Another trip around the sun and I live to tell the tale. A bit late with this update, mainly because there’s been a lot going on—such as, the #BDB campaign for which I’ve been doing much of the web admin work; a new YA book I started on; another regular assignment to fit into my […]
Writeside
Cakes and candles: The 2017 version
Here we go again, time to get excited about turning yet another year older. I’ll be honest: my favourite part about birthdays is cake (chocolate) and presents (many), not necessarily in that order. But because I don’t want to appear shallow, it helps to also make it about reflecting on the year gone by and […]
Children understand more
In December 2016, I spent 10 days at the “Children Understand More…” residency organized by the the Goethe-Institut India/Max Mueller Bhavan and Zubaan in Shantiniketan. Seventeen writers and illustrators came together at the idyllic Mitali Homestay in the land of Rabindranath Tagore to brainstorm and work on creating some quality children’s literature. All constraints, perceived […]
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Why, hello, 2017! Here already?
Over the past few years, I find that we (my contemporaries and I, that is) have been talking more and more about how the years are ticking by faster than ever before. As it turns out, this is an obligatory topic of conversation that becomes increasingly important as one gets older (move over, weather). Scientists […]
Book review: Come, before Evening Falls
Yesterday, at the Scholastic Writing Awards ceremony in Delhi, I ran into the author Manjul Bajaj. We were only introduced to the each other just as we were leaving, but we had a nice walk down the stairs talking about a mutual writer friend, Monideepa Sahu. Anyway, I digress… Meeting Manjul reminded me of a […]
Hello 2016, bye 2015
Oh well, time for the traditional end-of-year/beginning-of-another post. A somewhat sheepish one, for 2015 was a year wasted. In all fairness, some of it was out of my control, but some definitely of my own making. Here’s what my plan for the year was and how I fared: Another 52 weeks of blogging. (Done!) Start […]
Review #10: My Brother’s Wedding
Insane. Hilarious. Nerve-wracking. Noisy. These are just some of the adjectives that can describe an Indian Wedding. Andaleeb Wajid’s My Brother’s Wedding is all about the insanity, hilarity and other things that ensue when Saba decides to blog about her brother’s upcoming wedding. What starts out as a promised chronicle of a ‘typical Muslim wedding […]
Another candle to the cake
Time to add another candle to the cake. It’s another thing that the cake might bake itself with the heat from those 2,000 candles. Speaking of cakes—that’s three cakes in three sentences (well, four)—it’s a homemade one this year, baked by my father. Not enough space for 39 candles, though. It’s a different birthday in […]
Year 2014 in blogging
How popular was Writeside.net in 2014? Well, now that I have the Jetpack plugin, I get to see all sorts of stats without doing much of the hard work that it needed earlier. Turns out, 2014 saw over 7,000 visitors from no less than 106 countries! It’s quite likely a lot of people ended up […]
52 reviews of 2015
Last year’s blogging project was a success, enough to ensure that Writeside.net got some traffic, made enough money to cover hosting bills and kept me writing. Thus, it’s no surprise that I’m all excited about flagging off another blogging project for 2015. Yep, you’re right—this year it’s all going to be about reviews. The original […]