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She was 50. She had staunchly kept away from computers and smartphones. She did not need them in personal life. People at work understood her limitations and helped her around. She did not need the computer even for her work. And then COVID struck the world and she realized that as a primary school Teacher, she had to connect to the Internet via a computer to connect to 'her kids'. She scaled the steep learning curve and got over her technology inhibitions. She is now beaming at her kids on the laptop. You are never too old to learn.          --------------   Teachers across the world had to re-skill themselves to meet the challenge of online schooling. A large population amongst the teacher were the not-so-young and they were not tech-savvy either. For them, the challenge was massive. Not only did they meet the challenge and got up to speech with tech, most of them have gone above and beyond to bring in the same level of warm...

  ~ Book Blitz ~ Itsy Bitsy Spyder (The Spyders #0.5) by Apeksha Rao Young Adult / Espionage 15th to 17th August About the Book: What do you do when your mother feels that you don’t trust her? If you’re Samira Joshi, and your mother is an elite spy who works for RAW, the first thing you do is … hide the knives. After that, you go straight to the therapist that she has chosen. For, when your mother knows seventeen different ways to kill a man, you don’t argue with her. Much. Unless she’s trying to destroy your dreams. Then, you fight dirty. Like a spy. Samira is sweet, sassy, and almost seventeen. She dreams of becoming a badass spy like her parents. And, why not? That’s exactly what her parents have trained her to be. So, why is her mother suddenly acting like a typical Indian mom and pushing her to be a doctor? Samira can swear on her stack of covert operative manuals that it has something to with her mother’s last mission. Her therapist disagrees. She ...

  VSS 031 - Everything is planned. Not quite.   He had it all planned out. Everything was set. Life was a breeze. With a job paying millions in salary and a hefty bonus, he had already bought a house, fancy cars and travelled to a couple of countries on vacation – pretty much all of it on bank loans with installments spanning several years. Married to a gorgeous homemaker and with an adorable set of twins, life was a dream. Everything was planned. Everything was in control. Everything was happy. And then COVID-19 hit the world and he lost his job. That was one thing he hadn’t planned for.     --------------   I started writing VSS (Very Short Story – less than 100 words stories) in 2017 and had a good run of writing 30 of them. Restarting it now in 2020. Lets see how long can I sustain these. The story above is a direct reflection on what COVID-19 has meant for millions out there. All their plans got tossed out of the window by a micros...

~ Book Blitz ~ Truly Madly Crazily in Love  by Esha Pandey  About the Book:  What happens when you can't let your first love go? What happens when you keep hoping that the one that got away, will be yours again...forever? Sue is short, vivacious and dreamy. Viv is tall, spirited and focussed. Dressed to the nines on School Social, she bewitches him. He kisses her. She kisses him back. They fall in love. But the kiss that should have sealed their love, becomes their undoing. Sue is truly, madly and crazily in love with him. There is no one like Viv. She pines for him, but he can't be hers. Days go by and she is still head over heals in love with him. When she finally lets him go and is ready to start over, he walks into her life again. Hearts are broken. Promises are shattered. Lives are wrecked. Love is tested. In a tale transcending time, Sue and Viv weave a story of love like none other. Will hope, trust and love win the te...

~ Book Blitz ~ Prisoner of Yakutsk by Shreyas Bhave The Subhash Chandra Bose Mystery Final Chapter  About the Author: What exactly happened to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose? • In 1945, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Leader of the INA leaves Singapore to take a series of flights, and dies in Taiwan after his plane crashes near Formosa. Or so it seems. • In 1947, Mr Mrs Singh, an illustrious army couple, both veterans of the Indian National Army, are last seen in Delhi, and then never again. • In 1949, the plane carrying the first deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, mysteriously disappears for seven hours. • In 2012, following the fall of WikiLeaks, a female hacker of the notorious X group is on the run as most wanted by everyone from Interpol to the KGB • In 2015, the millionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company suddenly resigns and vanishes from the public eye. A set of seemingly unconnected disappearances emerge to be woven into...

Photography was considered an art with only a few artists - photographers. People had a camera which would be seldom used and the 36 photo roll would be developed in one go. Each photo was well thought out and carefully taken. Then came the DigiCams that made it possible to take endless photos. This resulted in the 'care' being replaced by endless clicks. Slowly, the digicam moved into the handy mobile phone and it got better and better. And we found ourselves in the age of endless clicks. We click literally thousands of photos and hardly go back to see them. In contrast, we still cherish those 36 photos from a trip from yesteryears (ours or our parents/grand-parents). The most recent trend is that the camera in the phone is improving the quality of photographs itself – with portrait mode and numerous filters. But still, nothing beats the artist. The Photographer. The one who understands balance, light, composition, …. And also focal length, lens types, brightness con...

My only question for the Author at this point: How many books are you going to write in this series?  (And can you complete the whole series quickly please?) Aqson is a refreshing read. Its fantasy, mythology, sci-fi - all mixed up together to create a gourmet dish to be relished.  The author had my complete attention when the novel began with a jeans-n-Tshirt clad 'Lucifer' riding a bike to a meeting place where he flirts with the receptionist (and is reprimanded) before we are introduced to a similarly jeans-n-Tshirt clad 'God.   This meeting is presided by a few gentlemen, and the minutes of the meeting being taken by none other than Brahma. Lucifer is given the permission to initiate another game with God; with an ultimate objective of installing their player as the Prime Minister of India.  This had my attention.  What got me hooked to the book was the refreshing writing style which resonated well with the 20-yr old young-adult cha...