Tweet, Tweet and a Fairy Tale Weaves.

Image source for this picture

The story was ‘The fiery sun’ and before the team started; they decided that copyright would not belong to anybody.

I saw them weave their story on Twitter and was amazed at how the story was unfolding. Four tweeple (I was not sure if they knew each other- but I assumed they were friends) were tweeting a story. The story was for Pratham books that had enthralled the blogger world with their write-a-thon to celebrate the International girl child with ‘The upside down story’.

On the twitter, they had invited tweeple to create one story and Asmita had taken up this challenge.

She put up her tweet-request to make a team and like a relay, each one wrote 5-6 tweets and then passed on the writing baton to the next participant. Asmita kept track of the story with a handle #swpb (story writing for PrathamBooks) which she would collate and post it on her blog.

I was following the story and was very impressed with the talent out there, Ratna wrote:

I reached the tree, bent down to pick 1 stone. To my surprise, it wasn’t a stone at , but a tiny, ice-cold blob of sparkly jelly! I put it in my mouth – silly me? – and it melted instantly into a mouthful of delicious, cool coconut water. I quickly gobbled 20 mouthfuls till my thirst was gone. Then i lay down under tree – a cool, dark place that smelled faintly of vanilla & dreamed.

Although the story was expected to be completed in one day with 100 tweets, it tweeted on for three days. The participating tweeple came in their own free time and tweeted the story, passing on their writing baton to the next person after their turn. I had decided that I would give my feedback at the end of the story but the story was so amazing that I could not wait no more. I wanted to cheer all the writers whom I knew.

My twitter chat with Asmita

Me: Loved the way your story is shaping out

Asmita: Would you like to add to the story?

Me: Ah! I wish I had joined in earlier, now your story is in its last leg, no? It’s truly lovely and you are doing good

Asmita: Even if we are at end you can join up, continue the story or end it. It is a collaboration effort- no hard and fast rule to it.

Me: Thank you so much, I am so very tempted to join in but it doesn’t seem fair to me to butt in last minute – maybe next time.

I slept off after the chat but in the morning I had change of mind and decided to give it a try.

Me: On the second thought- maybe I should, it sounds fun, pass me the baton please. And I was in…..just for few tweets. I wrote:

I looked closely at the gold handle, turning it upside down, round and round, examining each part running my finger over it. It was smooth. Too smooth, what a strange handle? The picture of that delicious map has shown that it was attached to the tree but I couldn’t see any hook, how will it fit on the tree, and how do I find that tree? Maybe Jin might know. The animal-shaped plants had said that he helped everybody, maybe he is somewhere around.

“Jin, Jin, where are you there? Can you hear me? Please help me.”

I looked around waiting for Jin to appear. There was no sign of Jin. Silence everywhere except those faint distant sounds of ‘“tabala tabala hiri hiri boom” I kept the handle aside and then saw those pair of rose-colored spectacles. They looked so pretty and I tried them on, suddenly …

No, I couldn’t end the story…there was much too much excitement to it…I tweeted only as far as my images clicked into my mind (was still warming up) with just about 8-9 tweets only and passed on the writing baton to the next one….and before I realized the story had swirled around into such a beautiful story somersaulting my imagination.

I have memorized every scene. Now I wait to catch hold of a child, straddle him on my lap to relate this story..and experience the bliss of story telling

To read the full story, please click here

A free Entertainment

Nothing comes free and that I am sure, time and again I have been fooled many times and each time disappointed. I have learnt this long ago but how do I explain to my friend who is always looking for freebees and tagging me along? And Me, never able to refuse, always suffer a silent death. This evening was a free pass to some musical show-cum-stage show and my friend calls me up to accompany her to this show. Now I had already reserved this evening for a book launch at Crossword. I wanted to attend this launch because I was attracted by the title and the promising story of 5 Sindhi ladies. A book called ‘Beyond Diamond rings' by Kusum Choppra. Here I was asking my friend to accompany me to this book launch and she was flashing free passes. I finally relented, just rushed to crossword, picked up the book, could not meet the author (since they are late comers and don’t start the program as schedule, supposed to start at 7pm but till 730, there was no sign of the author nor any audience, just a flute player playing music till the author arrives, I would have loved to hear her talk about what inspired her to write this book and which was her favorite passage) anyways, my friend couldn’t wait for me to enjoy such luxuries, so I rushed off with her to attend this show at Rabindra Natya Mandir at Prabhadevi

I was surprised by the loud music of drum being played at the entrance to welcome the guests. There were cameras flashing at every guest. Never before have I attended any stage show with such loud reception. I asked her whether we were attending some festival or some wedding occasion, but all she knew was that she was attending some show that was free and it had snacks and drinks on the house too. I just followed her, picked up my share of snack and drinks and entered the auditorium to wait for the program to start.

We sat near the exit and watched every guest that entered the auditorium. It seemed like a fashion parade. Most of the audience was either Sikh or Punjabi, and every body was a guest. Well, it turned out that this was just a promotion program for the upcoming TV serial to go on air on Doordarshan from 13th April onwards at 10pm, every Tuesday. The TV serial on life of 'Maharaja Ranjit Singh'. The 52 episode serial by Ral Babbar Film pvt limited, is a historical epic story of Ranjit Singh, the warrior who protected the borders from Ladakh to Punjab. A few hundred Sikhs, living on their horsebacks were ever ready to challenge the might of the invaders. The Sikhs were victims of a number of massacres both at the hands of the Mughals as well as the Afghans, which only made their resolve stronger.

So here I was, not attending any stage-play or musical show but attending a serial-promotion show. No Surprises then that drinks and snack were free and the program was fully sponsored by serial producers.

Over the next two hours, we heard different people relating the story and the behind the scene stories, Jaggit Singh who has sung for this serial gave a part of his performance, and then we were introduced to all those people who contributed to this serial and finally some film shots on the big screen.
Ah so boring…well, it was free.. so no complains.

However, I think I would have still preferred the reading at the Crossword.