story, for two reasons. The first is that time is running out and clearly, time is always of the essence. The second is, it’s the only thing I can do, with any sort of passable merit. So let me get on with it.

There once lived a small boy in a city. The boy still lives but he is no longer a boy. He is a man now, and he attends to manly duties as they might come to one, with time. But once, he was a boy and he had dreams. These dreams were passed on to him through books; rows and rows upon them, all arranged neatly like the prayer lines during his morning assembly. And all he learnt from them, as time passed, was to have a wish; a wish to write the words and worlds that were written in them. Like the words that flowed out of those books, down through his mind like so many quiet gurgling rivers, he wanted his name attached to them. He wanted his own stories to flow out of his nib and make hundreds of mouths around the world turn into little ‘o’s in wonder. Was he able to do it? You bet he was. But the 'o's on peoples faces continued to elude him. 

So he struggled in school to tell his tales. He scribbled them on answer sheets. He penned them down in numerous exercise books. On a few occasions, he even tried to pass them on in the maths paper. But like butter on butterpaper on a hot summer day, it didn’t stick. But the boy did not want to give up so easily. His parents mounted pressure on him. ‘Be a doctor’, ‘be an engineer’, they said. They brought down young lads, their late adolescent pimples still showing, engineers who had just started out and fledgling doctors who would be practicing in a few years’ time. But that little boy stood his ground, an oak that refused to be bowed down by winds.

Time passed on. And it let its rot set in the boy’s dreams. It decayed and turned, bits of it quietly slipping away. But one thing remained; a little gift that the books had given him. It was his sense of wonder, one that led him down the road towards an unending thirst for knowledge. It carved out the job of a copywriter for him…one that let him earn his daily bread and not let his spark of creativity die. That boy (nay, a man now!) still often seeks a quiet moment off his work. He uncaps his pen carefully and crafts his tales for anyone who cares to hear. He still dreams that withered dream of pursuing the Creative Writing Programme at UEA in the UK and set out to complete the dream that the little boy had dreamed so long ago. And someday, by jove, he will.

This story, as you might have guessed, is mine. When I read about this contest, I almost wished that the top prize would be a scholarship to a Master’s Programme in Creative Writing in the UK. Not getting rewards have never stopped the writer in me. I saw this as a chance of telling a story that I have never had the courage to put down in words. I do not know if what I have written here will ever come true. However, I do know, that this contest has made me pick up the proverbial pen yet again and put down my thoughts into words. I has made me start spinning my yarns and interweave them into a tapestry of lore. And for that, I am thankful.

Stories, in their purest meaning, stand for something which is not based in facts. By that argument, this is a story and not one at the same time. That little boy is still waiting out there, to create his own shelves filled with books carrying his words. And as I write this, he is smiling. 

(Written for the #knowledgeisgreat contest. Learn more about it at knowledgeisgreat.in)

Thinkshop - the future of buying

Technology is changing as we speak, and so are all our experiences associated with it. Fiction is turning to design, to technology, to reality everyday. With better gadgets, better cars, better technology, the number of steps that lead us to buy something is getting smaller and smaller.
Shopping started from shops, graduated to malls and finally, post-graduated to online shopping. Current online shopping experiences like E-Bay give you everything that you could possibly need out of a store and often, more. You can browse through the entire catalog of products without leaving the comfort of your chair and even order it from there! One would like to believe that this is the pinnacle of shopping experiences that one can achieve. However, when I think about how shopping would be in the future, I see a very 'human' trend that would eventually be driving technology by the time we reach 2030; instinct.

Here's a glimpse of a 'possible' future.

Its the 11th of September, 2030. Your intelliclock, synced to your bio-cycle informs the body that it is 7 o'clock in the morning and time to wake up. The next three hours are spent doing the daily chores that SMARTHUMAN(SH) has programmed for you. You do not have office today. What will you do? Do you think? Not really. SH tells you that its time to THINKSHOP. You agree, realizing that there was something that you needed to buy but can't recall what. Oh well, Thinkshop would surely be able to help you out with that!

You slowly go and sink into the comfortable couch and pull on the helmet. As soon as the grooves on it fit to the side of your ears, a familiar voice greets you: "Welcome back to Thinkshop- shop it before you think it!" Your face breaks into a smile and you sink into the extremely soothing music that you find yourself enjoying. A quick status bar saying 'stand by...identifying preferences' flashes for a while and then disappears. Your room starts breaking up into little particles, disappearing, melting, as a bright white light floods your vision. "People in the past used to think this was how life after death looked like" you laugh to yourself, while everything around you disappears, completely immersing you in a white wash of brilliant light...

