Pens and Pages

In a lazy afternoon, my friend and blogger, Rafaa Dalvi called me up to ask if I'd like to go to attend an event the next week. I was too sleepy to be excited about it. I said no. He, then, explained that the event was not a regular one but an exclusive meet with author of Chanakya's Chant, Ashwin Sanghi. A year back, I had participated in a story-writing contest and Ashwin Sanghi was the judge. My story bagged a position in the list of top 25. The memory of the book, Kaleidoscope, where my story was published, was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard the name, Ashwin Sanghi. I changed my lazy mind and said, "yes, I'd love to attend the event."  The next ten minutes was spent telling all my colleagues that I'm going to meet Ashwin Sanghi at Vivanta by Taj, Cuffe Parade. Proper Invitation (including mails and phone-calls) by the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest Team followed. The feedback on their way of inviting - great...

(We, the contributing authors of   Kaleidoscope  were wondering how to make our weekends more productive and so we came up with the idea of conducting contests among ourselves inviting honest criticism from each other. Below is the first one - To write in 300 words, one's perception of the picture below)  I often find myself trapped between my other two sides. On evenings like these,when the setting sun of life draws a curtain upon my peaceful existence,I begin to introspect. I am lost in the chaos of my own silence as I discover my other sides. I am tired with the days happenings, of my failure that vapourises my prior feats. Like the early bird, that returns home with the pride of touching the blue skies along with the regrets to fall back on the land. I was the winner all along. I still am! Stars never fall to dust, nor do they fade when the nights get the darkest. This is one of those dark nights. While I am caught midway with repeated failures to fly ...

Title: Kaleidoscope- Different Strokes for Different Folks Published by: Parlance Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Genre: Various Price: 150 INR No. of Pages: 250 Launched in: 25 May 2013 Rate: 3.5/5 Springtide, an online English youth magazine in association with Parlance Publishers, organized a contest inviting Indian writers to submit their short stories on any specific genre. The contest went on for the entire month of April’13 and more than 1150 entries were received to be judged by Ashwin Sanghi, one of the country’s bestselling conspiracy fiction writers. The results were announced by the second week of May declaring the top 25 writers whose stories were later published in the anthology “Kaleidoscope: Different Strokes for Different Folks”. The anthology begins with ‘The Hunter’, a short-story written by Dr. Vivek Banerjee, the winner of the contest mentioned above. The writing is flawless and the story is cleverly written, first indicating a different end for the ...