Showing posts with label COVID 19. Show all posts
Showing posts with label COVID 19. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Little Abode for Children


Kenosha
lies calm by the western shore of Lake Michigan. Yet Teressa LeRoy, one of the city denizens, went missing. Then one afternoon, the gown she last wore before going missing, appeared at her workplace, Kenosha Public Library. Some of the children saw a ghost in the library. A mangled body appeared in the library park. The mystery and horror deepened.
The question was how soon Kenosha Police Department could unveil the mystery and eradicate the horror from the lives of the city.
Little Abode for Children is an outstandingly humane mystery and extraordinarily romantic police procedural.
It made readers wonder, “Where is Teressa LeRoy? Can Detective Nathan Adams can find her?

Read it on Amazon Kindle: (FREE WITH KINDLE UNLIMITED SUBSCRIPTION)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HSQYBN2



‐--------------------
Hit subscribe button for more.

___________

Share the post and the blog.


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Kirtinagar – The City of Deeds @ WEP Entry # Long Shadow


When Ernest Hemingway used "Thou" and "You" in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" to imply respectively "Su", formal and "Tu", casual second person salutations in Spanish, he earned severe negative criticism for using and mixing an obsolete (English) form with modern forms. Hemingway was native English speaker. I am not. Educational and Testing Service (ETS) have recognized my writing prowess, though [ My seven year old ToEFL score card, photo of which is shared herewith, is the testimony.] After all, grammar is, from linguists' view point, codified usage of language by people belonging to defined geographies. 

Language is my tool for storytelling. In order to bring the feel to the reader I play grammar (don't search for "with the"; [Neither I am a child nor the grammar is a toy] I 'play' grammar like playing people, politics, race card, linguistic group sentiments, sexual orientations, genders and victimhood.), fiddle punctuation, doctor spelling to elucidate pronunciation, engineer words to carve impressions. For uncrossed t-s and undotted i-es or preposterous prepositions and awry articles inattentive proofreading is to blame. Storytelling is my passion, proofreading - nay.


----------------

Kirtinagar – The City of Deeds

Ruh was watching Prajuktipur’s shadow on completely deserted, gradually waning Kirtinagar, sprawling over thousand hectares, through Eastern panes of her sixtieth-floor office.

Ruh’s mother Seema commented from behind, “Gloating?”

Ruh replied reluctantly, “Measuring, scheming…. the endeavor, the expenditure required to remove Rathin Gupto’s mess on the marsh.”

Frowning Seema snapped, “Do you care about my baba’s blood, sweat, money dissolved in the marsh, keeping Kirtinagar intact?”

Ruh bantered, “In control.”

She added then, "I’ve checked the land records. Guptos used to own the marsh. Then the government put limit on individual landholding. Rathin’s father lost the marsh.”

Seema screamed, “Rathin? Not dadan? Disrespecting your grandfather!”

Ruh laughed out loud, “Clever dadan! If I call you Seema, I’ll end up with Ma….”

Seema reminded Ruh, “This Pajuktipur office, trendy outfits, cars, your snuffs, gadgets – my shrewd baba earned all. The control you’re contorting about… he bought that, bribing politicians… freed the marsh from squatters, from their shacks made of rags and cane on raised bamboo platforms, by buying their non-salable ownership, bestowed to them by the government, for their rehabilitations...”

Ruh interrupted, “Dadan harvested return on investment. The Democratic Government, run by politicians on his payroll, paid him for filling up the marsh and building Kirtinagar thereof.”

She asserted then, “Dadan knew… every construction at Kirtinagar was destined to be corroded by moisture, creeping up through pores of landfill, by water clogging…”

Seema justified, “Drag of developing Kirtinagar inflicted baba with hypertension, culminated into cerebral thrombosis.”

Ruh slandered, “Then his dutiful daughter left fashionable student politics and joined nasty family business.”

Seema reminisced, “I’s twenty-one then. It was fun being tagalong to Mrinal, charismatic campus leader of violent student politics…”

Ruh taunted, “Tagalong? You’re lovers. Though Deepak’s your fiancé then.”

Seema scowled, “Deepak? You used to call him baba….”

Ruh sneered, “Yay, the looser tried hard to be my father.”

Seema recalled, “I approached Kirtinagar residents for converting their damp, friable small family homes to high rises. Then Prajuktipur had just began to grow, unable to accommodate all its workers belonging to several echelons of pay. High demand for low cost housing in vicinity was just about to pop.”

She continued, “Resources were scant then. Baba’s unable to walk, talk or eat. Most residents of Kirtinagar willingly converted their property, accepting compensations, in cash or flats or a combination of both. Deepak’s the lender. The wealthier Kirtinagar denizens were resistant. Mrinal’s ingenious maneuvers….”

Ruh slandered, “Ingenious maneuvers? You’re glorifying how Mrinal burned a few of them alive.”

