[New Post] Get Your Creative Juices Flowing With Daily Writing Prompts

One day my curiosity got the better of me and I tip-toed along the hallway in my house to watch my three younger siblings learning to read Urdu.

Their teacher was a bearded man, we called Maulvi Sahib, he had a book in front of him, it seemed he memorised the whole book. My siblings each had their own copy and were repeating the words after their teacher. Suddenly I realized my little brothers and sister could not read the words, but they repeated what their teacher was saying.

The teacher had his eyes closed and was reciting the words, his pupils were doing the same. To make it interesting he added a kind of lullaby tune.I waited for the lesson to be over, so I could find out how much Urdu my siblings learned.

Though I was seven years old, I had a pretty good idea, that Maulvi Sahib wasn’t a good teacher.

When the so-called learning was over, I pulled my sister aside, opened the book in the middle and pointed at some random words and asked her to read. She said, ‘let me go back to the first page.’

I said, ‘no, I want to know if you can read.’

My sister looked at me and smiled.

It seemed their teacher asked them to repeat the words after him, which they did, but they did not learn the alphabets. This was a waste of their time.

When I told my Dad the story, he was unhappy. He had a chat with the teacher.

Next day there was no sign of the teacher, my siblings were relieved from this fake learning. My Dad never hired another Maulvi Sahib to replace the first one.

Daily Prompt : Control

In response to daily post’s one-word prompt : Control

The Cruel Siblings

Mr. and Miss Murdstone are a strange pedigree,

They sure know how to make a little kid unfree.

David the little kid  they want to control,

Which they think is their life’s main goal.

Between the brother and  sister there is a pact,

They must not let the mother speak or react.

This is  Charles Dickens’ make-believe story,

His portrayal of the Murdstones is so  gory!

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Daily Prompt : Zip

In response to daily post’s one-word prompt : Zip

My mom once told me to zip my mouth whenever I felt the urge to speak. Usually it was my older siblings who seemed they had nothing better to do than criticize me in all sorts of ways I detested. So I thought to defend myself I should speak up. It didn’t bode well with mom, she felt I’m too outspoken which would make me unpopular with friends in school, or outside when I meet people older than me. Of course in those days all the people I met were older, so I could see she had a point in restricting me.

This zipping my mouth had a bad effect later on in my life. My life in college proved to be stressful, girls in residence bullied me, because I was so quiet. I tried to speak when someone made a nasty comment, I couldn’t say anything as if someone had blocked my vocal chord and words were stuck.

There was an incident in college which is fresh in my memory, one of the girls’ said something to me and I couldn’t tell her off, then the other classmate who overheard it said,  ‘You have no backbone , why didn’t you tell her something?’

I was so hurt I stopped talking to her, which was one weapon I used when someone was mean. I personally think kids should not be restricted to speak, if someone misbehaves with them. After all out in the world they must be able to speak their mind, when no one else will defend them, they should be able to do so themselves!

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Daily Prompts : Contrast

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

When I look at my family, i.e my siblings to be more specific brothers and sisters. We are product of our parents, yet it’s mind boggling to realize how different we are.

The only similarity is our looks, by it one can guess we are related. Our feelings, our actions are different from each other and also we are not like our parents.

I lost my father at a very young age therefore I do not have much to go on regarding his feelings, actions, the way he looked at the world around him and of course his own children. Had he been alive to see who we grew up to be, he’d most certainly be disappointed.

My dad was raised in a village, where people were simple and innocent in his time. He was a brilliant student, his half-brother noticed it, to help him reach his potential, he brought him to the town where he worked.

My dad’s half brother was pleased to watch his little half brother go up the ladder of success.

In contrast we did not inherit the  genes of our uncle, at least some of us. We are more selfish, we believe we should look after ourselves and forget about the other siblings.

This is all about how we are as persons.

Then there are people of various background, white, brown, black, yellow etc. It’s getting better as the world is getting smaller and people are traveling more. We are used to see hear different people, we are no longer afraid to mingle with different races.

I remember once I was in one of  London, England’s tube stations. As the train came in I got on, there were a group of people also traveling with me. One of them came forward to talk to me , she said they were from Australia, in the middle of our conversation she noticed some Africans coming in, she gave them a strange look, and said, ” My who are these people? The Brits are very tolerant . Our government  wouldn’t allow these people to come in to our country.”

