(The following painting, done as part of school homework to paint something inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe, was selected by The Week Junior Magazine to be published in their July edition. )
Original Painting
Me holding the painting
Photo of my photo in The Week Junior magazine:
(This story was submitted to Young Wild Writers competition for Hen Harriers Day 2020.)
It was a sunny day when the Squirrel family went for a picnic in the park. In the park, there were lots of other families - Butterfly, Bee and Ladybug.
The children of the squirrel family, Girl Squirrel and Boy squirrel, went to see the flowers with the butterflies and bees carrying nectar in their hand, while Baby Squirrel was sitting with her parents. They had acorns for their lunch. Mummy Squirrel and Daddy Squirrel had huge acorns and some oranges. The bees were collecting nectar from flowers and creating honey in their beehive.
A bear crept from the side and stole the sweet honey from the bees. The bees got furious and the other animal families laughed and giggled. The ladybugs were flying around eating little insects that eat plants. Soon the bear walked away when it finished eating the yummy, sticky, sweet honey made by the bees.
Mummy and Daddy squirrel finished their big acorn and orange juice by that time and called Girl and Boy squirrel to play cricket with each other. Baby Squirrel was watching the bees make honey to eat for lunch. Baby Squirrel gave it a little lick, but she didn’t like it.
A cute, small kitten with turquoise eyes meowed and sashayed to join the picnic in the park. she walked up to the pond where there were lots of ducks, swans, geese and even cygnets. The kitten was about to catch a fish when a duck snatched it from the kitten with his beak. Splash! The kitten fell in the pond while the duck pulled the fish away from her. Luckily, kittens and cats can swim. So the duck and the kitten started fighting with each other for the fish in the water.
In the meanwhile, Butterfly family, Bee family and the Squirrel family all played eye spy.
“Eye spy with my little eye, something blue” babbled Baby Bee.
“Sky!” said Girl Butterfly.
“Eye spy with my eye, something beginning with ‘g‘ “ said Mummy Squirrel.
“Grass!” said Daddy Squirrel.
“I guess we’re having fun with this.” said Little Ladybug.
While they played eye spy, the kitten and the duck had already finished their fight and the duck got the fish. The kitten needed some help swimming out of the pond as it tried to catch another fish this time. The bear swam in the pond and caught the fish the kitten wanted but pushed her out of the pond. The kitten gave up on her fish and looked for a rat to eat.
Then, a wind started to blow. The animals started to panic when their picnic items got blown by the wind. The butterflies tried to fly and catch their food but the wind blew it. After a while, it was sunny and calm again. A new farm was just around the corner. All the families went to the farm and got some food, honey, acorns, apples, and nectar. They had a wonderful picnic with their new food.
This story was submitted to the 500Words.Me's Black Lives Matter story competition in July 2020. The entry went through to the second round, being selected among the top 2500 entries to be read by Reading Agency. Though the story did not go beyond that selection, the story has an interesting moral. The winning entry was by I FEEL OUT OF CONTROL by Sara.
Once upon a time there lived a black princess named Mia. One day, when Mia was asleep, an evil white witch named Aradia cast a dickory dickory dock; climb up my evil potion clock spell on the princess in the night.
When Mia work up, she tip-toed to her bedroom and started planning a party because her birthday was coming up. Mia was very excited and joyful. After planning her birthday party, she sat down with her phone to call her friends and family for her party.
In the evening, Mia stood outside her castle welcoming all her friends to her party. Aradia followed her and cast another spell, Thunder, thunder; let her party blunder. Right after her spell, thunder scorched across the sky rumbling and the clouds became full of rain.
It got wet and watery so the princess’s party was cancelled and all her friends and family rushed back home. After that it was just Mia and Aradia. Aradia pulled her into a cave, which led Mia into a big underground town.
In the town, Mia first saw a gorgeous tower. She started climbing the tower and when she reached to the top, she saw a colourful, village full of witches a little distance down.
She walked to the village and knocked on one of the huts and a girl opened the door.
“Hello, what is your name?” asked the princess.
“Hi, my name is Alice.“ responded the girl.
“I was wondering if you could help me get rid of that witch because she is evil”
“You need to use your Black Power and fight against her evil power”, said Alice
“Oh, is that why the witch is troubling me?”
“Yes, your majesty”
Alice said witches often treated people based on their colour. It turns out however that the village also has many good witches, among whom one was Alice.
“But how do I get out of this underground town?”
“You need to win over the witch, either by brain or by heart”
Mia called upon Aradia to a duel to see if she can change Aradia’s mind.
First Aradia cast a spell. A giant, white arrow pointed towards the princess came hurtling to destroy her but she moved swiftly to the left and instead it attacked the witch but nothing happened because it was her white own arrow.
Then princess Mia cast a spell, Woody wood; make her good. A black triangle went henceforward and attacked the witch Aradia. Aradia realized she was evil and turned back to good.
The princess then proclaimed to Aradia “You used to be evil but are now good. You shouldn’t attack and kill people based on their race that was why I cast a spell to make you realize your mistakes.”
“Thanks, Princess” replied Aradia and brought the princess back to her castle.
