Shambhavi is the final winner of a Rs.300 gift voucher from our sponsors Zaarga, for her creative fairy tale entry to our Love Story theme.

Shambhavi Pai, in her own words: Marketing Professional working in the retail business. Currently based in Blantyre, Malawi. Passion – travelling (have written a few travelogues), writing and music. 

Most of us have spent our childhood with fairy tales. As little girls with pigtails, we lay on the bed and listened to our parents/grandparents with wide eyes waiting for the pages to turn, the devil to go and to finally hear the words ‘Happily Ever After’.

Today, we are so battered by myriad issues – relationships that are more complicated than a jigsaw puzzle of a Niagara Falls scenario, office politics that try hard to beat the sensations of soap operas, lifestyles that threaten to be more chaotic than Parliament sessions.

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A little tattoo for Love – too much to ask? Ritika Sawhney wins a Rs.300 gift voucher from our sponsors Zaarga, for her fun entry to our Love Story writing theme.

Ritika, in her own words: A social media junkie, bibliophile, traveller and sometimes worker (yes, she is a cubicle-slave). She believes she can write, do you?

“I would do anything for Love, but I won’t do THAT!”

“Quit talking in cheesy lines from forgotten numbers, will you?” I snarled.

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Exploring the dark side of love; Vinaya wins a Rs.300 gift voucher from our sponsor, Zaarga for her entry to our Love Story writing theme.

Vinaya Bhagat, in her own words: An IT Professional and a mother of an over active toddler. The hectic pace of work and family commitments leaves very little time for leisure. Writing is an old passion and I make most of the little time I get to lose myself in the lives of imaginary characters.

“Rajjo pani!”

The old couple begs her. They are writhing on the floor as if possessed by unseen demons.

“Rajjo pani!”

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What would a mother’s love NOT do? Arundhati wins a Rs.300 gift voucher from our sponsor Zaarga for our Love Story writing theme! 

Arundhati Venkatesh, in her own words: A kid-lit enthusiast, an observer of life and people, a feminist, a minimalist and a compulsive maker of lists! An engineer by degree, and an IT professional in her previous life, she is now an aspiring writer. Arundhati works for an NGO.

Any self-respecting Tamilian will tell you that the day after Pongal is the day of Kanupidi.

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Roopa Prabhakar wins a Rs.300 gift voucher from our sponsors, Zaarga for her cheeky, yet wise story for our Love Story writing theme!

Roopa Prabhakar, in her own words: I’m a new mother, a working woman who believes her face is plastered on the glass ceiling, a closet feminist and writer.

“Women Maaan!!” wailed a young friend of mine, he was all tense and worried about the day of impending doom a.k.a. ‘Valentine’s Day’. His dainty little girlfriend had decided to base the future of their relationship on how this year’s Valentine’s Day was celebrated. In short, she was milking it and the onus was on my friend to make sure that he fills the 24 hours with every kind of mush – bought, borrowed, begged, stolen or sincerely felt.

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Valentine’s Day is around the corner. With ‘Love’ as your muse, get featured on our readers’ writing space this month!

February being Cupid’s month, we’ve picked an interesting theme for this month’s As You Write It. From building the Taj Mahal to giving up the throne, people have done various things in the name of love. But we are curious to know, what would you NOT do?

With that in mind, send us your write-up on “I would do anything for love…but I won’t do THAT!” (and of course, you don’t need to take us literally – feel free to take the topic as a starting point and let your imagination run wild).

Where to send: Send in your story to feedback@womensweb.in with ‘Love Story’ in the subject line, and your story as a word/txt attachment. Do include the name we should use if we publish it, and a brief introduction to yourself (2-3 lines) in the mail.

By when: Please send in your stories by Feb 12th, i.e. this Sunday. The 5 best stories will be published on Women’s Web the following week, i.e. Feb 13th onwards.

Rules:

- The material should be previously unpublished elsewhere. (Copyright stays with you and you’re free to subsequently publish it elsewhere).