"Hey! Haven't seen you in a while!" Angeline croons, dressed in short black skirt and a spotless white shirt. She is your 'VHelp' or virtual sales help who takes you through your shopping experience. She is designed according to your chosen avatar, right down to the color of her hair, but more on that later. Right now she is jumpy with excitement, her eyes twinkling with what she has in store for you.

"What is it? Did you..." you begin, but she cuts you off, her patience having worn thin.

"You won't believe what I found for you...it's the FITSHIRT you have been wanting for so long! It's in the exact shade you have been looking for too; a midnight blue, with a hint of turquoise and a whiff of mauve so subtle that you won't know it if I didn't tell you!" You think about it while the shirt appears in front of you. You realize that you never told her about it but its the exact shirt that you would buy if you were buying one. No wonder they call it thinkshop!

You smile and the shirt disappears. It has been billed already, detecting your 'smile value' as a confirmation. Before you know, a complimenting pair of trousers, a pair of custom sneakers, a holiday in Greece and tickets to the finals of IPL 2030 have also been booked, where the double teams of MadhyaGuj Pegasus are playing HyderaKol Gryphons.

You would have to learn to smile less.

As you think about ending the session, Angeline throws her trump card. "Leaving already?" she sings, her voice making imaginary butterflies fly right out of your stomach and through your ears. "I will make you an offer you can't refuse, pumpkin..." Everything blanks out; your newly bought clothes, shoes and everything else fades into the background. Then a little puddle of black starts forming, bubbling, expanding, little wisps of smoke rising from it.

"Oh no!" you cry out.

"Oh yes, my sugarlove" Angeline whispers, her honey voice landing softly in your ears.

The pool has become several feet wide. A red bump appears in the middle and then grows bigger. It continues to grow. A shiny roof followed by crystal clear glass windows follow.

"Oh sweet virtual Jesus" you mumble.

 Standing in front of you is the Grand Elysium 3000, the car you have been eyeing for a while now. Its spectacular interiors and smooth body lines seem to be calling out to you. As your mind goes into a tizzy, the autostart activates and the car roars to life. It rolls slowly, a hunter stalking its prey, and slides to a stop in front of you, it's door opening invitingly.

"I can't buy this now. It's too expensive. I don't have this sort of money!" you speak, almost pleading to Angeline. She continues to smile.

"Yes you can. Your annual bonus just got credited. You haven't done too bad it seems" she says, her smile lighting up the highway of your heart. You smile back and the car disappears. You realize a moment later, but she is already swishing back into the whiteness with a "see you later honey". The familiar 'we loved having you here! You think...you shop!" dies down as your room comes back into focus. You take off the helmet, uttering a happy sigh of consumer satisfaction. Yet, you feel like you needed something that you didn't buy. What was it? What didn't Thinkshop tell you this time?

"Toothpaste!" you scream to yourself, as the birds outside your window continue to chirp and your aerofone lights up with 'Shopper journey terminated. Thank you for shopping at Thinkshop! Visit us soon!'

(written for 'the future of shopping' contest at Indiblogger. Learn more about it here: bit.ly/eBayCheck_Extention )



   

The Launch

It gives me the greatest pleasure to announce the grand opening of my new headquarters www.mithunmukherjee.in!! Time to flock over there folks! :)

Quick Update!

Hiya folks!!

Will be at IIT Delhi on 24th September (TODAY!!) at 3.30 pm for the book launch of Seven Deadly Sins by Serene Woods publication, a compilation of winning short stories judged by me. My books Revenge and Cold Feet would also be up for sale as well. Be there for your signed copies! :)

Halfthought

Am I a writer?

Is a writer like one of the thousand scattered, among the sea dream that we pass off as the sky?

As the cosmos, or the milky way?

What defines you?

What combines you,

As a human being or a multi celled organism

Trying to be what you probably wouldn’t even be

In your waking lives?

The City

I am the ruins of a forgotten city.

A city which is now a half baked jigsaw of broken down monuments.

You may call these monuments buildings,

for they once were built on the foundations of character and a vague semblance of humanity.

There are building of tears,

Arches of guilt,

Unending pathways of remorse

Blind-turns of faith, hope and agony.

I am still alive.

The city is still alive.

Alive and dead in the same moment of space time.

