BOOK SIGNING AT MARLBOROUGH MALL, CALGARY NE

Coles Bookstore in Marlborough Mall is holding a book signing event in the NE Calgary. Date: June 26 and June 27. Time: 11 am to 5pm. This is an open event. All are welcome. Come, browse through my book, and say hello!

UPDATES -- On My Developing Career As A Writer

Well - March 22, 2009, I woke up, absolutely terrified of having to public speak. It was after all, THE DAY when my first book was launched. There was no escaping it. First things first, however. The CBC Radio interview had to be recorded. I went to the studio shaking like a leaf and recorded my first interview. I listened to it on the radio. It was good. I liked it and others liked it too. This was encouraging. Back to the launch - about thirty people showed up, regardless of the bitter snow storm. I surprised myself again. I liked the public speaking, and reading the words I had written, inspite of my attack of anxiety twenty minutes before entering the scene of the launch location. The launch was a success. And, interestingly, I didn't seem to notice the big cameras of the NUTV in the corner filming the whole event. When the time came for the on camera interview, however, it was a different story. It took a bit to ignore the camera, close up. But after I managed to do just that, the interview flowed. Next came the Asian TV interview recorded in their studio. The bright lights were actually not noticeable when the interview commenced. I never watched my two television interviews when they aired. The third interview with OMNI NEWS aired nationally. Regardless of how painful it would be, I made a committment to watch it. It aired on Monday, May 18, 2009. I was pleased with the final result. It wasn't too bad at all. With my first initial interview when I was shaking like a leaf, I remember a friend calling me after the interview aired and saying, "Well, that's what life of an artist is all about!" I guess that's true. Creating the art is one aspect of being an artist; promoting it is the other aspect. There's no going around it. And I think that's not such a bad thing. Promoting my work has been an experience, a journey in itself. And it's an experience that I wouldn't want to trade or give up on.

MORE LAUGHS FROM MRS. ANAND ... Excerpt from "The End of the Dark and Stormy Night."

   Ravi called Mrs. Anand the next day in the mid-afternoon. Mrs. Anand was in the basement plucking a headless chicken dripping with blood. She went to a farm in Jaffrey every Tuesday and bought a live tied-up bird home. She would chop off the fluttering chicken’s head and smoke it over the blazing fire pit in the backyard, then bring it to the basement, and pluck it and cut it into small pieces. After which the squared chicken pieces went into a big stainless steel pot with onions and curry powder and became supper. Doing all this ensured Mrs. Anand that India was still alive in her heart. Canadians like Jesse, who had corrupted Ravi’s way of thinking, were all lazy. All they did for their food was to go to an oversized store and buy some animal for dinner that had been dead for days. Unthinkable! Mrs. Anand still had the chicken slime on her hands when the phone rang upstairs in the living room. Reshma picked it up on the second ring.
      “Is Mom there?”
      “How much money do you want now, Ravi?”
      “None, you little twit.”  
      “Surprise! Surprise! Mom is plucking chicken right now.”
      “Why does she have to do that? She can just go to the supermarket and buy the already plucked chicken from there like the rest of us Canadians. She makes such a big mess in the basement.” Ravi shook his head on the other end of the line. “Okay, just tell her to call me the first chance she gets.”
      “Yeah, sure,” said Reshma.
      Ravi hung up and anxiously waited for his mom’s call back.
      After dinner, Mrs. Anand picked up the phone to call Ravi. Bobby came whistling a tune through the living room. Mrs. Anand’s eyes bulged open, and her mouth gaped.
      “Whistle nahi karo…nahi karo, Bobby. Cheh bas gaya hai. Don’t whistle. Bobby, don’t whistle. It’s past six o’clock.”
      According to Mrs. Anand, whistling past six o’clock was inviting trouble to your household as it awakened the spirits of the dead and attracted them into your home. Bobby stopped whistling and quietly went to his room with his ‘scapeboard.’ And Mrs. Anand, her breathing still labored, dialed Ravi’s number and looked over her shoulder to make sure that Bobby’s whistling had not stirred the spirits in her own living room.
      Ravi answered on the other end. Mrs. Anand, pleased that she didn’t have to hear the cow-eater’s voice, said, “It’s my Ravi…my Ravi beta. My son, Ravi. How much money do you need?”
      “Jeez Mom, it’s not like the only time I phone you is when I need money. I just need to borrow your van…for ten days.”
      “Ten days? Why?”
      “Jesse and I are planning a trip to Calgary.”
      “Why do you have to go to Calgary? I hear the traffic is crazy there.”
      “We just wanted to go Stampeding, Mom, for ten days,” said Ravi in the tone of a ten-year-old, which Jesse despised and which reminded Mrs. Anand that he was still her boy.
      “You guys can’t afford that.”
      “We saved money for it, Mom.”
      “Saved money for it? How long have you been planning this? And you didn’t tell your mother, Ravi? If you didn’t want the van, then you both would have left and never told me. I would have been left wondering and worrying where you went.” Mrs. Anand started sniffling. It was all Jesse’s doing.
      Ravi was used to his mother’s elaborate performances. “You will still have the car, Mom.”
      “I know.”
      Jesse asked in the background if she was crying again. Mrs. Anand overheard. She stopped sniffling as Ravi put a forefinger on his lips, motioning Jesse to be quiet.
      Mrs. Anand decided to teach Jesse a lesson for listening in on a conversation with her son. She hemmed and hawed. Ravi pleaded shamelessly. Mrs. Anand said that Mr. Anand was the head of the house and that she would have to talk it over with him. Ravi said that Mr. Anand would say yes if she said yes. Mrs. Anand smiled at that comment. Then she requested that Jesse leave the room as it was hindering her thoughts and ability to make a decision about them borrowing her van. Ravi covered the mouthpiece of the phone and asked Jesse to leave the room. When Jesse went to the bedroom and banged the door shut, Mrs. Anand commented that doors should always be closed gently.
      While Ravi waited silently on the other end of the line, Mrs. Anand pondered her next move. If they took Reshma and Bobby with them to Calgary, then she and Anando could have a romantic escape of their own in Elkford. She could wear her plus-size French-maid costume and dust her Anando’s balding head with her pink feather duster. The outfit was stacked at the very back of her closet in the green box where she kept a few other necessities such as the fishnet stockings that went with the frilly mini skirt and the small vibrator that you slid onto your forefinger to enhance anyone’s pleasure.
      So she agreed to lend her van. It was quick thinking, especially with Jesse out of the room and the thought of Anando very slowly sliding the fishnet stockings off her thunderous thighs.
      She gave Ravi a few more rules to adhere to while traveling in her van.
      “You make sure that your wife doesn’t smoke in the van,” she said. “And spraying peach spray all over it like you did last time did not make it smell nicer again, Ravi.”
      “You know about that?”
      Mrs. Anand raised her eyebrows on the other end. “Hm,” she said, pursing her lips into a tight line.
      Ravi thanked his mother, told her he loved her, and let her know that they were planning to leave after supper the coming Friday. Mrs. Anand smiled as she hung up the phone. It was all set. Ravi called Jesse to phone Elisha on her cell.

