WISHING YOU A HAPPY AND SATISFYING NEW YEAR

Wishing all my readers a Happy and Prosperous 2020. May good things happen.

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and a great time looking forward to beginning the New Year with a bang.

MY SHORT STORY BOOK 'A PEARL FROM EVERY OYSTER' AT THE KOCHI INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL, KERALA, INDIA

Happy to share with you that my short story book will be presented at the Kochi International Book Festival. This is third book fair the book has been at, the first being the Chennai Book Fair and the Delhi International Book Fair last year.

I thank all my friends all over the globe for being part of this enthusiastic journey of mine. Please share this with your friends in Kerala and with all Keralites across the globe with whom you are in touch.

REVIEW ON AMAZON OF MY SHORT STORY BOOK - A PEARL FROM EVERY OYSTER

I wrote this shorty story book when my family was going through a period of great struggle. And the struggle only added more energy into me to finish the book. Each story is about a real life incident and each is different and unique, taken from the experiences of both my life and from the lives of my friends.

Parents and children will benefit alike from this book as it has stories that will recharge you when you are down.  

GREENS AND FLOWERS AROUND OUR HOME

Although the rain gods had started smiling only since last month, the greenery and flowers around our house are in good shape.

My sister and wife have been able to successfully keep them in full cry, watering them systematically. And that has been possible, only with good water management at our home.

Rains always bring a huge impact on the plants. Nothing waters them better than a shower of rain.

OUR ART WORKS ON CUPS

Sometime back, my sister and I, tried putting our art work on these cups. It was a different feel to see the art on a curved surface.

While my sister's focus was into African Masai themes mine was landscape oriented.

MOVING AROUND A ROCK STUDDED GREEN MOUNTAIN

These snaps were shot from the Trivandrum Mail somewhere on the Kerala Tamil Nadu border.  I fell in love with this green mountain. It gave a feel as though it had gray rocks studded on it.

Each view brings in a different treat for the eyes. I had to abandon shots where man made structures were too conspicuous. It spoils that natural feel of the photograph.

SAND BUBBLER CRAB ART - PANTAI BEACH, LANGKAWI

We had finished visiting all the major spots in Langkawi and we only had this place remaining. My wife was negotiating with me to give up visiting this place for some shopping that she wanted to do. But I pressed for going here.

Unlike the black sand beach that was pretty lonely, we spotted a lot of people here.

We spotted sand-bubbler crabs, at the Pantai Beach, Langkawi, Malaysia. Sand-bubbler crabs of the genera Dotilla and Scopimera produce remarkable patterns and structures at tropical beaches.

These crabs live in burrows in the sand, where they remain during high tide. When the tide is out and gone, they emerge on to the surface of the sand, and scour the sand for food, forming it into inflated pellets, which cover the sand.

The speciality of these crabs is that breathe air with their legs-Scopimera and Dotilla.

SINGING AT THE THALASHERRY CHURCH FOR SOLI DEO GLORIA

There were lots of good food that we got to share, banter right through the late hours and some solo singing that I could not stop doing. I think I would have bored the young ones with my old bunch of songs.

The onward journey to Kerala took off well. We were at the Chennai railway station pretty early and had enough time to settle down into our seats.

When sleeping time came we had some snoring music from fellow passengers. As it has always happened in the past, I could not sleep after belting out many solo numbers.

My mates would have thought that I was putting up a stunt when I had opened my laptop and books in the train, to study my course material. It was a serious attempt though it seriously flopped :) because singing and studies never go hand in hand for me. I always tend to make that mistake. We reached Tiruvalla station and then the place of stay and were put through a good stint of hospitality. The food was simple and good. A few of us went to the Parimala Church that was close by and offered our prayers.

Soli Deo Gloria was the name of this occasion of music on September 1st, 2019 at the CSI St.Thomas Church at Thalasherry, Tiruvalla. It's a Latin term meaning 'Glory to God alone'. This church has Anglican roots. It's notable that Ambalacatta, Quilon and Thalassery were the places where Tamil Christian books were printed by European missionaries in large numbers for more than 300 years. The CSI churches have always been on top when it came to choir singing and four part harmony and we could see it in the way their choir was organized and in the arrangements that were made. It was really heartening, whenever that feeling that we had finally made it to this place, kept touching our hearts. We had had an invitation last year for the same occasion, but it had got washed out due to the very severe flood situations in Kerala.

The base group where I belong to, had some challenges to iron out during our mock singing sessions but the final show went through really well. We pulled it off really well. This was not a competition. A few others teams that I got to hear also performed really well.

A bunch of us were to return the same day as we had to report for work the next day. And so we had planned early all the logistics to reach the railway station so as to not miss the train. Once our singing was done, we slipped out of the church, collected our luggage and food packets and got into a van that was kept ready for us. We just had twenty minutes with us to make it to the station and then scramble on to the right platform. A few in the returning bunch constantly kept tracking the train approaching the station.