There are crumbling bricks of men and decaying concrete women.

They were complete once, now , only pictures.

Installations in a gallery which no one visits.

Flickering images and broken dialogue on television sets

Soaps with anonymous actors, playing out unknown stories,

Broadcasted on channels which don’t exist.

I hear music.

The city has music.

Jarring, itching notes created on a violin

Made out of broken furniture and high tension wires.

It goes on and on, like the unending leak lying unrepaired

At the house which plays the soaps.

The city is empty and full.

Loud and quiet.

I am the city that you cross, looking out of train windows

Visiting places that you think you know.

Tab saves the day...

Jack was a sick kid.

Here, sick does not stand for someone who has a sadistic bent of mind or has thoughts so vile, that the society doesn’t see fit to interact with him. It means that he was one of those frail kids who are mostly on some sort of pills to cure one ailment, while the other ailment is secretly sneaking up on them, dragging them back to sickness, not breaking the ‘vicious cycle of sick kids’. In fact, he was so sick that his pill popping in school got him a nickname; Tablet.

For the longest time, Jack tried to get rid of the name, tried to fight it. He ran past kids in corridors, bumped into them at the canteen. It was not only his classmates anymore. Somehow, the name had leaked out of his classroom and slushing across the school corridors, soaked the entire school into a jeering, teasing frenzy. Tablet Tablet Tablet. In the dark corner behind the school building. Tablet tablet. In the last cubicle of the washroom, scrawled across the back of the door.

TabletTabletTabletTablet.

This was before a single day changed his life.

Jack the introvert spent a lot of time on his computer.  He had been following the date for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 launch, just the way an expectant kid waits for Christmas. And then finally, whump! The day was there. It was the tenth of August, 2011, the LIVE Webcast of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 launch. Jack watched it like it was the last programme before Doomsday.

As the webcast slowly went on, the circuits inside Jack were going through a change that he wasn’t personally aware of. All the negativity was suddenly fizzling out like it never existed. He had been running a slight temperature, being the ‘sick boy’ that he was, but that was slowly turning into history, with every single second passing on screen. It was as if, the webcast was like a placebo not only for his illness; it was the answer that he was looking for, all his life. He never noticed his father enter the room and stand behind him. He never noticed him smiling and giving an almost invisible nod to himself. He never saw the satisfaction playing on his face, having finally found a way out for his son. All he saw was the dreamy image of the tablet in the webcast. He slept a peaceful sleep. Jack the tablet was soon going to spring a surprise not only to the people around him but also to himself, as he would soon find out.

The next morning was going to be the best morning he had had in a long time. The sun shone in through his window and he half opened an eye to look. Time for school. He raised his hand to the dresser beside his bed to get his glasses. Strangely, his hand touched something sleek and rectangular. Something he hadn’t expected. Something which Couldn’t have been there. When he opened his eyes, he held up the rectangular thing.

There was nothing else he could ask for...

As he settled into his seat in computer class in the last period, he fished out the Samsung tablet and connected it to the wi fi. The kids around him took their notes in the laptops that they carried, eyeing him with furtive glances, exchanging words which Jack no longer cared about. There was a smile playing on his lips. As he sent in the assignment of the day, executed on his sleek new device, he saw the teacher give him a strange look and saying nothing. As the day closed, he heard a mean voice in the back hissing “tablet”... he turned back slightly and curling the right side of his lip in a knowing grin replied “exactly”...

 As school got over, he was sitting right outside his school gates, browsing through his favourite e-books that he had recently transferred to the device. “Hey, fancy!” he heard a voice croon right near him, and his heart splashed right into his stomach. “Um...sorry, I only know your name as, uh , tablet”, she fumbled sheepishly. Jack was feeling large hearted, so he replied ‘Its Jack. You are Jenn right? Football star Ned’s girlfriend?’

“Was!” she said rolling her eyes “he thinks he owns me or something, so I got rid of that jerk. You mind coming along for a coffee?” she said.

Jack’s heart, which was finally returning to its original position, fell right back with a louder splash this time. “Sure” he said and got up to dust the backside of his pants.  As he tried to stuff back the tab, he heard “Can I see it?” from her. ‘Umhmm’ he replied handing it to her, as they walked to the cafe, not hand-in-hand. Not yet.

