And Then…: An Assortment of Delectable Tea-time Stories on Amazon now.

Dear Readers,

I spent a good part of the last two years stitching myself together. A couple of days ago, I published a collection of stories that I had written during this time, on Amazon. Do check it out and if it interests you, please download, read, and review.

In this collection of 12 quick-to-read and delightful-to-savor stories:

1. Allow the Siren and the Banshee to help you discover the depths of human emotions.
2. Experience a pang of hunger the kind you’ve never felt before.
3. Join a man on his devastating quest to find the perfect costume.
4. Meet Devil to discover what has been irking him recently.
5. Feel the effort that a man must put in to retain his sanity.
6. Realize what it means to be a child-prodigy in a dystopian world.
7. Enter the heart of a woman who wants to make up with her man.
8. Recoil in horror when you meet the real KAL-UR.
9. Swing between joy and sorrow as you unravel the meaning of late-stays.
10. Learn to bite your tongue when you make your next wish.
11. Follow the Grim Reaper on a visit that leaves her content.
12. Ensconce yourself into the infiniteness of a mother’s love.

Thank you. I hope to delight you with some more works this year. Until then, stay in, stay safe, download and read books you like and leave your ratings and reviews for the authors.

Feminism in History: Enheduanna – The First Woman Poet.

Four thousand years ago, when the Akkadians (one of the ancient Mesopotamian races) invaded Sumeria (the southern part of Mesopotamia, also known the Fertile Crescent or  the cradle of civilization,) they realized that if they didn’t meld their religion with the existing Sumerian religion, they would never win the hearts of the local populace. The Akkad king Sargon the Great placed the burden of this difficult task upon the shoulders of his daughter Enhedduana, by making her the high priestess of Nanna, the Moon god, and bestowing upon her the coveted title of En or the priest.

My imagination shows me a young Enhedduana entrusted with the responsibility of combining the Sumerian gods with the Akkadian gods in a subliminal way. I see her researching, holding conferences, determining the key religious symbols of the new (Sumerian religion) and synthesizing them with the Akkadian ones. I see her as an organizer, manager, visualizer, writer, and poet.

And I see many cynical faces around her. These faces belong to people who wanted her to fail, and who, away from the prying eyes, come together to plan her fall. For over the last four thousand years, things haven’t changed all that much.

Recently, in a program that I conducted for some senior managers of an organization, a woman participant told me that a woman has to work three times more than a man to prove that she is equal to a man. I couldn’t disagree with her.

I see Enhedduana as a similar woman manager, who despite her privileged position as the eldest princess of the conquering people, would have to work doubly hard than a man, to prove that her father’s confidence in her capability wasn’t misplaced.

I see her reflecting upon her strengths and realizing that the matters of belief can only be worked through the hearts of the people, and only by evoking their feelings would she be able to bring about a lasting change in their religious beliefs. Her father Sargon knew that for the task of bringing the Sumerians onboard, his daughter was the right person for she had the empathy of an artist and the gumption of a princess.

In addition to discharging her other duties as the priestess, Enhedduana can historically claim to be the first poetess ever. She wrote forty-two poems, and three hymns to be sung in the praise of goddess Inanna, the powerful Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, and war.

Image shows Goddess Inanna. Image Source: By Ramblings of the Claury [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

The Mist Maiden (Story)

For a fleeting moment, he saw her, and then there was just the mist that rose from the Nile and hovered over the calm surface of the water. She had disappeared. Just like that. Was she a wisp of memory rolled so thin by time that it had transformed into a shimmering film of nothingness? Or was she someone his tired imagination had conjured?
“No, she wasn’t a figment of your imagination,” said the old man who had once been a priest of Amun.
“A memory then?” he asked, anxious that the man might confirm it.
“No. She was something else,” replied his old hunchback companion whose eyes were nearly hidden under the lose folds of his lids, and who appeared to be as ancient as the necropolis at Saqqara.
“Then who?”
“She was a woman,” he answered.
“A real woman?” he queried, confused. “Where did she go?”
“She didn’t go anywhere,” replied the old man. “She is still there, on the bank of Nile.”
“But then, why can’t I see her anymore? Does she still live?”
The old man chortled. “Oh, she is. But you can’t, because you don’t.”

Dante’s Second Circle of Hell and #MeToo (Story)

Devil sat with his accountant, his knit brows and balled fists clearly giving away his anxious state of mind.

“Why aren’t they enrolling anymore?” he hissed, his long tongue flicked out like a snake’s, to wet his parched lips.

He had been noticing a steady drop in the number of people who registered themselves for the lust workshops they would organize to tempt the future entrants.

These promotional activities were the hallmark of hell, quite the opposite of what heaven did – they screened people to provide or deny entry in heaven. It was easier for God as everyone wanted to get there anyway. Fortunately, being god-fearing and remaining forever righteous was a lot more difficult than giving in to temptations, or hell would have lost its significance a long time ago. Hell wasn’t a place that people would throng to get in, and this was why they had to run these temptation workshops 24×7, all 365 days a year.

Necrophilia in Ancient Egypt

Possibly the only thing that has remained unchanged throughout our history is human nature. The dark recesses of the human brain have continually goaded a few to seek goals that repulse most of us. Time and again a few who walk and breathe among us have allowed their perversion to reach beyond the grave and indulged in necrophilia.

Instances of necrophilia abound in the modern world, and while most cases aren’t discussed openly, a few have made the world sit up and take notice. The possible desecration of Eva Peron’s corpse by one or more officers who were supposed to guard her embalmed body, had attracted the attention of the whole world to the case. Thirty-two-year old Eva Peron was the wife of Argentina’s then President Juan Peron, when she had died of cervical cancer in 1952, and was embalmed on the request of her husband.

Lesser known instances of Necrophilia  can be found in the historical records from the nineteenth century, where some men of noble birth were found to be necrophiles. Evidence of Necrophilia has been found around the world and throughout history, including in Ancient Egypt.

And yet, what makes Ancient Egypt different is the way not only necrophilia but rape and incest too is

Be Careful What you Wish For – Cumaean Sibyl & Apollo (Story)

The boy was here again and today he had brought his friends along.

“Wait,” he held out a hand to stop his friends from rushing in and spoiling his show. The other kids stopped. They were agog with curiosity.

She knew why. They were here to witness the empty basket speak. It was a game that had gone on for almost three hundred years, and she, who knew everything, didn’t know when it would end. Oh…the games they played with her…they ravaged whatever remained of her pride. Her pride? Oh, how she hated her pride, for it was her pride that had brought her to this.

The boy approached the basket gingerly, ready to pull back if the basket sprung to life and pounced upon him. After all, If it could talk, it could attack too.

“What do you want?” he asked, like he expected the basket to answer. But he was right. Sibyl was bound to answer every question she was asked, and she was bound to answer it truthfully. So was her destiny for she was the prophetess and the seer. She was Sibyl.

“Death,” she croaked. Her voice was the only part of her that hadn’t aged. It still was the smooth, sweet voice of a seventeen-year-old.