Tales Around Us

By Sheetal Shah

As a first-time writer, ‘Tales Around us’ is a collection of eleven short stories that attempts to portray the broader idea of how people find bliss amidst chaos. It also looks at the ways in which our life quite beautifully gets intertwined with different people who hail from various socio-economic backgrounds. Read the book to see how the subtle incidents and characteristics of individuals make them stand out and adds a special flavour to their day-to-day journey of life. Happy Reading! 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022

Book preview

(1)

Basti Mein Mast

Savita got back quite late from Aashirwad Residency as Mrs Kamala Goswami, one who Savita works for, had given her some extra chores. It was close to the Diwali season and a lot in the house needed cleaning and polishing. After turning the house into a spotless haven, Savita walked back to her basti. She was feeling completely worn out. As usual, Madhura, her 7-year-old daughter, was busy playing on a heap of sand outside their Kholi creating patterns in sand. It didn’t look like she was in a mood for dinner.

Savita went inside her small room, placed her bag on the floor, scooped out some leftover dal and rice from the morning and with a smile on her face, walked up to her little angel. Hardly did she let Madhura become aware of how tired she was from the day’s work. She sat on her knees in front of Madhura and tried different tricks to catch her attention. She sang her favourite Marathi song, talked about her day at work and asked Madhura about her day with their neighbour Ganga Tai and her parrot, Rani who Madhura has renamed as Popat as she strongly feels that it is wrong to give a name to a parrot! Savita was making futile efforts to feed her little one. When she felt that Madhura couldn’t be shaken off from her playtime, she decided to try her favourite trick that worked at most times. She never likes to be angry or displeased with her little girl, as she wants her to enjoy her childhood as much as she can. She has a strong wish to give her daughter a different life from what she has lived as she was forced to help her maternal uncle and aunt with house chores after becoming an orphan at the tender age of 6.

She placed the bowl on the floor, went to her Kholi and got back with a small bucket of water. Madhura had still not noticed anything. Savita sat a little away from her daughter and started pouring water in the sand. Madhura looked up with her cute little blue eyes as she now started shifting her attention a little from her over engaging activity. It wasn’t long before she decided to go back to her sand art. Savita now started making a castle out of the wet sand and began with a story, ‘The family who lives in this castle loves boating. Every summer, they bring out their boat and go sailing. They have many boats. The castle has massive rooms and it overlooks the ocean……….’ Savita continued with her story as she kept adding bits to the castle. The castle was now taking shape. As a child, Savita had loved playing