Posted:
Res. 😊
Saku Darling, you know my idiosyncrasies too well by now---I need time to greedily read and soak in your chapter, and comment in detail from my lappie. 🤗 🤗 Typing from phone just won't do it!
Love you loads for that dedication, it made my New Year very, very sweet! 2016 sure started on a marvelous note for me.
Rest when I un-res. 😊
Un-res
Saku my dear, sweet friend---One again, Thanks for that honor of dedicating this wonderful piece to me, amongst others. I am so very proud of being one of the "Winter Ladies" 🤗 🤗 You know how much I loved the IK/SQ/Winds of Winter saga. So now that we are delicately poised on the cusp between winter and spring, with the thaw well and truly setting in, but the sharp sting of the winter gales still around, this season is just my favorite. 🤗
This first chapter reminded me of the quote by Hal Borland "No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn". 😊 I just loved, loved, LOVED, the way you captured the cusp of change, Saku. The warmth and optimism of Sanskaar and Swara coming together; contrasted with the still--bitter feelings of Ragini and Lakshya, and the new Snow Queen/ Maleficent 😉 Vasundhara, and her son, not yet Chandragupta to her Chanakya! 👏 👏
There is something---for want of a better word---very allegorical, almost epic-like, in the feel of your writing. Especially for the Winter land saga. Each para, each sentence imbued with meaning, with a purpose higher than the mere words contained in each line. I love reading between the lines you write, Saku. 😊 I'm always on the lookout for deeper meanings, tantalizing nuggets you try to convey.
In this chapter, I just loved the way you've portrayed Ragini and Lakshya. Vanquished in battle, their minds and hearts have definitely not found equanimity and a resolution yet. The bitterness, and a large degree of spite, are very much in evidence, leading me to fear what malevolence they would visit upon Sanskaar and Swara, the couple for whom we wish nothing but the most balmy of springs!
I so loved this para you used to describe Ragini's frame of mind: "Torn between her desire to fight till she died, and to flee until her feet bled...It was too cold, she could no longer burn in peace". 👏 Brilliant! And that earlier line, about how Sanskaar's wrath was burning her, not with warmth, but with utter coldness, was a masterstroke.
Coming to Laksya---I know I should feel a fair degree of contempt for him, and I do. But I can, in an odd way, also understand, though not empathize, why he sent that wedding invite card to Ragini. Misery loves company, after all, isn't it? So astute of you, to have captured that schadenfreude, "The more pain you give others, the less it burns your own self". Chilling. Truly a Frost Knight!
The whole part about "Lotuses offered in Love" was so deeply moving, Saku. Swara insisting that Durga Prasad do her kanyadaan, not her sorry waste of a biological father/ (whom I consider no more than sperm donor to Shomi! 😛), was spot on. Those lines about how the lotus belongs not to the mud it is planted in, but rather to the water which raises it to the sun! 👏 Love you for that splendid imagery.
And that whole wedding sequence of SwaSan's---in the mingling of the flames and wind---was so poetic, so profound. I almost felt I was there, watching them take the saptapadi, solemnizing their bond. Several sentences here I found absolutely, tremendously moving. That one about how the best way to safeguard a dream, was to entrust it to a man who never dreamed, for who better to value it than he?
The way you detailed Swara's and Sanskaar's thoughts during the ceremony, their memories, so intertwined with each other, was fabulous. Sanskaar's thought, in particular, was so deeply touching---about how he had refused her years ago, thinking that she came with a crown he despised, not realizing how she was so very much a part of his very soul, with or without that crown. How he had unnecessarily feared the dynamics, that were never between them!
And Swara's thoughts---about how they were always meant to be, to be always together, hand in hand, to complete each other---if only they had not been so unseeing before, in their callow selves.
I just loved how even after the vows were taken, Sanskaar didn't let go of Swara's hand. The reason was so wonderful---the vows were only a reiteration after all, they had already made those promises of fidelity, constancy and love to each other long, long ago, though they had not known it then.
I guess I would go on and on Saku. 🤗 I just L.O.V.E.D your descriptive genius in this chapter. Can't wait to see what storm Vasundara is planning to unleash, to capture Chandra's empire as well---to make Ram (Sanskaar?) fight with Lakshman (Lucky...), and engineer a match for her son Adi, that will let her ride a Trojan horse right into her enemy's fortifications! Uttara, I presume, is the Queen she has in mind? Unless she is planning to make Adi marry Ragini (post her divorce from Lakshya)...but I don't think so. Would be Uttara.
Can I also just say, that this chapter has made me dislike Dadi and Shekar even more. 😆 Man, that brainless, spineless man is also shameless. He's just got proof as to what crimes one of his daughters committed against the other; has been confronted with incontrovertible evidence of her perfidy, and of his own blind support that enabled it. But still, all he can think of, is how Ragini can still plot and scheme to ensure that he does not suffer for her missteps! 🤢 With a father like this...
I am eagerly awaiting Chapter 2 now. Though I am extremely apprehensive of the Vasundara--Adi--Shekar--Ragini---Lakshya axis. May the sunshine and balmy breezes of spring vanquish the lingering chill of winter!