Afternoon soon stretched into late evening, as they chattered their hearts out. She was a huge reader, the last thing that he expected. He showed her his e-book collection, going from one title to another. Jenn continued squealing with happiness as she handled the tab, her fingers flowing smoothly over the amazing touch screen. In the meantime, he had somehow managed to quickly text his dad about not worrying, that he Just might be late. Eventually, it was time to leave the place as the sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the first stars were coming out.

“Lets hit Ollie’s!” she sang, her eyes twinkling like the prettiest diamonds Jack had ever seen. Jack wasn’t a pub hopper, so he tried to chicken out, “no not happening! I gotta get home, its too late anyways...my dad...”

“Just this time. I promise it would be fun” her voice like the most beautiful melody Jack’s ears would catch. This was turning more difficult that he imagined. ‘Sure’ he said relenting, now headed to a pub, for the first time in his life.

Ollie’s  turned out better than he had expected. Since they had checked in early evening, the place was just warming up. Few scattered high school kids occupied a few stools while others were occupied with people he would rather not want to have anything to do with.

The minutes of his Blockbuster Life Movie sped past him. He couldn’t believe that he, Jack the tablet, could actually have so much of fun in a single day, let alone a lifetime. He had his tab snug inside his backpack. Two beers down, his body felt light, like a kite. He was at peace. But then, just like every Blockbuster, it was time for the twist.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and a voice boomed behind him ‘Someone let Jack out of the box today hmm?’ A few stray voices sniggered. He did not need telling it was Ned, the football star, the one who had received atleast six detentions in the last year itself, out of which atleast four were for beating up guys. That, ofcourse, was the official count.

Jenn looked behind him and said “I wouldn’t do that if I were you Ned”, motioning Jack secretly to move. Ned came and stood leaning on their table, going red in the face only slightly before hitting back at her “Tablet? Seriously? You must be seriously out of your mind!” A few more laughs followed. Jack signalled the guy at the bar for the cheque.

“I am not. I can prove it to you that Jack here is more intelligent than all of you guys combined” she said colouring visibly. In fact, he can take money off you to clear the bill here, right this moment!” she said. A loud roar of laugh went up from his cronies, and Jack suddenly started wishing he could melt into the sofa he was sitting on.  

Ned silenced the laughing hyenas behind him with a raised arm. He then turned towards Jack. His next words were like a death knell. He whispered, his face level with Jack, breathing right into his face,

“Sure. What do you have on your mind Jack?”

Jack’s mind raced like it was one of those hulking supercomputers he had googled so many times on the internet. He slowly slid his hand, out of Ned’s sight into his side, where the tab now lay, and closed his fingers around his new best friend, the Samsung Tab. Right then, a moment of inspiration struck him. He spoke

“Alright Ned, here’s what we do. I ask you a question. If you answer it, I will give you five bucks. But in case you don’t, you would have to give me fifty bucks. Deal?” He fervently hoped his head wouldn’t turn into a mashed potato.

‘Sure tablet, bring it on. But if I or my friends answer it, you are gonna give me much more than five bucks’ Ned retorted, steaming a little. People around the pub were starting to look now. Jack gave a slight nod.

Jack’s mind raced as thought about every question he had ever read. His mind went into a tizzy. Before he knew what he was saying, he blurted,

“What goes up a mountain on four legs and comes down on three?”

Ned’s face looked like someone had knocked the wind out of him. His cronies slowly started backing up, half step at a time, knocking they were soon going to be hauled up for the answer. But Ned did no such thing. Instead he screamed, “That’s bullshit” and swung his right arm at Jack’s face. Jack closed his eyes for impact. The punch never came. When he opened his eyes, Jenn was holding his hand and he looked like he had seen a ghost. Jenn spoke

“Why don’t you stop behaving like an animal for once, and put down the money if you don’t know the answer?” Jenn glowered. Jack made a mental note of taking tips on bravado from her later.

Ned, knowing that he was stuck square, fished into his pocket and came out with the fifty. The cheque was there as well. He boomed ‘I don’t know the answer.’  

Jack fished into his pocket and slung his bag. When his hand came out, he had his palm balled up around something. Holding the Samsung tab in one hand, he said ‘I would take the tab now, gentle men.’ No one said anything. He picked up the fifty and gave it to the waiter.  The waiter quickly gave him the change and disappeared from the scene. A big hand belonging to an equally big Ned, blocked his way.

“I don’t know the answer” he said through gritted teeth, his face a big tomato, on the verge of exploding.

Ned calmly took his hand and closed it around the object that he had been holding.  Ned opened it to discover a fiver.

