Title : Remember When 
Author : Preethi Venugopala
Excerpt:
Tara had been looking forward to the book launch since months. Yet now, when it was happening, she was in a stupor of sorts. All thanks to the man who was sitting next to her.
She was on autopilot and not fully aware of anything that was happening around her. She did what she was supposed to do. She answered the random questions that were thrown at her both by the audience and by the moderator. She also read out from her book and signed copies for those who had bought her book.
Manu had not changed much in appearance. But his attitude towards her had undergone a sea change. The lover who cherished her presence had transformed into a stranger who made her feel unwanted.
Manu’s questions during the launch had felt personal to her.
“Why do you write romance?”
“Do you believe in true love?”
Tara didn’t remember her answers. She had faced the audience when she answered them. Whenever their eyes had met, Manu’s eyes asked her a thousand questions for which she had no answers. Together with guilt, regret held her heart in an icy grip.
All through the function, she prayed for a chance to ask him for forgiveness. When he left her on the stage to allow the readers to get the books signed, Tara watched him stealthily whenever she got the chance. If he had slipped away, she might have abandoned all pretence and ran after him.
Much to her relief, he didn’t leave. Maybe he wanted to talk too. He kept standing, hands in his pocket staring around as if bored by whatever was happening. Next time when she looked up, he was gesturing to Aryan to go to him. Aryan pulled at her saree, asking for permission. When she nodded a yes, he ran toward Manu, clutching his angry bird plush toy.
When Tara glanced up next, Manu who was listening to Aryan’s babble, burst out laughing. The sound sent a shudder of excitement through her. She had not forgotten his laugh. The deep, hearty sound always did strange things to her heart. It had been one of the first things that had endeared him to her.
Blurb:
On the outside, Tara leads a perfect life. A home of her own, a handsome husband, a doting son and a promising career as an author.
But inside, she is a wreck. Her marriage is a sham and she hasn’t succeeded in forgetting her one true love, Manu, the man she had wronged. The man she had almost married.
Manu, now the senior editor with a science portal, firmly believes that he has left Tara where she belonged: in his past. But in reality, he hasn’t forgotten anything. Not the love nor the hurt.
Their past and present collide when they accidentally meet in Chennai. The city has come to a standstill after facing the worst flood in a century. While nature is unleashing its fury on humans, they must make peace with their past.
Will they have the courage to do that?
Can they fight the attraction that still burns bright?
Or will the bunch of people they are with, teach them new life lessons?
How long can Tara hide her secret from Manu when it has the potential to tear them apart?
Amazon Book Link: mybook.to/RememberWhenANovel
Author Bio:
Preethi Venugopala is a civil engineer during the day and a writer and blogger in all her free hours. She has many short stories traditionally published on Juggernaut books but she opted to self-publish her novels on Amazon KDP.
Being a voracious reader, Preethi writes the kind of stories she loves to read.
About time to confess my insecurities as a writer. Trust me I am not alone facing this. Every writer goes through this. However, there can be a slight difference in the way they react to it. Some go to hibernation, some may swear never pick up the pen again while some bounce back with the same force. Amongst all there also exists another subspecies of writers who are not even bothered about insecurities. All they do is just brush them off from their cloak and move ahead.
So watch out which league you fall into. I won’t even mention mine. I shall keep it for you to guess it. Okay, so before I start this let me remind my disclaimer once again.
Welcome to a new series of blog posts titled “Authors’ Tips – A to Z of Writing”. Authors Devika Fernando, Preethi Venugopala, Reet Singh, Ruchi…
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Draupadi – The tale of an empress by Saiswaroopa Iyer
Blurb :
Being born a princess, and raised by a loving father and three doting brothers would make life seem like a bed of roses to any woman. Born out of the sacred fire, Draupadi is no ordinary woman, and her destiny cannot be to walk the beaten pa
th. Witnessing estrangement and betrayal within her own family makes her perceptive and i
ntuitive beyond her years. Complicated marital relationships, a meteoric rise and a fateful loss, humiliation unheard of and a pledge of revenge, all culminating in a bloody war—her ordeal seemed never-ending. Yet she stands up to it all—never succumbing, never breaking. One of the most unforgettable characters of the Mahabharata, Draupadi shows what a woman is capable of. Told with great sensitivity and passion, this book brings alive a character of epic proportions that resonates with every reader across space and time.
Excerpt :
An awestruck silence overtook them, each drowned in their own memory. Uttara was remembering her association with her enigmatic mother-in-law, and Janamejaya was thinking about Rishi Vaishampayana’s narration of the exploits of his ancestors and their much-celebrated queen. He saw Uttara fiddle with her silvery white plait, still long and lustrous, despite her ripe age of nearly eighty springs.
‘You lost a lot in the great war, Grandmother,’ he murmured, shuddering while he imagined the dance of destruction at Kurukshetra. ‘Was there ever an occasion when you felt your life would have been better had you not married into the Pandava household?’
‘Depends upon how one defines the word “better”, Janamejaya,’ Uttara replied, still staring into space, as if she was viewing the incidents of her past right there.
