You’re my sunshine: A Short Story

I was lost in thoughts, when he gently gave me a nudge with a mug filled with hot green tea.

“Ouch,” I yelp.

“Where are you?” he asks.

I smile looking into his eyes.

I had already told him it was too early for me to go on a date with anyone.

“It’s been 5 months,” my best friend told me when I texted her or rather sent her a screenshot of him asking me out.

“He is a nice guy,” she said.

“I don’t need nice guys. I don’t need anyone. The last time I thought someone was nice I got hurt,” I replied.

“You are scared to do what you do the best,” she replied immediately.

“And what would that be? Getting my heart broken?” I asked.

“Taking risks, giving things a second chance, and loving people,” I read her reply thrice before replying, “I am not the same girl anymore.”

Open when you feel like it’s over

Hey,

How are you? I am pretty sure you are confused or sad; else you would not be reading this now. So, you feel that it’s over between us? I understand. Yes, although it feels like a blow in my heart – I understand.

I am not sure what made you think this way. Despite being inseparably connected to each other, we are two different individuals with different thought processes – well, my brain by itself has 100 thoughts in any given moment and no two of that agrees with each other. So, yeah, I get it.

If we were not perfect for each other, you wouldn’t be reading this. We would have spoken about our issues out loud and clear – we are frank that way. If one of us cheated on the other, there are high chances that we would have confessed – we are honest with each other. If it was the family, we would have sat down and had a discussion with them – we are a matured couple. If you are reading this, maybe it’s something inexplicable.

Lazy Days With You Are The Best!

I woke up with a really bad headache – it’s probably the effect of the cheap liquor that I had at the Ladies’ Night the previous evening. Arjun has always warned me not to drink these free drinks; “they do nothing other than giving you a bad hangover,” he says. I looked around for my phone. It was on the nightstand near my bed.

*21 messages from 18 chats* read the WhatsApp notification.

One of the very few days I wake up to these many notifications. I generally have like 2-3 messages – one from sister, one from Arjun, and probably, one from Preethi. Arjun, on the other hand, always wakes up to 50+ messages. “Put your group chats on mute,” I tell him all the time. The constant buzzing annoys me all night, but he never listens.

Scrolling through my messages, I looked around for him. It looked like he wasn’t home last night. Kumutha, a Facebook friend, had sent a message reminding me to write something for the Valentine’s Day contest that we were participating in. We are part of the same online bloggers’ club, and it was supposed to be a collaborated event. She was my partner in this. It was random selection – neutral for me, but may be unfortunate for her.

To my atypical boyfriend…

Hey, you,

You have never been a conventional boyfriend, & I know you never will be.

Not only you forget my birthday, but you are unapologetic about it. You don’t check where I am after my work. You won’t remember our anniversary, leave alone what I wore on our first date.

The guys I dated before you treated me like a princess. Yes, I might have cribbed about them to you, but they did actually pamper me to the core. From surprising me constantly to opening doors for me, they treated me exactly how romantic novels describe it to be.

To the guy I currently love…

Hey, you,

Yes, you, the guy I am currently head over heels in love with. No one will understand my love for you; people wish us luck to our face but may judge us at our back.

We can’t blame them. We don’t fit into the society’s square of thoughts. We have been in love with different people before. We have kissed different people before. We lost our ‘virginity’ to someone we loved way before we met. Neither we were each other’s first, nor we promised to be each other’s last.

Tagged: A Book Review

Hi, Folks,

When the author approached me to get a review of this book, her debut one, I was more than interested. The first reason here is the title and the book blurb. Facebook Love Story is what she told me that it is. I was intrigued. While there are a few books on this theme, I haven’t read them at all. There was something in me that wanted to know how can two people trust one another so much just virtually to fall in love with each other. In reality, many do that. I, personally, cannot even be close buddies with someone whom I have interacted only online. Of course, there are a few exceptions, and to Preethi, the protagonist, too Sai Prabhu is an exception for they meet online. However, do they end up together is the question that shall be answered by the book.

Between Now & Forever – A Book Review

Hi, Folks,

The first question people ask me after reading my stories is that, “You read a lot of romance, don’t you?” To be honest, the answer is No. I have not read any of the so-called best romance novels. With no offense to legends who write them, I found that a typical romance novel or movie is too overwhelming for me. I would rather prefer literature or erotica over it. Yes, I know those are like two extremes. Coming to the later, I am a person who like many others read most of the Mills & Boon books out there. If you are wondering what this post has got to do with that, then well, here it is, Between Now & Forever by Meera Shiva is something on that lines.