‘Neither do I!’ Jack screamed behind him, as he heard laughter coming from Ned’s friends, and his efforts at quietening them down.  A few strangers smiled at him. His right hand was inside his pocket, fiddling with the change that had come back from the waiter. He felt fingers close around his left. The most delicate and beautiful fingers that he could ever imagine holding. Life was good. As he walked out, a single thought crossed his mind,

‘I took care of the tab. Or maybe, the Tab took care of me...”

A road less travelled...

Thirty minutes.

Thirty straight minutes at a jam. The car running, devouring fuel like it was a monster out of a children’s fairy tale, with just a huge mouth and nothing else. There was a limit to how much a man could take. It was time to make a difference. It was time to break the cycle and he was the one who would do it.

He gave one last look at the huge snake infront of him, made completely of cars, gorging on invaluable fossil fuel like a blood hungry leech. He closed his eyes and gripped the steering wheel. Concentrate. You can do this.

A hum, like a TV channel which isnt broadcasting, makes, started to go up. It increased in volume and soon enveloped his car. People around him were looking from their cars now. With a huge boom and a big ball of yellow light, the top of the car flew off. Glass fragmented on all sides, littering the road and the cars around in a shower of diamonds. Rohit, the struggling corporate, was suddenly not struggling to reach his office on time. He had become Rohit, the flying corporate, guardian of the fossil fuels. As he flapped his huge, white, angel like wings, taking to the skies, dazzling in the golden light of the sun, speeding like a bullet towards his office, he thought to himself, “that should solve it!”

A rude honk slapped him right back into his car and he discovered the jam had cleared. He changed gears, urging his car to move forward. There had to be a better alternative than taking to the skies with imaginary wings.

Swimming in his pool of thoughts, he was now standing right outside Swati’s house. He saw her come out of the door, just in time, about to take her car. Swati had joined his office last week and he had been wondering how to get chatty with her.   

“Swati!” he called, attracting her attention. She stood wondering for a while and slowly came towards his car. “Rohit right?” she said. His turn.

“Yeah!” he said, trying to play it smart. “I go through the same route everyday to office and I was seeing that you take your own car to office too...I was wondering you know, the rising costs of petrol and everything...”

“I know! Isnt it crazy?” she retorted, cutting him short. “I was anyways planning to dump this fuel guzzler and get the Fiat upgrade offer soon...its where you buy the car and if you are lucky, you upgrade to the Fiat Multijet diesel technology  for the price of a petrol car. That should happen soon enough.”

“Great idea! In the meantime, why don’t you fly with me? I mean, in my car?” Rohit stammered, trying real hard to get the daydream out of his head. He thought he blew it, but he was in for a pleasant surprise.

“You are a funny guy” Swati giggled. “Only on one condition though...” she continued “ we split the cost. That way, we both save” she finished, moving towards the passenger door.

“Sure! Whatever you say!” Rohit scrambled to get the passenger door, almost strangling himself with the seat belt in the process. She smiled again, and nodding her head sideways, sat beside him. Buckling herself into safety, she finally turned towards him and with a twinkle in her eye said,

“What are you waiting for? Lets Fly!”

Sweet timing!

You know what they say about 'sweet timing' right? I would assume that you do, so I am not going to repeat it for you. What I am going to tell you instead is how my latest fascination with webcomic making suddenly had a happy collision with an App from Intel. Yes, Apps and webcomics CAN collide. If you don't believe me, read on.
I am a gadget/software freak by nature; you could say that. But, I had not gotten addicted to using apps as a rule. Very recently, I started doing webcomics on Facebook, by the name of BOING! which have been running nice and smooth and getting a more than decent response from the readers. And just as this is going on, WHAM! An app by the name of "Comics Creator" from Intel hits me flat on my face and throws me off balance. I mean, as General Tapioca from Tintin would say...CARAMBA!

So what is this app again? To put it simply, its the El Dorado of Comic Strip creation. Not only does it provide you a Gazillion characters across close to a dozen types of illustrations, it has a bevy of other features, which make comic strip making look like child's play. While you can drag and drop characters and add from a huge chunk of speech bubbles, there are a host of smart features which let you do SO much more, without being a pro at Photoshop or other design softwares.

To begin with, there is a multiple selection of the kind of strip that you want. Once this is decided, you can go ahead and choose your characters. As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge cache of pre-made characters available, which only means that if you have a Claw instead of a hand in the field of drawing, like in my case, you can rest assured that your comic strip will not look anything short of dazzling. Once this is figured, choose your speech bubbles and you are set! There is also the option of choosing from a bunch of four fonts and innumberable colors to fill in the background.

