'Life Anecdotes'

By Nandita Rani

'Life Anecdotes' is a collection of ten short stories, all of them inspired by true life events. The book's very first story 'Myra' speaks about the survival of a true friendship in its most testing time. This story received an exceptional response on a story website. The other stories, 'One rupee coin' , 'The last lottery ticket', 'Winter Cap', 'Spy Cry' etc. are all created with utmost sincerity and love. There is pun,there is fun, there are all kinds of flavours tastefully brought together by the writer especially for her readers. One feels a connection on reading the stories and can relate to the incidents. From complex human relations to drifting human wants and needs, the writer has dealt with several issues keeping in mind the sanctity of each one of them. Nandita had always been into writing since her school days. She began with her story-writing journey during the summer of 2016. On completing her ten short stories, she released her first collection in June 2017. Nandita is currently working on the sequel of this book. She lives in Mumbai, India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nandita Rani
• Release date: Dec 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370389674

Nandita Rani

I am Nandita Rani and I have been into the field of education for a decade now. My writing journey began in 2016 when I penned down my first short story. On completing a collection of 10 stories, I released my first book named 'life anecdotes' in June 2017. It received a tremendous response from friends and readers. I am looking forward to releasing many more books in future.Teaching is my passion but writing is my life.

Book preview

Myra

She hesitated to enter the house on hearing the loud voice reaching out to her from the drawing room. Not again! She whispered under her breath.

Why does he come so often to visit us? Why can’t Papa tell him not to come? She thought, completely aware of the unreasonable demand she wanted her father to make.

All that formal nonsense followed by the same regular namaste, pretentious exchange of smiles and some fake academic inquiry while his eyes would do the routine checking me out, embarrassing me yet another time. I hate to see those pervert eyes. Why don’t my parents relate his frequent visits to something fishy? Will it take an unfortunate incident to stop this man from coming here? Myra’s mind was lost in all such thoughts as she reluctantly stepped into the room.

Ah, Myra is here? A cracked voice resonated.How have you been beta? A gentleman sitting on the door-facing sofa asked. Though a man in his early 40s but his fair complexion, age-defying good looks and stout stature made him look like a decade younger. Myra hated every bit of this man who she called Mehra uncle. Her regular encounter with Mehra uncle was inevitable since she was childhood friends with his daughter Naina. They had always studied in the same school and got separated only after choosing different streams post 10th.

Myra was a very pretty teenager, rather a head-turner in her sweet sixteen. She had always been pretty but was very grounded. She was often complimented by her neighborhood aunties and friends for her good-looks. Myra never donned any attitude about her good looks. She was a perfect girl with everything perfect about her at least as it appeared to be.

Naina, on the contrary, was an average-looking girl but exceptionally intelligent. She topped her class without fail in all grades and was the school topper in the boards. She was a hands-down favorite of all the teachers and most of her classmates for her intellect and sharpness, the same reason which made many of her batch-mates jealous of her too.

Myra’s and Naina’s friendship was known to all and many fondly called them ‘beauty and brains’. Myra’s parents too were in awe of Naina’s extraordinary intelligence and therefore always encouraged Myra to have combined studies with her.

Though the girls got separated after boards, they still visited each other frequently. Mehra uncle adored cute Myra as a kid and caressed her taking her in his arms whenever she visited them which later transformed into lust with time. He was dazzled by her beauty and found nothing wrong in it.

The fact that Myra had grown in front of his eyes and that she was his daughter’s friend was not enough to budge him from his dirty intentions. Initially, Mehra would go to the bus stop on the pretext of dropping Naina and make Myra sit on his lap till the bus arrived. Little Myra never found anything wrong in it and neither did Naina. Naina, however, at times felt ignored by her father in her best friend’s presence.

Myra took notice of Mehra uncle’s fishy behavior only when she had gone to their house to attend the house-warming function. Mehra uncle had insisted Mr. and Mrs. Ahuja to let Myra stay overnight for the party and that he would drop her back the next morning. She was only 10 years old then and was well- trained by her mother on how to carry herself in a public place. Though her mother was a little wary of letting her daughter stay out overnight but Mr. Ahuja did not find anything wrong in it knowing it was Mehra’s place. Myra was thrilled about staying at Naina’s place and had thanked Mehra uncle a thousand times for getting the permission from her parents. Amidst the chaos and customary poojas of the function at his place, Mehra had found out time to go to his daughter’s room to check Myra out. It was that night when Myra felt embarrassed for the first time when Mehra uncle entered the room without knocking while she was changing her dress. She tried hiding behind the curtain as there was nowhere else to go except for the bathroom which was already occupied by Naina. Mehra stood still and didn’t feel the need to leave the room.

Myra felt angry and frustrated at that shameless act of him. She knew not what to say and was left red-faced. She cursed herself for not being doubly sure of the locked door and not waiting for her friend to come out of the bathroom. It was only at the jostling of the bathroom door which forced Mehra to leave the room. That was indeed the first time when Myra had felt humiliated and angry for being exposed to a pair of luring eyes. She felt disgusted and kept revising the incident over and over again.

That small incident had left her quiet for several days which went unnoticed by everyone. Her visits to her friend’s house had drastically come down. Mrs. Mehra did ask her about it once which she easily doused with a pretty smile. Mrs. Mehra was an extremely polite lady who mostly kept to herself. She did not really believe in socializing. She was a homely lady. Although the Ahujas stayed just two blocks away from the Mehras, the ladies hardly met each-other. The mothers’ friendship though was nothing like their daughters’.

After the unpleasant experience, Myra had become extremely conscious of conducting herself in front of Naina’s father. She started avoiding meeting her father as much as possible. Myra would make sure that she visited Naina’s house only when her father was away.

Mr.Mehra too had taken notice of the drop in Myra’s visit to their house but that didn’t arise any sense of guilt in him. Whenever they fell face to face, Myra behaved indifferently and would leave the place immediately. Now that Myra had understood the situation, Mehra’s pervert attitude had further deteriorated. He became all the more unapologetic. There were incidents of Mehra offering lifts to Myra and nearly forcing her to sit on his scooter, while he purposely pulled the brakes taking pleasure of Myra’s young touch. At several occasions, he had groped her back on the pretext of patting her as if trying to find some clue. By now Myra knew that all this came as a part and parcel of being a girl. She accepted the fact that things cannot change overnight and was also aware that her predicament was not new. She saw