I stood at the edge of the forest both enticed and reluctant. Behind me the village beckoned. Houses with chimneys from where wisps of smoke coiled upwards promised me home and hearth.  The warmth of home and hearth lulled me to take a step back. But a deathly cold air escaped the forest and fanned my hair. A deep chortling laughter rumbled somewhere in its belly. The rumbling vibrated causing the moss under my feet throw up tiny stones and tickle the roof of my feet. Of all things dark and sinister, of all things evil and mean that awaited me in darkness anywhere, this one was certainly the blackest and I took a step forward nonetheless.

A pause has descended over my blogging for which I am sincerely apologetic to my dear readers.  No, I did not plan to take a breather, nor a pre-planned hiatus. The biggest peril my writing suffers as of now, is my impending move which may be interpreted as a period of zero writing. I genuinely feel inadequate and imperfect when the pleasure of conveying my thoughts on paper, be it physical or digital, is robbed from me.

Name: Unaccustomed Earth
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Genre: Short Stories
Published year: 2008 (Knopf)
Pages: 331
My Rating: Four and a half stars

Recuperating from a flu, I lay reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth and was silently bowled over by her powerful and engaging style of writing. The prolific author of Namesake has come out with yet another anthology of short stories that touch you, caress you, enter your heart and mind making a permanent place within it.
The book is divided into two parts, the first being separate stories of separate people and the second part comprises of three stories related to each other through the characters of Hema and Kaushik. Very true in its Bengali essence as all Lahiri’s writings are founded upon, each story is deeply moving, highly entertaining and thought provoking. All of the stories are based on U.S. based Bengali characters.

Author: Holly Cupala
Genre: Young Adult Realistic Fiction
Year of publication: 2010
Published by: HarperTeen
Pages: 304

My Rating: 5 Stars

‘It’s tough living in the shadow of a dead girl. It’s like living at the foot of a mountain blocking out the sun, and no one ever thinks to say, “Damn, that mountain is big.” Or, “Wonder what’s on the other side?” It’s just something we live with, so big we hardly notice it’s there. Not even when it’s crushing us under its terrible weight.’ (chapter 1)

Miranda Mathison stands on the threshold between death and birth. Still struggling hard to deal with her rebellious sister Alexandra aka Xanda’s untimely death five years ago, Mandy tries to seek solace in the arms of her boyfriend Kamran who leaves her not only pregnant but doesn’t even want to talk to her.

All the chapters in The Daisy Lemmas Riff have been awe inspiring, projecting a magnitude of creativity born within such wondrous minds. To keep up with the mystique of each chapter, I hereby present my own. Please forgive me if I may have deviated from the central theme.

You are not accustomed to me, but I am. I have watched you, followed you and sometimes protected you. You are most dear to me and I require you to see me now, without losing anymore time. I bid you to come by the bridge over Black’s brook after midnight and we shall meet. Come alone.
Your well wisher
A

‘They say that shadows of deceased, Do haunt the houses and the graves about, Of such whose life’s lamp went untimely out, Delighting still in their forsaken hosts’. – Joshua Sylvester (Poet, 1563-1618)

I have seen that many of us are simply appalled by the very mention of ghosts. They do not possess the nerve to talk or hear about a haunting. I do not know whether it is  the concreteness of death, that a ghost of a dead person perplexes them so, or it is that, the thought of waking from the dead as  a possibility baffles them to such a great degree, that a mere mention of ghosts or a haunting sends them bolting for the door.

Dracula or Vlad Dracul Tepes III. Who was more fearsome ?

“there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white, something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell.” – Dracula (chapter eight)

The year was 1890, and when Irish novelist Bram Stoker was  holidaying in the small fishing village in the north-east coast of Whitby in Yorkshire, he was fired with deep inspiration to write a tale about a count of eastern European nobility who has been undead for hundreds of years and who regains his youthful charm by drinking blood. He walks among human beings as one, and is secretly in search of his long lost love. Nothing or none can stop him even  the fact that his love no longer belongs to him.

Once again, a poem has been inspired by one of the most fascinating characters of  the television series Vampire Diaries.  He is the ruthless, heartless and purely pernicious older brother of Stephen Salvatore. Damon Salvatore is completely devoid of any conscience, at least not until he arrives at Mystic Falls. As the serial unfolds he does show some really wonderful redeeming qualities but my poem is about another time. The character of Damon Salvatore is entirely irredeemable as Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and yet one cannot help feeling sympathetic towards him. An uncontested dark prince of his own right but he is hunted too.

This poem is dedicated to one my absolutely favourite characters in the House of Night Series, Rephaim  the Raven Mocker. He is half raven, half man who is an offspring  of rape and lust.

This is a dedication to that one tiny spot on the map, that minuscule of a town located on the north eastern Himalayas of India, where I was born and raised, where my roots lie. Historically, Kurseong has been an uneventful little town except for few schools established by the British, located in perfect spaces on the face of the biggest hill looming over the main road. A sluggish small town with a small scanty train station where the legendary Toy Train stops just for refueling. The shabby appearance of the town however is broken by rounded small undulating slopes of green tea gardens that are forever playing hide and seek with thick mists during the monsoons. But other than that, it is just a very sleepy little town where nothing much happens.