Writing prompt 3

Write about an ordinary, everyday event in your family's life. It could be something that your mother or father did every day - ironing clothes, cutting vegetables, doing puja. Or something one of your siblings did - washing the moped or scooter, perhaps. May be even something that all of you did together regularly.


I'm not sure if this qualifies as ordinary. But this was a little ritual in itself. My brothers and I loved, absolutely loved watching it and I remember the details vividly that even couple of days ago I was telling my 3 year old this as a bedtime story. It is one of my earliest memories. I must have been 6, we lived in Neyveli, in what would today be classified as a bungalow with palatial garden space. At that time, it was just a rental house, with lots of scorpions, snakes and monkeys. The garden had all kinds of trees - lemon, satthukkudi, eucalyptus. But the most important one of all was the tree with the king of fruits, in my opinion - the jackfruit. It would yield somewhere between 10 -20 fruits a season. The owner didn't care, so we got to eat as many as we wanted, and distribute the rest. The act of peeling a jackfruit - that is the ordinary task. But it required so much skill.

My dad always did the honors. He'd cut the jackfruit off its stem, careful not to get any of the thick, white sap on him. Climb down carefully. Oil his hands thoroughly. Spread a large rag cloth on the ground. Get a sharp knife and a bowl of oil next to him. And then the cutting would begin. We'd huddle around the blanket and watch with fascination. First a straight slit along the belly. Then a muscular effort to pull the two semicircular halves apart. At this point, it would require more oiling, and back to the knife. To slice off each of the individual pods and separate them from the mother fruit. He'd neatly arrange the golden pods in a circle on a plate.

Our mouths would drool at the thought of slicing one in half, taking out the seed and chewing into the sweet, fleshy, juicy golden fruit. When we'd finally get to do it, the anticipation, the fruity fragrance, the visual sight of the whole process combined with the actual taste would fill up our senses. And we'd float in heaven, only to come down and taste the next piece.

Writing Prompt 2

Do you have any one moment in your life, when you were totally, madly, utterly embarassed? Was it a situation in which you did something, said something or just happened to find yourself in? If you recall those feelings of wanting to sink through the ground, or suddenly appear invisible....use this prompt to recount them and help us feel your plight!


She is asking about embarassing moments - like I don't have enough. I could just tell her about that time I....oh, no, never, that I shall never speak of. It didn't happen as far as I am concerned. Or that other time I thought...no, no, not that either. What will happen to my blog image? I have to tell her something...fine, let's settle for this one when people relied on my cooking skills and I let them down.

When you get to a certain age, some things that seemed to bring that hot flush into your face don't seem as bad anymore. Is that because you are much older? Or because itis in the past and hopefully will never happen again, ever, ever?

Either way, this one time, a bunch of us were organizing a baby shower. I was in charge of making a cake. A simple, straightforward pop-in-the-oven cake. Nothing fancy. Not even frosting. I took a recipe that I'd used many times in the past and followed it to the dot. Easy-breezy. No big deal. I can even do it in the morning, I told myself. I don't have to be there before noon. The next day, I woke up later than I should have. That's okay. The cake will be done in no time. Raced through the morning routine. Whipped up thecake, popped it in the oven. Done. There, see? No, problem. This is why I should be super woman. For the speed at which I execute. Half hour before I was set to leave,the oven timer goes off. Perfect.

Now all I have to do is wrap it and take it with me.I pull it out, let it cool. Ten minutes later, I transfer the cake contents on to another tray, feeling very smug and pleased with myself. They'll say, ' Wow, you made this? All by yourself? from scratch?"And I can deny it all with a wave of the hand. All in a day's work....when poof, Whatwas that sound? The sound of a hot air baloon being pricked and air whizzing outof it? What was that sight in front me? The cake? Or a ooey-gooey-icky mixture of flour-sugar-applesauce and whatever the heck else I put in it!! OmGTime to panick! The cake is a flop. Literally. It didn't bake at all! What happened? No time to think! No time to debug! Call for help!What'll I do? Dominick's? Jewel Osco?! Oh no! How embarassing!

I have to tell them I didn't bring the cake at all! What will they think of me! ....

And that's how I made a fool of myself. Of course another friend of mine saved the day without making a bigger fool of me but that's a story for another prompt.

Writing Prompt 1

Write about a sleepover, a slumber party or the time you stayed somewhere overnight

It was '94. We took one of our family summer vacations. My dad was very good about those things.Regardless of what else we did as kids, we would always get to go some place new every summer. This timewe were headed for Badrinath/Kedarnath. Our first night, we spent in a tent at the foothills of the mountains. It was dark when we landed there. After dinner, we were shown our tents and we hit the sack right away.It was only in the morning when we realized the beauty of our locale. We woke up to the sound of a hundred birds chirping.We opened our tent a peep and drew in a sharp breath. We were at the foothills of mountains - not just any mountains - the Himalayas. They soared above us majestically - several shades of blue and grey - peaked by a cap of pristine white snow.The mighty Ganges was bubbling by. The only concept of Ganges I had upto that point was a thin line in my geography textbook. To actually see it in person was like meeting a celebrity. I was astounded at how wide it was. And it flowed so swiftly.I remember just staring at the beauty of the sight before me for several minutes, just taking it all in, and not being able to think of one word to describe the soaring feeling in my chest. Many years have passed, and the details of what we did right before or after have faded, but as I squint in my head to recall the exact emotion, I realize that the soar in the chest feeling hasn't changed one bit.

Once a blogger, always a blogger

Even when I am not blogging, I am. In my head, all the time. How nice it would be to park all those stream of words somewhere! I've given myself enough excuses to not do so - everything from lack of time to lack of silence. While they are all valid, I need to start somewhere to break the chain. Suj's writing prompt was the exact kind of push I needed. So I started this blog a few minutes ago - all my own - for storing the little droplets of thoughts that come to me througout the day and in the dead of the night. This may go nowhere, or I may soon have my own little pool to swim in. At least now I no longer have the 'But I don't have a blog' excuse!

The first 10 minute exercise has already been written and stored, waiting to be published..here I go...