MY FAVORITE SCENE - Ravi goes to the theatre - from "The End of the Dark and Stormy Night."

The crowd went up to the ticket booth. The ticket girl asked Ravi which movie he was there to see and how many people were with him. Ravi told her it was for movie number four and that there were three adults and three youths. The girl advised him of the cost. Ravi’s eyes bulged.
      “Ninety-five dollars and fifty cents?” said Ravi. “Are you crazy? Count again.”
      “No, I’m not crazy. It’s fifteen dollars for each adult and thirteen dollars and fifty cents for each youth.”
      “Does that include popcorn?”
      “No.”
      “Plain popcorn? Popcorn without butter?”
      “No.”
      “Then what does that include?”
      “It just pays for the seats.”
      “What kind of seats do you have in there? Do they vibrate? If I pay that much for a chair, then it better be a vibrating chair so that I can keep all the ladies you see standing behind me happy.”
      The ticket girl looked at Ravi with a blank stare. Jesse asked Ravi to just get the tickets and stop making a scene. Ravi took out his debit card to pay for the tickets and said, “Fine, give me the tickets. But remember that I am a very dissatisfied customer. I won’t be coming back here. It’s a rip-off!”
      Ravi punched in his security code on the transaction machine and the girl printed off the tickets. The others chipped in to pay for the popcorn, which, according to Ravi, was also overpriced.
      “You want eight dollars and fifty cents for that large bag? Are you crazy? That would barely feed one person! I hope you use real butter for that cost.”
      They didn’t. They used low-fat margarine. Ravi thought that was another rip-off. Last time he went to the theatre, the tickets were only six dollars, and they used real butter.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER - Mrs. Anand - from "The End of the Dark and Stormy Night."

CHAPTER 8

      Jesse waited outside at the Anands’. Ravi went inside to pick up the van keys. Mr. Anand was in the shower. Mrs. Anand was glued to the six o’clock news on the TV. She didn’t move. She didn’t budge when the doorbell rang; it was Reshma who opened the front door.
      Ravi found his mother gripping her chest with both hands, her mouth open, her lower lip moist, her double chin appearing two sizes larger than it truly was. There were brown and black spotted cows mooing on the television. The female news anchor said that the first case of mad cow disease was discovered in Alberta, leading the U.S. and other major countries to close their gates to Albertan beef.
      The cows finally fought back, Mrs. Anand thought.
      “Mom,” said Ravi.
      Mrs. Anand looked up at her son and smiled.
      “Hear that? Now everyone will think twice before they eat cows.”