Resilience

Manya sat in the midst of papers, swirling in a sea of indigo files. She couldn’t hear the clock ticking but knew that each moment gave way to the next with speed of lightening. The Deadline would creep in, deadly quiet, and stand there, thin-lipped, hands on her hips, demanding her pound of flesh.

Manya stood up and stared out of the window. The red-tiled portico was unpeopled except for the aged gardener who was hunched over, picking tufts of dried grass lining the edge of the green lawn.

How she wished she could join him. Did he want a potted petunia for his garden? Or a gladiolus, may be? She would choose the best ones from her own select array and gift it to the man. Tomorrow. When it would all be over. She would gladly trade the coldness of the ivory tower, where she stood, to the greenness of the grassroots with which the gardener worked. Carefree. Shorn of inane responsibilities. Happy.

But then again, wasn’t happiness a bi-product of the mind, just as suffering was. It was all in the mind. What stood between her and happiness at that moment? It was her mind. Her imagined fear of a missed deadline.

The gardener stood up, stretched his back and made as if to wipe the sweat off his brow. He sat down in a huff, muttering under his breath for a couple of moments, and slowly proceeded to pick up where he had left.  

Manya looked at the clear sky. It was dotted with wispy white clouds. Clouds that predicted good fortune, she knew. The Deadline was inching, slowly and surely. Battling it, tackling it and nailing it, was the Hobson’s choice she would choose.

She turned around and found the indigo blue files staring at her. They were the same colour as the colour of the sky. She picked one and ran her fingers over its smooth surface. She was now holding a piece of the sky, her very own sky.

~Written in response to Rommy's Prompt - Weekly Scribblings #53 : Beautiful Words at Poets and Storytellers United. I chose the word Zuiun: clouds that predict good fortune. Word Count:341

https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2021/01/weekly-scribblings-53-beautiful-words.html#comment-form

In this blog post, I share with you a couple of my pieces that got published recently. 

First up, another of my ten word stories found a home at Potato Soup Journal:

http://potatosoupjournal.com/how-she-fell-in-love-with-him-by-preeth-ganapathy/

A poem that I had written in response to their monthly prompt has been published in Visual Verse Magazine :

https://visualverse.org/submissions/cerulean-freedom/

A piece of prose that I had written for the Prose 500 contest organised by Wordweavers has been selected under their 'featured' category.

https://www.wordweavers.in/2020/08/prose-500-2020-winners-featured-writers.html

Happy writing, happy living!  

10 word story

My ten word story has been published in potato soup journal:

http://potatosoupjournal.com/infidelity-by-preeth-ganapathy/

The visitors

“Empty your mind, clear the thoughts away,” said the yoga instructor in her soothing voice.

I felt a comforting sense of calmness wash over me. No thoughts, no white noise in the background to disturb me. It was just a void. A strange sense of lightness overcame my being, strange in a happy sort of way.

As I inhaled deeply for a count of four, my stomach expanded. I concentrated on the breath alone. Thoughts of that unfinished report were pushed to a quiet corner of the mind. This was not the time for work to suddenly show up like an unwelcome visitor.

Every morning before the crack of dawn, I attended the yoga classes in my neighbourhood.  It was still dark and quiet everywhere. Even the stray dogs, deep in their slumber, would not let out so much as a snore. It was this quietness that I enjoyed most during the day.

All of a sudden, a sound was heard. It was something like a cross between the melody arising from the plucking of a veena string, the purring of a cat and the striking of metal on a gong.

The magical spell was broken. My concentration veered. Somebody had forgotten to switch off their phone again, I thought in exasperation.

Soon enough, another metallic tang was heard coupled with a few more tangs in quick succession. Unable to concentrate on the breath any more, any longer, I opened my eyes. The other yoga students too were wondering looking around trying to figure out the source of the sound.

When it was clear that it was not any of our phones that was causing trouble, the instructor decided to take charge. She went out to enquire with the watchman about the source of the sounds.

There was no other premise in the building open at this hour in the vicinity. A music class in the offing perhaps? Nope, not that he knew of.

“Not in any of the other floors of the building? Are you sure,“ she asked. The building had five floors and the yoga studio was in the ground floor.

“No madam, I don’t see any neon board hanging outside advertising one,” he replied nonchalantly.

Now, all of us were scouting for the source, looking for light glowing from a room or two from houses in the vicinity. May be some sleepless soul had woken up at this hour and had switched on the radio for company.

“It can’t be a radio,” said one of the students in a magenta tank top and black tights.

“It has to be an animal, sounds more like a kitten,” said another man who had not got up from his lotus pose, the padmasana, like the rest of us.

The sounds were repeated, frequency between two consecutive sounds maintained at the same pace. 

They were emanating from somewhere inside the yoga studio, we decided.

There at the corner of the room, behind the pot of money plant, lay a small wooden box. The box was closed and lay motionless. There was no doubt now, about the source of the mysterious sounds.

I slowly ventured towards the box on tiptoe as the class collectively held its breath. I practiced some deep breathing to steady myself and stretched out my hand slowly and lifted the cover.

As I looked inside, I found two little kittens huddled together, lying on top of each other, purring loudly. Probably being a day or two old, they were hardly able to open their eyes. The entire class was now peering at them over my shoulders.

That day, the yoga class extended for an unusually long period of time. Not because we were practising various poses, asanas but because, we were busy finding milk and a safe home for the forlorn kittens.       

Ragtag Daily word prompt : Empty
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/rdp-friday-empty/