 She went on, “Your ever-delayed repayments made Deepak look into your books. Thus, he realized how Mrinal was sucking your business, how return on investment was just break even, though sales figures were humongous continuously for ten years.”

 Seema mentioned scornfully, digressing intentionally, “On your fifth birthday, Deepak wished for another child, to help you with the business.”

Ruh laughed and replied, “You spilled the beans…..”

Seema, too, laughed and added, “The look on his face…. I still remember. He took quite a while to assimilate, then surmised, ‘Oh! It’s always Mrinal.’ I abruptly rectified though, ‘Ruh’s from Ashis, the interior decorator, hired for our Prajuktipur office.”

Ruh inferred, “Thus Deepak lived lost, till he succumbed to the road rage”.

Then, she returned to Seema’s initial question, “Not gloating, though nobody’s out there with the leverage of knowing my criminal secret…... of stealing a fatal microbial strain from the college lab, then mixing it to Kirtinagar’s water supply lines, all by myself, leaving no loose end, hence, no risk of being blackmailed, unlike your messy arrangements involving Mrinal.”

Few months ago, Seema alerted Ruh, “Business’ about to collapse, unless we match our stride to catch up with current booming trend in Prajuktipur. High rise buildings comprising dingy apartments, stingy shops, congesting Kirtinagar, like litter, must give way to planned development of spacious well-lit condos, town houses, bungalows, shopping plazas with huge parking spaces, wide drivable roads, greenery, underground sewerage and drainage…. I can’t compensate all the residents of Kirtinagar. Thirty thousand people lives in its each square kilometer, over three hundred thousand people in total, incurring a hundred billion rupees in compensation.”

Ruh sarcastically added then, “Ask Mrinal to drop a bomb on Kirtinagar, though he’ll bleed the business white for the job, wrenching you for never marrying him.”

A week after this conversation, in wee hours of a weekday, Ruh went live on social media, sharing her stray dog feeding endeavor amidst the crew of Kirtinagar Municipality, at one of Kirtinagar’s water supply maintenance sites. Instantly, she earned compassion of the crew. Keeping the crew busy in front and rear of her camera, Ruh, stealthily, added the microbe colony to the city water supply. In a few weeks, some unknown infection wiped out population of three blocks of Kirtinagar.

Ruh’s video of dog feeding went viral. Banking upon hugely compassionate public mood, she buzzed continuously against nexus of corrupt politicos and construction farms, holding them responsible for fatal infection at Kirtinagar.

In tandem, the mainstream media sensation machinery narrative held Ruh a hero, a scion revolting against her own people. Also, their reportage terrorized Kirtinagar residents of imminent death. Within weeks, Kirtinagar dwellers vacated the city, voluntarily.

Ruh’s explanation about her modus operandi silenced Seema. Ruh asserted the forward plan, “You must soon announce my engagement to Prama.”

Seema reacted, “The cement baron Dutta’s daughter!”

Ruh ignored, “It must be ostentatious. It’ll bring you to the fold of sympathizers of marginalized persons. It’ll steer clear all bad press about redevelopment of Kirtinagar”

Seema fumbled, “Even last night your orgasmic moans were from Soham! What’s about him?”

Ruh snapped, “I’ll keep him in the closet. Until open relationship for bisexuals or promiscuity in general becomes fashionably adorable, or sexual straightness starts to be ostracized….”

She digressed abruptly though, “Wanna get rid of Mrinal?”

After three months, Mrinal succumbed to heart attack, without prior heart complaint. Ruh posted a photo of Mrinal on social media explaining how he inspired Ruh. 


----------------


WORD COUNT:  995 (nine hundred ninety five) [Including all hyphenated words, else one thousand (1000)] 
FCA – FULL CRITIQUE ACCEPTABLE

React directly.
Speak your mind freely.
August is our, the Indians', month of freedom. 15th is the Independence Day. Let's celebrate.
-----------------
---------------------------

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Out of Mind

Nothing else but The Story

--------------------------------------

--------------- --------------- ---------------

A car is honking in the neighborhood. Mouli feels as if she has just woken up.

She thinks of shutting the window. But cannot. The glass pane has been imploded by raging Aamphan. Since then her bed, bedroom floor has been spread with glass shards; flooded with storm water gushing through the hollow of aluminum window frame. Flood water surged through kitchen and dining area to living room and apartment entrance.

Startled by the sound of shattering windowpane, in the early evening, Mouli left her home office, in between living room and kitchen area, in awe. Reaching bedroom, she has obtained deep cuts on planters of her feet.

By this time, the storm water has engulfed the home power back up system by the apartment entrance; made it defunct, in exchange became electrified. It shocked Mouli’s submerged feet; made her climb on the bed; squirm at a corner away from hollow of the window.