After the van had moved fifty metres from the church, we had a beautiful twist as one of the members had left her mobile phone back at the church with another person in our team :) So we stopped and waited for her to run and get back. This tremendously added more thumping to our already pounding heart beat :) What was supposed to be a small regional TV show was now taking the dimensions of a Bollywood thriller.

She got back and we were soon on our way. We reached the station and lost a few minutes trying to understand which platform our train would come in. We got the information and validated it with a few vendors at the station and had to take the over-bridge to get to the right platform. Once we were there we heard the announcement that the train was waiting at a distant spot for the signal. Two other trains went by and we had spent a good thirty minutes there waiting and chatting. Meanwhile, a powerful shower of rain had also come down.

We couldn't change to some casual clothes before we had left the church as we were hard pressed for time. Once the train came, we got in and did that first. The return journey was pretty good. We had long hours to sleep as the train was to hit Chennai only around 10.30 am. Our talented keyboardist treated us with a big bag of food that his parents had brought to the Kottayam station. That served both for dinner and the next day's breakfast. We also had the food packed by the church for dinner. So, we all went to bed with a full belly.

It was a sad to get back to Chennai from God's Own Country but when duty calls, we have to.

FOR MY BOOKS, PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS BELOW (FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED):

POEMS OF LOST LOVE

Poetry book 'INDELIBLE ETERNAL ETCHINGS':

https://www.amazon.in/INDELIBLE-ETERNAL-ETCHINGS-emotions-unbridled-ebook/dp/B072J4L656/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=indelible+eternal+etchings&qid=1583428166&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/INDELIBLE-ETERNAL-ETCHINGS-emotions-unbridled-ebook/dp/B072J4L656/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=indelible+eternal+etchings&qid=1583428402&sr=8-1

STORIES

Short Story book 'A PEARL FROM EVERY OYSTER':

https://notionpress.com/read/a-pearl-from-every-oyster

https://www.amazon.in/Pearl-Every-Oyster-Stories-Shorter/dp/1948473151/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GI23X9JIKQGK&keywords=a+pearl+from+every+oyster&qid=1583428674&sprefix=A+Pearl+from%2Caps%2C302&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Every-Oyster-Stories-Shorter-ebook/dp/B07948GRVC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1H9GU3Q8JNH29&keywords=a+pearl+from+every+oyster&qid=1583428722&sprefix=a+pearl+from+ev%2Caps%2C363&sr=8-1

For other countries, please visit the respective Amazon sites.

ON MY BIRTHDAY -OCT 1

After a long stretch of working out of home, I had to be at office today although I would have preferred to remain at home. One of the factors that drove me was the day long power cut in our locality that was communicated to us the previous evening. Running the air condition with an inverter is never a good idea.  

Another reason why I wanted to be at office, was to complete a bunch of activities that had to be done out of that location, but literally nothing got completed. The return journey was even more eventful with quite a number of road blocks and traffic diversions and it took about two and half hours by the time I reached home.  But once home it was something else.

My daughter had come in from her college hostel for my birthday although she was in the middle of her exams. Seeing her compensated for all the bumps that I had gone through the day. There were no cakes or candles, but nice gifts from my sister, long chats and some different food that my wife got ready. It was a well spent time.

I had hidden my birthday from my Facebook page about a week back as my previous experiences of cleaning up my timeline after a birthday had been humungous. Birthday wishes would normally keep pouring right through the day and it's akin to how a human body responds to an enema procedure before an operation. Facebook wishes have now become like an involuntary response. Even if someone wrongly types 'Happy Birthday' on our timeline i.e wishing us on a day other than the birthday, the inundation, if at all it stops, has to stop by itself and that too, only at the close of day probably. Earlier days, wishes used to come like ten or fifteen solid single crackers. Now, it's more like a 5000 wallah cracker taking off. We cannot stop it even if we want to :)
So this time, it was absolute silence.

Many entities within which I operate like my professional circle, service circles, study circles, church and singing circles, college circles and other social circles went quiet. But still some relatives and friends especially school classmates messaged me and amongst these, some even called to wish me. All of them successfully touched my stone heart.

MY SHORT STORY BOOK ' A PEARL FROM EVERY OYSTER' @ THE WCC CHENNAI LIBRARY

It gives me great happiness to share the news that my short story book 'A Pearl From Every Oyster' has been absorbed into the Women's Christian College Library at Chennai.

My sincere thanks to Ranjini for making this happen. Buying a book is one thing, reading it is the next level, giving one's reactions post reading is the third level and talking about it and sharing it with others is the ultimate level. I am happy to see that this sharing is happening here.

The book is available on the Amazon and Notion Press sites.

INDIA
https://notionpress.com/read/a-pearl-from-every-oyster
https://www.amazon.in/Pearl-Every-Oyster-Stories-Shorter/dp/1948473151/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1550905048&sr=8-2&keywords=a+pearl+from+every+oyster

USA
https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Every-Oyster-Stories-Shorter/dp/1948473151/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1516536401&sr=8-2&keywords=a+pearl+from+every+oyster+roy

For other countries, kindly visit the appropriate Amazon sites and search with the title.