(This story was submitted to A Write Laugh, under 5-13 category, with word limit of 500. The intent of the competition was to unearth funny stories.)
Bake Cake, Remake
Dora’s mother’s birthday was soon coming and Dora and her dad wanted to surprise her mother with a yummy chocolate cake. Dora and her father watched the instructions on YouTube and bought all the ingredients from the shop - flour, baking soda, baking powder, chocolate powder, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, butter etc. Dora learnt that you need fine grain sugar to add to a cake. You can’t use normal table sugar. The fine grain sugar looks very white and powdery.
Dora and her dad arranged all the ingredients on the table top and started making the cake. Dora switched on the oven, while her dad added the ingredients one by one into a bowl - eggs, milk, flour, butter. Then Dora’s dad asked her to add 1 bowl of sugar and 1 spoon of salt, while he readied the pan.
When the dough was ready, Dora added it to the pan and they put it into the oven. When the cake came out, it looked nice and fluffy and Dora’s dad took out a thin slice from the corner so that they could taste it and make sure it was tasty. When Dora’s dad tasted it, it didn’t taste well. Then he took another slice and gave it to Dora to see if she tasted it the same. Dora tasted it and immediately spat it out and yelled “Yuck”!!
It tasted all salty!! It turns out that since both the salt and the baking sugar looked the same, Dora added 1 bowl of salt and 1 spoon of sugar instead of the opposite!!
Dora and dad set about making a second cake. This time, Dora’s dad wanted to be in charge of adding the ingredients for the cake. He told Dora to just add milk, egg and flour and he promised to take care of the rest.
So Dora added 4 eggs, as the instruction said, then one bowl of flour and then she needed to add one cup of milk. She took out her father’s beer mug to measure one cup and added it to the flour. After the ingredients were mixed and put into the pan and baked. When the cake came out, it wasn’t fluffy or spongy. It came out like a pancake. When Dora’s dad asked how much milk she added - Dora pointed to the beer mug. It turns out that a beer mug is too much milk - about twice a cup that was needed. Both Dora and her dad had a big laugh about this.
They enjoyed the chocolate pancake with their cup of tea, and then set about to make a third cake, which they hoped would come out nicely. This time, Dora’s dad supervised all the steps that Dora took to ensure there were no silly mistakes.
This time the cake came out nicely. Later in the day they wished Dora’s Mom a very birthday with a tasty, good-looking chocolate cake.
(This story was submitted to A Write Laugh, under 5-13 category, with word limit of 500. The intent of the competition was to unearth funny stories.)
Trouble With Animals
It was a glorious summer morning and Clara wanted to enjoy the day as soon as she woke up. She wore her favourite turquoise summer dress with white polka dots. Clara was hoping to spend her day in the garden enjoying a mango ice cream and watching her favourite movie on Netflix.
While she was eating breakfast, Kitty, the neighbour’s cat purred and meowed. Clara’s mum started complaining about the cat. In her mind, cats were as dangerous as tigers and they should only be allowed in Jungles and Zoos.
While playing in the terrace with her dolls, Clara’s mum reminded her to keep the door closed just in case Kitty got curious. Clara heard her mum, looked up from her toys and realised it was already too late. The door was open!
Clara saw Kitty cat-walking through her living room. She was hoping to get Kitty out of the house before her mum could see her. Before she could do so, Kitty had jumped on to the sofa. By this time, Clara’s mum came and screamed “Oh My God!!!” in horror. Listening to this, Kitty got scared and started jumping here and there, knocking off the glass vase and their family painting. After ransacking the living room, Kitty ran out of the house. Clara could see her Mum’s eyes red with anger!
Clara’s father came to rescue Clara and took her for a walk to the nearby duck pond. Before heading out, Clara’s dad packed a box of duck food to feed the ducks.
While at the pond, Clara was enjoying feeding the ducks and swans in the pond. She even saw some cute baby swans, called cygnets, come along for the food she was throwing into the water.
While she was feeding them and enjoying the walk away from her mum’s angry eyes, she heard some geese coming towards them for the food. They were making scary noises like “eee aaw, eee aaw”, which was very startling. Clara took a step back.
The geese got fierce in their attempt to get food and approached them hungrily and noisily. Clara took a few more steps back. Her father shouted “look out!!” to Clara but it was too late.
Splash!!! She had tripped and fell into the pond. Her father had to pull her up out of the water. Clara’s beautiful turquoise summer dress was all wet and dirty. Even one fish had made it into the pocket of the dress which Clara had to fish out.
Clara learnt that today was not her best day with animals and birds.
(This classical Bharatnatyam dance was performed at Zoroastrian Centre, London at the Indian Community's Republic Day celebrations, 26th January 2020. The performers were Avyaya, Gayathri and Varshini. The song is Ramachandraya Janaka)
(This dance was performed in Kew Riverside's "Kew Factor" day and went on win the 3rd prize across all age groups. The competition was looking for something unique and in this case, a Bharatnatyam dance was performed on Carnatic + Shape of You fusion song.)
This entry went on to be judged as runners up at Creative Writing Competition conducted by Oxbridge Center , April 2021. In the competition...
