Articles

While a conflict of interest, be it in life or in fiction, can bring about self-introspection, strange though it may seem, a casual encounter could lead to self-discovery. So it happened with me in the wake of my rebuff to a dogged tempter, “money is not my weakness” and his “what is your weakness” repartee; for the record, either I had been a straight purchase officer or a strict loss assessor, occupations amenable to monetary mischief. However, the idea of this article is not to gloat over my uprightness but to present the genesis of my attitude to money and the vicissitudes of my life as a subject matter for possible research. But the caveat is that much of my growing up that...

After letting me pen over a score of articles, though my muse prompted me to enter into the arena of fiction, yet it made me struggle to come up with the opening lines of my maiden novel for over ten days or so before “That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train. On that, in the S-3, were the Ramaiahs with their nine year-old daughter Roopa.”But then “the train stopped at a village station, as though to disrupt Roopa’s daydreams of ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reviewed by Susan Sewell for Readers' Favorite "A forest fire sweeps through Colorado's Rio Blanco county along the White River, and while the flames ravage the pristine wilderness, the ugliness of greed, murder, and revenge are exposed in the exciting suspense novel, Crime Unsolved (A Buck Taylor Novel) by Chuck Morgan.A fishing lodge, constructed despite a controversial land swap between the Forest Service and a wealthy developer, is ground zero for an out-of-control wildfire. An environmentalist group is claiming responsibility for the blaze, and the governor feels the need to call in CBI investigator Buck Taylor.With a murder victim found among the ruins of the lodge...

Whenever I look at my body of work of ten books, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not. I was born into a land-owning family in a remote village of Andhra Pradesh in India that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from there, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of the primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and grandma’s tales, made all the more interesting by her uncanny ability for storytelling. As my maternal grandfather’s grandfather happened to be a poet laureate at t...

Be careful what you wish for...To bad Abigail Stewart didn't heed those words. Her wish to be beautiful sends her back in time to 1852 to a harsh mining town where she in now in the body of Lolita, a beautiful but deadly woman who, legend has it, drowns her children.   Determined to save the two children, who will die before the blue moon, with the help of heartthrob Wyatt Beaufort, they set out to prove the legend is wrong. Their struggle to save the children tests the power of a mother's love and the true meaning of inner beauty.***** 5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating time travel romance sprinkled with mystery and suspenseReviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020Verified ...

Loved it! 😍Join two twins on an unusual journey of discovery in this lithe and lively read set in the Shetland Islands.Living at the edge of the world is… “different,” as two twelve year-old siblings find out in this heartwarming story of adventure, courage, friendship, and self-discovery.When Tabitha and her brother Timothy arrive on the remote Shetland Islands of Scotland while their parents go on a world cruise, the twelve year-old twins aren’t exactly turning cartwheels. The prospect of spending the winter with a great uncle they’ve never met isn’t exactly spinning their fins, either.Tabitha is out of sorts because the island’s remote location means limited WIFI. It’s ...

 When my feet first touched Indian soil in 1986, I felt as if I had finally found my home. Since that time, my destiny has led me back to India time and time again, first to study sitar in Shimla, then to study Sanskrit in Varanasi and then to live here continuously from 2001 until 2010. These trips etched in my heart and mind images, feelings and ideas which shaped my world view and the subsequent pattern of my life. The sunrise painting the cliffs of the Himalayas at dawn, the prayerful rituals on the banks of the Ganges, solitary treks to the sacred temples in the mountains; these images became an indelible part of my inner life.Pilgrimage on the Path of Love unraveled in the jungles...

One evening in a Chicago suburb, we were enjoying wine and cocktails with our next-door neighbors. In a way that conversation over cocktails evolves, Kristen mentioned a course she had completed for her continuing education. Kristen is an elementary school librarian (excuse me, Resource Center Director).  She took a story-telling course. The final assignment (I think it was, but wine and whiskey had been flowing) had been to write and tell an original story. She then explained that "story telling" clubs existed. These clubs attended story telling conventions to share their creations.My interest in the idea stemmed from two experiences, separated by about forty-five years.The first exper...

I know that our efforts all come to nothing. Analyze life, tear its trappings off, lay it bare with thought, with logic, with philosophy, and its emptiness is revealed as a bottomless pit; its nothingness frankly confesses to nothingness, and Despair comes to perch in the soulI know the end of us all is nothing, I know that at the end of Time, the reward of our toil will be nothing — and again nothing. I know that all our handiwork and all our ideas will be destroyed. I know that not even ash will be left from the fires that consume us. I know that our ideals, even those we achieve, will vanish in the eternal darkness of oblivion and final non-being. There is no hope, none, in my heart. I ...

                       My Ray of Sunshine 

                                     Spirit

 

There is a certain slant of light

That split thru my window

Into multi-colored rays

Which bounce and tumble to the floor

The bright elusive beads

Dance and tease my poor cat

Hunched up in the corner

Tense and vigilant

Eyes gleaming with triumph

She pounces on the intruder

And swallows it whole

 

 

By Prafulla Vyas