gaelikaa's diary

Dominion and Stewardship!  Who thinks up these titles?  A certain member of my Consortium who is not blogging nowadays?  Well, I did give up a title for posting recently (My Wildest Fantasy) and then went AWOL that particular weekend.  I never did reveal what my wildest fantasy was.  I suppose it would be only fitting that I do.  So what's my wildest fantasy?  A weekend of complete, uninterrupted reading and lots of chocolate.  That's the fantasy.  Sounds pretty tame, huh?  Well there are others, but I'm not revealing them.  If someone makes me a huge offer or something, I might reconsider, but only just for a second.  Because I'm basically quite shy really.  Privacy is important to me.  Even if I occasionally reveal my innermost thoughts and feelings on the blog.

Last week's post was 'Dance'.  I was unable to show up that day.  Dancing is something I did a lot of when I was younger.  I don't do much of that now.  But I do know basic Irish dancing and…

Many years ago when I was young and single and living in Ireland, I used to go about on my own rather a lot.  I used to go to films by myself at times.  It's not that I was some loser who had no friends. Well, I'd rather not think so. It's just that sometimes I wanted to see movies and a lot of my friends were in relationships at that point, so going to films was something one did with one's significant other.  Not that I didn't go on girls' nights out with friends and enjoy meals and visits to the cinema - but when something came up that I wanted to see, it wasn't always so easy to get a companion. So.....

I had to travel on my own a fair bit too.  I went to London to visit friends who had migrated and spend weekends with them.  I took a train alone from Dublin to Cork once to meet friends there and enjoyed it immensely.  When Yash returned home to India, I took the long haul flights to meet him there  several times.  The journeys were always intensely ex…

I remember reading back in my schooldays about a very interesting historical character - Elizabeth I, the Queen of  England.  I remember reading that she had been in danger from her enemies from the time she was born.  The only child of  Queen Anne (born Anne Boleyn), Henry VIII's second queen, the woman hated by all, having replaced good Queen Katherine by Henry's side.    Anne was executed while her daughter was still in her infancy, leaving the child all alone.  Elizabeth grew up in perpetual danger.  Her elder sister Mary, the daughter of Henry's first wife, was never kindly disposed towards the unfortunate child.

Yet, in spite of so many setbacks, that unfortunate child became one of England's greatest monarchs, and lived a long, prosperous life.  I was impressed by a line I'd read about her in my school history book.  I don't have the exact quote, but it went something like this:  'Experience had made her extremely cautious and slow to reveal her min…

The short story in English is alive and well and living in India. Several Urban Shots anthologies of short stories  have been released here by Grey Oak/Westland in the last two years. This anthology, The Love Collection, edited by Sneh Thakur,  is a worthy addition to the collection.
Contrary to what one might initially suspect, this is not escapist romantic fiction. Although the stories deal with love of the romantic type in its many manifestations, this fiction is rooted in harsh reality.  It is none the less enjoyable for all that.  Each story is comfortably short  and  can be read during lunch hour or coffee break.  
There is  a variety of situations to deal with when it comes to love in urban India.  The girl in a northern town, debating whether to marry the man she loves instead of the man who could give her an affluent life.  The ‘happily’ married man who regularly meets a girlfriend for a quiet  date.   The earnest young man in a southern city who consults  an astrologer regu…