I sat there wondering, when is she going to ask me, how I managed to stay in England, I wasn’t white.

I know discrimination exists in the animal kingdom. I wonder about plants, flowers and other species?

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Daily Prompt: Que Sera Sera

Do you believe in fate or do you believe you can control your destiny?

The prompt today, reminds me  of my favorite song, Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be.

When I was a little girl I never asked my mother what will I be. I knew nothing about fate or destiny. I was living each day to the fullest, I played with my siblings, I watched my mother cook, sometimes imitated her. Then I’d sit on the grass beside my Dad’s easy chair and talk to him for hours, of course this was after school and my Dad was back from work.

Then one morning at about ten AM . I heard a loud scream coming from Dad’s bedroom. We were playing i.e  we the young ones. We stopped and rushed to  Dad’s bedroom. There to my utmost horror I found my mother crying and my Dad was dying.

In one hour everything changed, we were crying , we had no idea our Dad had left us for good. Within six months we moved out of our precious home to go to an unknown place, it was my parents original homeland. There was no home waiting for us, my elder brother made arrangements to go to our maternal grandparents home in the village, until he could buy one in the small town nearby.

After six months my brother found a house for sale and bought it. If I were to guess what all this was called, I’d say it was our fate. We couldn’t control our Dad’s death, it would happen, it is here that God takes the reins in His hands. My Dad’s time was up, we couldn’t implore God to give us more time, His decree was final.

Sadly we understood,no one can change fate. It took us a long time, but we learned to accept it, and how cruel it is.

Destiny however was a challenge, I was twelve, with Dad’s passing there was no income, although  Dad was an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry Of Defense, his family was denied pension, their argument was, he died before  he was fifty-five years old, hence his family was ineligible for pension.

My Dad had provident fund where he had some money and life insurance. It probably was sufficient for us to live on for a while. Here my brother played with destiny and almost lost all of it by trying to invest in a business.

We realized soon enough we can change our destiny if we seriously studied and got a good education. Most of us siblings did that , accomplished our goal, except the two black sheep in the family, they had no desire to change.

I believe it’s possible to change our destiny if we put in the effort. I studied, got an education which helped me  get a job. Had I done the  opposite, I wouldn’t be doing this prompt today but struggling to survive!

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Daily Prompt: Honorific

If you pick one person to commemorated on a day dedicated to him/her alone, who would you choose?

I would choose my Mom. When  my Dad passed away, we the siblings were very young. My Mom took care of us and reminded us we can achieve anything we want, we only have to concentrate on our studies.

We all studied hard except, one of my older brothers refused to study. Even if my Dad was alive he wouldn’t be able to make him go to school.

My mom was an inspiration to us. She was a very pious lady and taught us never to spend time back biting, this is one of the things God dislikes.No matter how many good deeds we do, it will all be useless if we continue to speak ill of others.

She was very kind to her own siblings and her parents. Before she got married she helped my grandparents with the cooking . My mom had a sister eight years older than her, my mom was the one my grandparents thought would be able to do the work around the house.

365 Writing Prompt: A mystery wrapped in enigma

Tell us something most people probably don’t know about you.

There is nothing mysterious about me,I am no different from anyone out there. As a child growing up I was only interested in playing with my siblings. Studying hard was not in my repertoire. As long as I could get through I was happy. Who got more marks than me was never my fear.

I did notice my teachers and one of my siblings thought I could do much better in my school work if I put in a little more work.

I used to finish three hour exams in an hour. I remember the principal in my college once said, ” You know what your problem is you finish your your exams too quickly.”

This little advice to me went in one ear and came out the other, it made no impact on me.

Once my first cousin’s husband told me I’d never be as good as my sister. He was one of those people I disliked, I always ignored him.

I was sailing along the journey of life, never caring who said what, until I was in post graduate class. I woke up from my long slumber and realized I’d have to do well in this, which meant I must work hard, the moment this realization hit me I was a different person, I went to the library daily, I studied, I wasted no time playing or in idle talk.

I surprised everyone including my siblings.