- Keep it between 250 and 600 words.

GOODIES!

An update, folks – we have a incentive for you from Zaarga! Zaarga, a new online shopping portal – brings to you exclusive home and lifestyle accessories from the best of contemporary Indian Designers. The products you find here are likely to be very different from any you find in regular stores. You can follow Zaarga on Facebook too.

Every published writer on this theme gets a Rs.300 gift voucher from Zaarga.

*Photo credit: photo javi

Last but not the least in January’s writing theme, we have Sangeeta Mall’s interesting account of how she resolved to keep fit. Did she keep it up? Let’s find out!

Sangeeta, in her own words: Sangeeta Mall is a novelist. Her first book, ‘Cloud 9 Minus One’, was published by HarperCollins in 2009. She expects to launch her second novel, another story on women’s issues, late in 2012.

The gym is open on 1 January. They make it a point to keep it open on the first day of the year, to enable all the members to start the new year with a healthy bout of exercise. There are notices all through the gym exhorting the slackers to ‘Get Ready For 2012’, to ‘Beat Laziness And Win Fitness’. There are many creative banners, and I feel the copywriter is a good one, though I’m not sure if he, or she, is fit and slim. But the pictures and words plastered all across the wall speak to me in my own language. They depict a fat person of indeterminate gender sitting and doing nothing. The copywriter doesn’t believe in hints. The message is very loud. Get off your backside and lose that adipose!

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Next up on our January writing theme’s Resolution Story shortlist, is Vinaya’s short story highlighting the dark side of resolutions.

Vinaya Bhagat, in a her own words: I am an IT professional with a passion for writing. In 2008 I completed a creative writing course from United States. In my teenage years I contributed to the English daily “The Hitvada”. I am currently preparing my first novel for submission.

The smell is driving her crazy. Her stride slows in an attempt to prolong the olfactory flirtation. Her stomach rumbles unused to the emptiness. By the third round her mind gives in to the demands of her body and she flops on the stone bench farthest from the tempting smell. But every moment the smell beckons, tempts her with the promise of mouthwatering heaven. Before she knows she is back on her feet walking briskly towards the next bench a little nearer.

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The next article on our shortlist for this month’s writing theme, is Aparna Sanjay’s thoughtful and reflective write-up of her views on the Resolution Story. 

Aparna, in her own words: I am a corporate worker bee turned development professional who works with a non-profit in Delhi. I’m a travel enthusiast, a foodie, craft junkie and mom of 2 young kids. I blog about parenting, travel and kidisms.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of resolutions. The Doing kind and the Being kind. To elaborate – the doers, who (mostly) make the doing kind of resolutions, are (again, mostly, let’s not over-generalize here!) externally-focused people. They make resolutions about places to see, skills to learn, money to earn and things to do. They make bucket lists of all the stuff they need to do and the lucky (or should I say resolute) ones manage to slowly but surely tick items off their list. To exercise and lose 10 kgs, to see all the Seven Wonders of the world, to get a great appraisal, to hit 150% of their sales target and make it to Hawaii, to buy a house, to bungee-jump and skydive…….to squeeze the most out of life……to maximize their potential and experiences.

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The second entry that made it to our shortlist for this month’s writing theme is a spunky and bold Resolution Story by Roopa. 

Roopa Prabhakar, in her own words: I’m a new mother, a working woman who believes her face is plastered on the glass ceiling, a closet feminist and writer.

I thought long and hard on what my New Year resolution should be. Amidst the usual weight loss, career goals, hobby-hunting, ideal mother/wife/daughter soap-opera stuff there was one idea silently screaming out in my head – be a real BAD ASS BITCH this year……

At first I ignored it and put it down to hormones as it was that time of the month (my husband jokes that I am either PMS’ing or CRYing) but then, as I turned the thought over in my head it didn’t seem so bad. In fact, I warmed up to it so much that I decided to write this article.

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