Darkness, dampness, dull inactive passage of fathomless time accompanied by crazily forceful tropical cyclone continuing over six hours at a crushing hourly speed of two hundred kilometers seized Mouli’s consciousness, sealed her eyes.    

Earlier in the day, the client has sent page to Mouli’s team. It was Kushal’s shift; hence, he was responsible for acknowledging receipt of the page within an hour of receiving it. Mouli waited for half an hour for Kushal’s response, then she called him.  After several calls over an hour, he picked up and asked, “Have you responded to the page?”.

Mouli reminded him, “Since I’m your manager… I must, hence, I saved the deadline. Now start fixing the bug. It’s in client’s B2B transaction module.”  

Hanging up she sighed, “Quite unprofessional!”

Kushal gave up after two hours of effort or its pretention, around standard siesta time.

Then, Mouli had left with no choice but herself fixing the code timely to secure earning few thousand dollars for her employer and enhancing business relationship with the client. Otherwise, her employer would lose the business, incurring millions of dollars in penalty for damages caused to client’s business by incompetence of Mouli’s team, abiding by the agreement.

Hence, Mouli scanned through lines of the code, found the block of method that had been manipulated by client’s latest requirement; checked the methods linked to the changed method; figured out how to tweak them as necessary by logic. Yet she could not fix the code.

Power supply of entire city was turned off since the landfall of the cyclone, late in afternoon. Mouli’s power back up system kept her laptop and internet router alive for few hours, till her bedroom window broke. Then, she received text messages from her internet service provider intimating breakdown in internet and cell phone services. She surmised that all the electric poles and posts, connecting optic fiber cables carrying internet signals, were probably uprooted.

Without electricity, broadband, mobile data, communication became impossible, even with respective service agencies. Nor Mouli could resume resolving the business problem in hand. She helplessly observed tampering of her hitherto impeccable reputation of punctuality. Imagining the consequences of missing delivery to her employer, ensuing cascading effect on her career, then on her life, life seemed to be decimated.

Life had already been at its knees due to lockdown. Mouli had spent no weekend with her parents, siblings, or friends, at her place, or at their respective places, or someplace away from the city, for months, maintaining social distancing. Constant view of ugly erratic hardscape of maximizing profit per square feet, without considering comforts and convenience of dwellers and durability of structure constructed, strained her neurons, fatigued her muscles. Even glass-iron-concrete box, called office, appeared a soothing isolation from noise in surroundings and thoughts.

Probably, the shed of neighborhood car parking was blown off. The crown of Mahogany tree standing by the parking has been fallen on the cars. Consequently, cars started honking as alarm.

Nobody dared going outside to stop the alarms.

The honking has shaken Mouli to senses, probably. She feels like being drowned in her own perspiration, smelling like vinegar. Her hands are immovable, like being in a straitjacket, of a flex banner printed with, “Honking won’t widen the street.”

After Mouli shouted it, once, a lady left her car, rushed to Mouli to respond with slur. The street was inundated by water from roadside drain, failed to hold rainwater from previous nights, fortnights, yielding invisible potholes. The lady stepped into one of them, fell and was drowned. Without underground sewerage canals, as wide and high as two-lane street, overflowing drains, consequent road corrosion creating potholes and loss of lives remain inevitable.

Nobody sued the authorities, provider of roads, though dilapidated, yet social benefits, for citizens, hence, like royal, feudal endowment, beyond reproach.

She has thought of renting ad spaces to flash her anti-honking slogan; yet abandoned the idea. Electronic billboards are few.

Someone copied her slogan, made a cheap campaign with flex banner, fitted over iron frames or wooden batons, which has just been torn by storm wind, gushing at hundred and twenty something miles per hour, dropped in front of a moving truck and covered its windscreen.

The truck failed to sense total loss of visibility as visibility was almost nil over quarter of a day, drenched in Amphan rain. It stumbled upon iron traffic barriers lying flat on the street, slammed earlier, from their upright positions, to the street floor by storm wind, due to lack of weight of sand sacks on their respective bottoms.

The truck lost control; rammed into Mouli’s apartment building. The impact made the banner fly from the trucks’ windscreen, enter Mouli’s bedroom through the broken window and whirled around Mouli.

As Mouli struggles to free herself from the wrap, a piece of left-over wooden baton, protruding from the flex banner’s edge, pierces her left eye. Rolling in pain, she crosses the edge of the window of her seventeenth-floor apartment.

Subsequent thud on the ground remains unheard. Rain washes away splashed flesh, blood, warmth.


--------------------------------------

I finished writing before Aamphan. After Aamphan I changed it, keeping the ending intact. After demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, I changed the ending further so that it would not appear to be mimic of the tragedy. 
--------------------------------------

WORD COUNT: 1000 (One thousand) [Including all hyphenated words, else 997 (Nine hundred ninety seven)] 
FCA – FULL CRITIQUE ACCEPTABLE
Expecting honest and blatant views.

Readers Loved