I had very few friends, I was never interested to have many friends.The ones I had were my friends forever.

I loved reading novels I still do.

I love blogging, it gives me an opportunity to read the post of other bloggers. Besides blogging, I enjoy  cooking a variety of foods.

In my spare time I watch TV it helps me relax. These days the Wimbledon tennis championships are shown on TV, I’m having a great time watching them.

This is all I can think of writing about me. 🙂

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Daily Prompt: Going obsolete

Of all the technologies that have gone extinct in your lifetime, which one do you miss the most?

I miss the gramophone the most. We had a whole bunch of records, we the siblings used to sit in a room, one of us would handle changing the records, and the rest of us would sit and listen.If there was  one song  we did not like we’d request the brother in charge to change it.

We did not need electricity but rolled the handle a few times to make it work. The image I have posted is not quite the same as the one we had, but it was something like it.

Now with technology a gramophone is no longer something people have, but I miss it.

 

 

 

Wikipedia image

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Daily Prompt: The Early Years

Write page three of your autobiography.

Six months after my father passed away, we packed our bags and left Rawalpindi and arrived in Dhaka city, capital of Bangladesh. We stayed with my Dad’s youngest brother for a few days.

My eldest brother made arrangements to go by train to my maternal grandpa’s village home. We stayed in grandpa’s home for almost a year.

My brother took several trips to the little town named Comilla in Bangladesh. After months of looking around he found a home which in his estimation, was perfect for us. He bought the house and came back to the village to take us, my mom and the siblings to live in our new home.

It was nothing extraordinary it was a relatively smaller house than the one we lived in Rawalpindi. My mom was happy, we the siblings felt all right, it was a home we had to get used to , that we did in a very short time.

Next thing was to find a school for us to get registered in, my brother located a school which was near our home.It was run by nuns, they offered both English and Bengali medium of instruction.

The school was divided into two sections, one was for students who registered for English medium, the other one was  for Bengali medium students.

My brother told me to take my siblings to school to get registered , the three older ones for English medium and the two younger ones in Bengali medium. Upon questioning my brother’s intentions for  registering the siblings in two different mediums, I was told it was cost effective. I was fourteen then and didn’t quite comprehend what he meant, but did as I was told.

I was yet to know what will happen to me, the school only had up to six grades, I could not register in a lower grade because I was in third standard when we left Rawalpindi, it was equivalent to grade eight. My brother hired a tutor to coach me at home to prepare me for high school exams privately.

The tutor’s whole appearance gave me a very negative attitude, his demeanor, the way he spoke, his English pronunciation, everything was distasteful to me.

After about three days I announced I did not want a tutor, I’ll study by myself. My brother was not convinced he arranged with one of the nuns in the school where my younger siblings were studying to give me private lessons once or twice a week.

The Principal agreed, my attitude towards homework annoyed them, they declared they didn’t have enough time to give me private lessons.

I was glad with my freedom from two tutors I knew were not capable of helping me, and the fees they charged was more than my mom could afford.

Thus began my journey of helping myself to get through the ordeal of preparation for high school exams or face the possibility of ending up married to someone who’d be close to my Dad’s age. It wasn’t a rosy picture for me.

I wrote page three of my autobiography. For now I’ll end here. If anyone is interested I’d be more than glad to continue!

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Daily Prompt: Next in Line

Given the choice, would you rather be heir to the throne , or the (probably) off-the-hook younger sibling?

First of all let me quote the phrase, ” Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Heir to the throne is not an option for me, given the fact I have four older siblings who’d like nothing better than to assume the role of an heir to the throne themselves.

I’d like to be the bystander, who gets to enjoy the jealousy of the older siblings towards each other. There is nothing more enjoyable than this.

I’ve experienced the heir to the throne facade by my my elder sister, although it was short-lived she made every effort to make my life a living hell.

Mom went to see her siblings for a few days, she entrusted dear old sister to keep house. She sat on the stool every day and ordered me to do the chores of the house while she was having a grand time being the task master. I had to wash, clean, and grind the spices, no we did not have an electric grinder, this was manual labor. I remember my hands used to burn after I’d finish grinding the red hot peppers. While she would order me to hurry.

Those were the days I’d wish mom would hurry home!

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