Loads of Love
----Viji
Saku Darling, you know my idiosyncrasies too well by now---I need time to greedily read and soak in your chapter, and comment in detail from my lappie. 🤗 🤗 Typing from phone just won't do it!
Love you loads for that dedication, it made my New Year very, very sweet! 2016 sure started on a marvelous note for me.
Rest when I un-res. 😊
Un-res
Saku my dear, sweet friend---One again, Thanks for that honor of dedicating this wonderful piece to me, amongst others. I am so very proud of being one of the "Winter Ladies" 🤗 🤗 You know how much I loved the IK/SQ/Winds of Winter saga. So now that we are delicately poised on the cusp between winter and spring, with the thaw well and truly setting in, but the sharp sting of the winter gales still around, this season is just my favorite. 🤗
This first chapter reminded me of the quote by Hal Borland "No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn". 😊 I just loved, loved, LOVED, the way you captured the cusp of change, Saku. The warmth and optimism of Sanskaar and Swara coming together; contrasted with the still--bitter feelings of Ragini and Lakshya, and the new Snow Queen/ Maleficent 😉 Vasundhara, and her son, not yet Chandragupta to her Chanakya! 👏 👏
There is something---for want of a better word---very allegorical, almost epic-like, in the feel of your writing. Especially for the Winter land saga. Each para, each sentence imbued with meaning, with a purpose higher than the mere words contained in each line. I love reading between the lines you write, Saku. 😊 I'm always on the lookout for deeper meanings, tantalizing nuggets you try to convey.
In this chapter, I just loved the way you've portrayed Ragini and Lakshya. Vanquished in battle, their minds and hearts have definitely not found equanimity and a resolution yet. The bitterness, and a large degree of spite, are very much in evidence, leading me to fear what malevolence they would visit upon Sanskaar and Swara, the couple for whom we wish nothing but the most balmy of springs!
I so loved this para you used to describe Ragini's frame of mind: "Torn between her desire to fight till she died, and to flee until her feet bled...It was too cold, she could no longer burn in peace". 👏 Brilliant! And that earlier line, about how Sanskaar's wrath was burning her, not with warmth, but with utter coldness, was a masterstroke.
Coming to Laksya---I know I should feel a fair degree of contempt for him, and I do. But I can, in an odd way, also understand, though not empathize, why he sent that wedding invite card to Ragini. Misery loves company, after all, isn't it? So astute of you, to have captured that schadenfreude, "The more pain you give others, the less it burns your own self". Chilling. Truly a Frost Knight!
The whole part about "Lotuses offered in Love" was so deeply moving, Saku. Swara insisting that Durga Prasad do her kanyadaan, not her sorry waste of a biological father/ (whom I consider no more than sperm donor to Shomi! 😛), was spot on. Those lines about how the lotus belongs not to the mud it is planted in, but rather to the water which raises it to the sun! 👏 Love you for that splendid imagery.
And that whole wedding sequence of SwaSan's---in the mingling of the flames and wind---was so poetic, so profound. I almost felt I was there, watching them take the saptapadi, solemnizing their bond. Several sentences here I found absolutely, tremendously moving. That one about how the best way to safeguard a dream, was to entrust it to a man who never dreamed, for who better to value it than he?
The way you detailed Swara's and Sanskaar's thoughts during the ceremony, their memories, so intertwined with each other, was fabulous. Sanskaar's thought, in particular, was so deeply touching---about how he had refused her years ago, thinking that she came with a crown he despised, not realizing how she was so very much a part of his very soul, with or without that crown. How he had unnecessarily feared the dynamics, that were never between them!
And Swara's thoughts---about how they were always meant to be, to be always together, hand in hand, to complete each other---if only they had not been so unseeing before, in their callow selves.
I just loved how even after the vows were taken, Sanskaar didn't let go of Swara's hand. The reason was so wonderful---the vows were only a reiteration after all, they had already made those promises of fidelity, constancy and love to each other long, long ago, though they had not known it then.
I guess I would go on and on Saku. 🤗 I just L.O.V.E.D your descriptive genius in this chapter. Can't wait to see what storm Vasundara is planning to unleash, to capture Chandra's empire as well---to make Ram (Sanskaar?) fight with Lakshman (Lucky...), and engineer a match for her son Adi, that will let her ride a Trojan horse right into her enemy's fortifications! Uttara, I presume, is the Queen she has in mind? Unless she is planning to make Adi marry Ragini (post her divorce from Lakshya)...but I don't think so. Would be Uttara.
Can I also just say, that this chapter has made me dislike Dadi and Shekar even more. 😆 Man, that brainless, spineless man is also shameless. He's just got proof as to what crimes one of his daughters committed against the other; has been confronted with incontrovertible evidence of her perfidy, and of his own blind support that enabled it. But still, all he can think of, is how Ragini can still plot and scheme to ensure that he does not suffer for her missteps! 🤢 With a father like this...
I am eagerly awaiting Chapter 2 now. Though I am extremely apprehensive of the Vasundara--Adi--Shekar--Ragini---Lakshya axis. May the sunshine and balmy breezes of spring vanquish the lingering chill of winter!
Loads of Love
----Viji