Incase you want to make a guest appearance in your own strip, its possible! CLICK your own picture and put it in the strip! Yes its possible, and YES, I am going to do it in a short while as soon as I get over the characters. There is also a selection of backgrounds, vehicles and ohmygodsomuch of other little details that you can add to your strip. The app also gives you the freedom to choose from multiple drawing style to mash your style up and create endless oppurtunities.

Oh and the PREVIEW! For every single step, you can click on the preview and it shows Exactly how your comic strip is going to look. Once you are done, click on the button, and you would be given a slick JPG of the final strip! There is also your own place, where you can draw with colours, doodle, yap yap yap. I know I am rambling. But trust me on this, if you were a comic strip enthusiast like me, and using the App, you would know what I was talking about. It promises a LOT more enhancements in the near future, so I am WATCHING out for those, for sure. And here are my littel works of art that I did, with the comics creator...TADA! :D

One little thing that I would like is, if I could just drag and drop my OWN characters in here? THAT would be something. I am sure in a few more enhancements, theres going to be so much more juice into this already meaty app. Oh, and wait for the punchline...it aint come yet.


This App if free...

This blog is an entry to the "My Favorite PC App" contest. Check out numerous apps for PC/Netbooks available at the Intel AppUp Center. If you are looking for an opportunity to build and monetize your applications, check out the Intel® Atom™ Developer Program.

BOING!!!

Why no stories?
Errm...uh..
Why no updates?
Well, I was about to...
Did you stop writing?
No...ofcourse not! See the...
Have you taken up farming?
NO! Right now I am BOING! :D

That was the conversation between me and my blog a while back. And incase you are wondering what the BOING business is about, then you are in for a surprise; its my BRAND NEW COMIC STRIP! :D :D

Its just about five strips old and been getting pretty decent response. If you want to check it out, This is where it is!! :) And here are two of the strips, just to get that curiosity going! :D

Please feel free to share the strips on your Facebook Profiles and Do tell me how you guys like it! :D

[POOF!]

Revelations

The Clarity of Night contest is on, and as always, yours truly has sent in an entry. Only this time around, it is unlike anything that I have ever written.

Its not dark.

Its not scary.

It doesn't chill.

Then WTF does it do???

Its a simple story. I would rather let it talk for itself. Check it out here and please tell me how you like it?

I am trying to put in fresh fiction on my own blog as well. Hope to come up with something which is worth the effort, atleast to me.

Cya! 

Update!

My Shocketry fever seems to be finally dying down, so you guys wouldn't have to look at any poetry coming from me for a while (unless you Really want it, in which case you could let me know in the comments. It was a joke. Haha. ) I am working on a short right now, which should be up in a bit (I Promise!). In the meantime, I thought I should update you guys about whats going on here.

The blog has been featuring at teabreak.pk for a while.

Also, the blogpost on Shocketry managed to get featured as a chosen post on "best web pages for poetry" for the 9th of July at the Paper presentation website, paper.li . See, I told you its a cool idea right? :)

I have been toying with the idea of playing with parallel narratives and somehow combine them with distortions in time. I have done both before and have been toying with the idea of clubbing them together to deliver some superawesomeness. If you guys have some cool brainwaves, I am all for it. Also, the guest blogging thing...um....anyone?

Shocketry Reboot: The Bite

And so it was

That once, a boy

Not knowing what to do

Just closed his eyes

And made a wish

And hoped that it came true

‘Every word I say,

Must turn for real

And behave the way they mean

No dilly or dally,

Nor silly or sally

As real as could be seen!

It was all fun

With the moon and sun

And Stars and day and night

Then he felt a chomp

Not quite the romp

It was the word called BITE

Up and down

He scampered hard

With Bite holding his bum

Come rain or wind

Or Sun shine in

They were now the best of chums!

So the boy wrote a book

And christened it

“I’ll call you Bible cuz I can!”

Then he named the bite,

More out of spite

“Now on, I’ll call you MAN!”

(pic: Helix nebula, nicknamed "The Eye of God")

[Okay okay, I shall get back to writing fiction soon! Incase you are new here, this is a part of Shocketry which started last week here.  Two people followed suit and did their own shocketry here and here. Have you earned your shocketry badge yet? Also, I am looking forward to collaborate on fiction stories here or on Your blog. Any takers? ]