Friday's Odds and Ends

Today I thought I would celebrate a few strong women I've discovered via the Internet. This first one comes from Upworthiest.com. It is an inspiring story from a 21-year-old woman who challenges us to look at people with disabilities with a new perspective. She has cerebral palsy and wishes that people saw her as an intelligent person who is attending college and not a 2-year-old who is miserable in her challenged body.

It's human nature to focus on the differences, especially when those differences has someone in a wheelchair and appearing to be non-functioning, but this young woman, whose name was not given, asks us to find the common ground - person to person. Here is a link to her video.

Trisha Prabhu is another amazing young woman. Only 14-years old, she is one of Googles 15 Global Science Fair finalists, with her project 'Rethink' which asks teens to rethink a post they are going to make on social media. Trisha came up with the idea for combating cyber bullying after she heard about the 12-year-old Florida girl who committed suicide after experiencing cyber bullying.

 ‘Rethink’ picks up on words like stupid, loser and ugly and then alerts the teen that this post could be hurtful and asks them to reconsider. “It tells the cyber bully when they're about to post something offensive it goes, ‘whoa are you sure you want to post that on a social media site? That could be offensive.’ It has them rethink what they're about to do,” Prabhu said.

The best thing about her project is that in her experiment, 93 percent of adolescents changed their minds and decided not to post.

Something horrible that is an ongoing problem in India and Iran is the number of women who have acid thrown on them because they are not wearing the "proper" head covering. These women are terribly disfigured and many of them hide away in shame. Others, however, look for ways to increase awareness of this terrible practice. Some survivors of acid attacks in India have taken part in a photo shoot that introduces a new line of clothing designed by a woman who had acid thrown in her face by her stepmother. This happened in 2008, and Rupa suffered extensive damage to her face, neck and upper body. 

Delhi-based designer Rupa invited a number of her friends to model the new creations for her line, Rupa Designs, and here is a link to the full story.

Now to end on a fun note. Remember, it is so important to have a little fun every day. These are actual  ads that were published in a Yorkshire newspaper.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER
8 years old,
Hateful little bastard.
Bites!

FREE PUPPIES
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE PUPPIES
Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer £100.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE
Worn once by mistake.
Call Stephanie.

Go forth into your weekend and prosper!

An International Guest

Please grab a donut and your beverage of choice, and help me welcome Shuchi Singh Kalra as today's Wednesday's Guest. She wrote the light-hearted romantic comedy Done With Men that I reviewed here on Sunday. Shuchi lives and works in India, and I am so pleased to have my first international guest. While we're visiting with Shuchi here, I am at the Blood Red Pencil today talking about romance and sex. After all, they do go together.

Welcome Shuchi and please tell us a little bit about who you are and what you write.

I like to think of myself as a thinker and a dreamer. I live in my own idealistic little world and am cruelly jolted back to reality every once in a while when earthly responsibilities beckon. I am a proud military wife and mother to a beautiful two-year old girl.

I have been writing professionally for over seven years now as a freelance writer and editor, and I also run a small firm that goes by the name of ‘Pixie Dust Writing Studio’. While I have contributed to some anthologies in the past, Done With Men is my first solo offering. It is essentially a romantic comedy and I had tremendous fun writing it. I am keen to see how western readers will accept a story set in modern, urban India.

Are you a romantic at heart? Is Valentine's Day special for you? Romantic yes, but not hopelessly so – I do have my moments of cynicism every once in a while. I am not really big on “days” as such, because they somehow don’t fit in with my idea of romance. In fact I find them very cliché and pointless. But this Valentine’s Day is going to be special – very special!

 If you could go through a wormhole, would you go into the future, the past, or stay right here? Why? I would choose to stay in the now because this is such a fabulous time in my life. My life-long dream of publishing a book is coming true and I would like to savor every moment of it.

Have you always wanted to be a writer, or have you come to writing after another career? What was that career? I have always loved writing but I never thought I would one day take it up as a career. Few people know this, but I was an Optometrist before I took to writing. I worked at a leading eye hospital in India and soon realized that peering into slit-lamps and prescribing glasses wasn’t my thing. My family thought I was crazy to dump a seemingly good career to become a full-time writer but looking back, I believe it was the best decision I ever made.

What is your fondest childhood memory? I spent my childhood in Libya, where my parents worked for some years before coming back to settle in India. We had this huge Spanish villa in a campus with a sprawling green belt around it. There I had my own make-shift tree house that I had built with palm leaves and some branches. It was pretty neat looking and quite sturdy too. I would sit in it all day with a bag of oranges and a pile of books.

How did you come to write in the genre you chose? I chose chick-lit/rom com for my first book because that is the genre I read and enjoy the most. Also, it was relatively easier to write about a theme that I identified with at a personal level. However, that does not mean I will never step out of my comfort zone – this is just my first novel and I would love to experiment and stretch my boundaries as I gain more confidence in my skills as a novelist.

What did it say about you in your high school yearbook? It says “The Tomboy”. As a teenager I always thought I was being all pretty and feminine (what with all the male attention) but I guess people didn’t see me that way (smile).
____________
Shuchi Singh Kalra is an internationally published writer, placing work in popular magazines such as Femina.in, Good Housekeeping, Home Review, Parent & Child, Vista, Investors India, Dogs & Pups, Women's Era and Time 'N' Style. Her short stories have been published in anthologies such as Love Across Borders and New Asian Writing's upcoming collection. She is the owner of Pixie Dust Writing Studio, a writing and editing firm that services a global clientele, and the Indian Freelance Writers Blog.

