THE WARMTH OF THE OLD YEAR!
Deepti Menon
December is my favourite month, starting off with my birthday, followed by the Christmas reds and greens, gifts and trees, the season of giving and receiving.
“Chill December brings the sleet,/ Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.”
– Sara Coleridge
Having been part of the Indian Army where every festival is celebrated with gusto, December was always the end-of-the-year bash, leading up to a fresh New Year where I would frantically make resolutions, because that was what everyone did.
As some wise soul said, maybe after a bit of elbow exercise, “Resolutions are meant to be made one day and broken the next!” Surprising that he made sense despite being blotto, and many took him seriously, including yours truly. My resolutions included dieting after the Christmas season, (always an impossible task), learning a new art, (which required a great deal of craft) or exercising (which took the life out of me).
Suddenly, another wise soul loomed on my social media horizon only to spout the next pearl of wisdom. “Do not take large bites. Take small, manageable ones!” He was not referring to the abovementioned diet, but to breaking down tasks into little segments and doing them comfortably, something that did warm the cockles of my heart.
Writing has always been in my blood, right from when I was ten and wrote my first poem. Half a century later, my passion for the written word has only burgeoned. So much so that my resolution a few years ago was to write a page every day, of something, of anything, just not nothing. I stuck that on the wall in front on my laptop, and wrote two whole anthologies of thriller short stories. Talk about breaking things down to the bare minimum! I quite enjoyed the exercise of ending my tales with a twist, some so gory and sadistic that I had people around eyeing me with alarm. How on earth did a person who looked so harmless end up with such spinechilling ideas? How on earth did her husband sleep peacefully at night anyway?
2022 was a year for me replete with writing. I got back to writing poetry with a chance to read a poem at a Virtual Open Mic contest by Chrysanthemum Chronicles. It was heartening to be part of the Ananke Literary Festival along with my inspiring friends from Readomania. I was particularly delighted when my blog ‘Deep Ties’ (no points for guessing where that name came from!) found a place in the Directory of Best Indian Blogs in English 2022 Edition for the second time running.
My stories and poems nestled within myriad anthologies – ‘Remnants of Loss’ (Readomania), ‘The Aniconic Cosmic Dancer’ and ‘Songs of a Mermaid’ (Chrysanthemum Chronicles), Unkahi: The Unsung (An Army publication) and ‘Lockdown – Tales from the Pandemic Era’ (Writersmelon).
Shakespeare has been an inspiration ever since I grew up enough to appreciate him as a writer with sound common sense. That is what I wanted to project when I put together a short story manuscript of his most popular plays for young readers, along with illustrations done by children as well, a project close to my heart which will hopefully see the light of day in the year to come.
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