You Raise Me Up – A Book Review

Hi, Folks,

The book on the review table today is:

Title: You Raise Me Up

Author: Arjun Hemmady

Genre: Romantic

Price: Rs 325

Purchase Link: Buy From Amazon

Number of pages: 364

Publisher: Frog Books.

My Last Love Story: A Book Review

About the Book:

Perfect for fans of JojoMoyes’s, Me Before You, My Last Love Story is a heartbreakingly romantic tale about the complexities of trauma and whether love can right a wrong.

I, Simeen Desai, am tired of making lemonade with the lemons life has handed me.

Love is meant to heal wounds.

Love was meant to make my world sparkle and spin.

Love has ripped my life apart and shattered my soul. 

I love my husband, and he loves me.

But Nirvaan is dying.

I love my husband. I want to make him happy.

But he is asking for the impossible. 

I don’t want a baby.

I don’t want to make nice with Zayaan.

I don’t want another chance at another love story. 

Week 3 of AtoZ Challenge 2016

Hi, folks,

Here it goes, O to T…

A to Z Challenge 2016 – #LetterH

Hi, folks,

~Love,
Stri

He

He is soft; at the first sight, all you can see is the “Macho” look he displays. But, deep inside the rugged body is a sensitive heart.

He was never hurt hazardously, but that didn’t stop him from empathizing with people’s tragedy. He calls a spade a spade, but sometimes he lies just to see his loved ones smile.

Daddy’s Strong Girl

Every morning for the past 2 days, I wake up and feel so fresh;
And then, the reality hits like a heavy slap on my face.
That void feeling, vagueness, numbness, and emptiness is all I could feel.
It will get better, they said; it’s only getting worse each passing day.
When people ask, “how are you?” I say, “Okay,” but deep down there there is just a blank feeling.
“Cry out loud,” friends said, “Why isn’t she crying?” relatives gossiped.
Only if you are sad, you cry; when you are empty, you can’t cry.
Legal works and rituals kept me occupied; All I thought about was to make this tragedy a little less saddening for others.
Somewhere down there, this strength & emptiness etched my soul forever.
When I did question myself how it’s going to be without one of the parents, someone called on my phone to give condolences and asked, “Am I speaking with Ms. Indrasenan?”

He is there! Forever in my name, and deep inside beyond all that scared, scarred, void soul of mine.

I never said it to you; I always looked up to you, dad! I wished I expressed it more. I was never daddy’s little girl, that is always my sister. I was, am, and will always be your strong girl, just like how you wanted me to be.

~Ms. Indrasenan

The Gift

Every time he hurt her, he got her a gift: a doll, a miniature Taj Mahal, and so on. Initially, it was a way to reconciliation. However, gradually, it became a routine.

He got used to the fact that he can do anything and get away with it by giving a gift. Those anythings included forced bondage sex and physical assault too. She didn’t give in easily, but that only made it worse.

Everyone blamed her for letting him do those to her; but what would she do when she thinks that she loves the guy who treats her like a slave. Above all, domestic violence isn’t as easy to handle as people with first world problems think it to be. One fine day, she left him. It wasn’t easy; witness protection program would have been easier than that.

Miles away, years later, her showcase was full of those gifts. People called her materialistic for taking those, but she wasn’t attached to those materials. Those were scars that remind her how broken she was, and how she battled through it to be the person she is now.

However, there was one gift that everyone wanted her to get rid off, but she didn’t, not because it was the costliest, but because that was the only gift she was attached to despite that fact that she never wanted that gift in the first place.

“Mom, can I go cycling?” her son asked. He had his eyes, and that was the only similarity.

~Love,
Stri

Just in here, forever…

I was cleaning an old wardrobe this morning, and I found a note signed, “Just in here, forever, ” by an old friend of mine, or should I say, by a person who used to be a friend of mine.

I showed it to my mom & said, “Sometimes, forever comes with an expiry date! Ha!”

She knows that friend of mine. He was the only guy apart from my blood brothers, I called as “Anna,” she asked, “What is the first memory that comes to your mind when you see this?”

I said, “CMBT. He came to drop me in the bus stand. I wanted soda. As I prefer Pepsi over Coke, he searched in almost 20 shops to get me a Pepsi tin. He didn’t give up even when I said I can manage with Coke.”

I was smiling ear to ear! She smiled proudly and said, “See, that’s what forever means. Forever in your memories. People come & go, deaths, fights, break-ups, and divorces happen. Not everything can be resolved. Certain things are meant to  stay broken. However, the memories you want to remember stay on forever.”

I smiled, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.

“Just pray that you don’t get Alzheimer’s disease or Amnesia; in that case, nothing lasts forever. You won’t even remember the storyline of your favorite Harry Potter Series.”

Me: Grrrrrrr, Mooom!!!