Janamejaya moved closer, taking his place by her feet. ‘After listening to the most learned rishis of Bharatavarsha for days, I have still not been able to come to terms with my father’s death, Grandmother Uttara. How can I even dare to imagine how it must be for you who lost…’ he could not complete the sentence, partly out of the numbness his empathy generated. and partly because he did not want to refresh her moments of bereavement. Uttara had lost her father, brothers, and a very young husband with whom she had hardly spent a year of marital life, to the war at Kurukshetra. Her unborn child, Parikshit, Janamejaya’s father, had escaped from an episode of horrific midnight slaughter.
‘Everyone lost someone dear to them in the war, Janamejaya,’ Uttara sighed. ‘My marrying into this household at least gave me the satisfaction of bearing an heir to this empire. In fact, I am proud that the thought of unborn Parikshit gave the much needed hope and strength to Uncle Yudhishtira to take up the reins of this devastated land. I had the good fortune of being a daughter to Mother Draupadi when she lost everyone born of her womb to that midnight slaughter.’
Janamejaya’s eyes filled with a sense of admiration. ‘Old men and women at Hastinapura still blame Empress Draupadi and her anger for their losses in the battle.’ With a pained shrug, he added, ‘The gap of understanding that exists between the wise and the mundane.’
‘As the emperor, it is your dharma to dispel misunderstandings surrounding the history of this land, Janamejaya,’ Uttara’s voice was stern. ‘The whole point of reciting the records of the past is to learn from the exploits of our ancestors, take pride in their valour, strength and courage, while gaining wisdom from the stories of their tribulations. If people judge their ancestors because of false notions about history, it is only a matter of time before the population is uprooted from the values their ancestors fought for, and falls apart.’
Janamejaya nodded. ‘That is the reason why I have impressed upon the rishis and acharyas to impart the timeless record of Bharata to students while they acquire education from their gurus. I have also appealed to the erudite disciples of Bhagavan Veda Vyasa to conduct recitation sessions in public gatherings during the festivities.’
Uttara smiled in satisfaction at his genuine attempts. ‘Janamejaya, lazy intellect puts the blame of the Great War on one person. Those who truly understood what led to the eighteen-day-long slaughter at Kurukshetra would reflect on the events and choices of three of the four generations that led the entire empire to war. Blaming someone like Mother Draupadi is not only foolish but also a disturbing sign of misogyny that would be frowned upon by the learned rishis who recorded history and composed the timeless story. Mother Draupadi, in fact, saved the empire from many disasters with the sheer power of her desire to protect this land.’
Janamejaya listened to her animated discourse and smiled. ‘Grandmother Uttara, I have never seen a woman defend her mother-in-law with the passion that you did just now. Pray, tell me the story again, this time through her eyes.’
Uttara rejoiced at Janamejaya’s undying enthusiasm to listen to the tale of his ancestors repeatedly. Very few were fortunate enough to carry the legacy that he did and even fewer realized and strived to live by it as he did. She was more than delighted to narrate the tale, especially from the perspective of the woman who had captured her respect, awe and love for this life and the lives to come—from the perspective of Draupadi.
The book can be bought from: https://www.amazon.in/Draupadi-Saiswaroopa-Iyer/dp/9353333156/
About Author:
An Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and an investment professional turned satisfied writer, Saiswaroopa is the best selling author of four novels, all based on legendary female protagonists from Ancient Hindu Literature. Her second novel Avishi, based on a Rig Vedic hymn, has been acquired for screen adaptation by a major studio. Saiswaroopa is passionate about Ancient Indian history, philosophy and literature. She holds a certificate in Puranas from Oxford School of Hindu Studies. As a trained Classical Singer, she has also been awarded a Gold medal by TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams). In her spare time, she likes to search for her next inspiration in books, pravachanas and historical temples. She lives in Bangalore with her husband and daughter.
Social media is very much part of our life and our Dp represents who we are. But does our Dp really show the frame of mind? Many times we fake it.
Life is always not a blessing. Its full of challenges. Sometimes it breaks us sometimes it makes us. When the time is good we are happy and let the world know about it. However, when it is the other way round we tend to hide it behind our mask.
My upcoming book, The Clockmaker, is a supernatural series releasing this month. So here I am sharing a few tips on the same. Since you are reading this post so you are interested in supernatural or horror stories and maybe you are writing one too. Cool! So lets’ quickly get down to the tips but before that I would like to mention that this post is part of A to Z blog post series that a few of us, authors are doing.
Welcome to a new series of blog posts titled “Authors’ Tips – A to Z of Writing”. Authors Devika Fernando, Preethi Venugopala, Reet Singh, Ruchi Singh, Adite Banerjie, Saiswaroopa Iyer , Sudesna Ghosh and myself — will be posting on a multitude of subjects related to writing. Topics will be chosen alphabetically and each week we propose to cover at least one or more…
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Life always gives a second chance, all you need to do is hear the knock.
My first post this year is a Gyan Varsha. Hope you relate to it.
So I was teaching Algebra to my son. This is his first time with the subject and he is also taking a keen interest in it. I am enjoying it too because at school it happened to be my favorite chapter in Mathematics. All you have to do is just understand the grouping to solve the riddle. It is fun, Algebra.
Apart from the fun, this time I saw the algebraic expression in a different manner. Somewhere I could relate it with our own identity. Lols. I know you might be smiling back at my words but there is one. Let me show you how.
According to the rules of Algebra,
When there is no constant with a variable in an algebraic expression, then it is considered to be 1
Ex: x2y5 has…
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The Diary Of A Rolling Stone 
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