You can find out more about her at her website, read her blog, and meet her on Facebook and Twitter.

Book Blurb:

Travel journo, Kairavi Krishna (Kay) has had it with men. After a series of disasters (losers, philanderers, leeches, mama's boys and possessive psychos), she is all too tempted to walk out on the prospect of ever finding love. Accompanied by her best friend and flat-mate Baani, she sets off for Goa, hoping to get away from her miserable love life and vowing to stay clear of the male species.

Goa however, packs more surprises than she bargained for. Ricky, her pesky ex-boyfriend, is busy painting the town red with his hot new girlfriend. Now what is poor Kay to do other than overdose on vodka, smoke pot, get an outrageous tattoo and fall off the hotel balcony? She wakes up in the hospital to the tender ministrations of Dr.Vivian D'Mello--young, suave and handsome as hell. Will Kay stick to her guns or will she fall for his ridiculously sexy charms? And what's up with the mixed signals he's giving out?

BUY LINK

If you would like to ask Shuchi any questions, I'm sure she'd be happy to answer them. I'm hoping she might share what is going to be special about this Valentine's Day.

Book Review - Done With Men by Shuchi Singh Kalra

Done With Men
Shuchi Singh Kalra
File Size: 803 KB
Print Length: 159 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Indireads Incorporated (December 16, 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00GO3H88Y


The central character in this romantic comedy is Kairavi Krishna, a travel journalist who has had a series of disastrous relationships with men and decides she is done with them. She even has a tattoo put on her wrist that proclaims that to the world.

However, fate has another plan for her.

She is sent to Goa to do articles for a magazine, and she takes her best friend and flat mate Baani with her. The friendship between the two young women and their banter is quite fun, and so is the way Kairavi, Kay, talks to herself via her Thought Bubble.

In Goa, Kay is sure she can get her articles done, spend some time at the beach and avoid any contact with men.

That plan goes awry when her ex, Ricky, shows up with another woman. Then Kay drinks too much vodka, has an accident and ends up in the hospital with  a broken collarbone. There, she is taken care of by the handsome Dr.Vivian D'Mello, and she feels an immediate attraction, an attraction that seems to be running both ways. So what is she to do? Forget her vow? And is she sure about the attraction he seems to have to her? He is giving her mixed signals.

That is all sorted out in a typical romantic manner, and I loved her reaction when she first saw the doctor:

The Pain was almost gone. Could this be God? I'd always imagined God to be an oldish man with white facial hair, definitely more Dumbledore than Clark Kent.

This was the first book I've read by an author from India, and it was nice to get a feel for that different culture. I questioned some of the things that happened in the hospital as they were so contrary to what could happen here in the United States, but I realize the medical world could be totally different there when it comes to the way patients can move around in the hospital.

If you like a light romantic read and don't mind that a few of the situations are a bit forced, you will enjoy this story.

Shuchi Singh Kalra is a writer, editor and blogger based in India and Done With Men is her first book.  She has freelanced with popular magazines such as Femina.in, Good Housekeeping, Home Review, Parent & Child, Vista, Investors India, Dogs & Pups, Women's Era and Time 'N' Style among many others. her short stories have found a place in anthologies such as Love Across Borders and New Asian Writing's upcoming collection (to be published in 2014.

Shuchi will be my guest this coming Wednesday, so please try to come back and meet her.

Monday Morning Musings

Who says young people today are shiftless and self-absorbed and nothing but trouble? That's what some folks think of teens, but the majority of young people do not fall into that classification. The teens that I know, and have worked with, are bright, helpful, respectful, and eager to make a difference in the world.That is one reason I was so pleased to see an article in Parade Magazine this weekend that celebrates young people who are participating in service activities.

The article starts by featuring Miranda Cosgrove, the star of Nickelodeon’s iCarly, for her work with  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis where she visits patients and assists in fund-raising. “They tell you to give back because it helps other people, but you also get a lot out of it.”

Fifteen teens from across the country were picked for Parade's All-American Service Team, and they were selected because they have done something significant in their communities, or even across the world. Rujul Zaparde from New Jersey was cited because he started a non-profit that helps build wells in India, and Charlotte Bilski from New York was cited for organizing an effort to gather donated medical supplies and send them to Haiti following the devastating earthquake there.

Charles Orgbon III from Georgia, is CEO of Greening Forward, a nonprofit that has helped 6,000 students recycle 10 tons of waste and pick up enough litter to fill 25 homes. Charles is only 15 year old. Imagine what he will do at 25.

Conner Danzler of Maryland founded Health Through Humor, an organization that has distributed 11,000 joke books to hospitals in 19 states. Laughter really is the best medicine, and he is doing a wonderful service.

Right here in my community I know a number of teens, and younger children, who take part in the annual Winnsboro Service Day, cleaning up property and painting homes for senior citizens and the disabled. Teens from my church do the same type of service projects,  and many of them collect food for the food pantry.

What about you? Do you know some young people who are deserving of some special recognition for what they are doing to serve their communities?