The winners of the Kala Ghoda Art Festival literature contests were announced over the weekend. I never submitted anything because the one idea I had, didn't sound interesting enough by the time I wrote half of it. (Actually it was supposed to be five different ideas but I could only think up the first two, and I only wrote half of the first one)

The scores, finalists and winners of the various contests can be found at the following links:

Flash Fiction - Scores, Finalists, Winners

Graphic Flash - Scores, Finalists, Winners

SMS Poetry - Scores, Finalists, Winners

Poetry Slam - Scores, Finalists. (See announcement for winners)

So do head there and take a look.

I'm not too much of a poetry buff but I really liked the SMS Poetry first prize winner.

Among the Graphic Flash entries my favourite was entry # 335 (which tied for second place) followed by 461 (which ended up first).

I've only read the Flash Fiction finalists, and my favourites among them were 168, 239, 243, and 323. None of them won, though. So if you liked a story that didn't make it to the finals, do leave a comment here.

Once more an entire month has gone by without new posts on this blog. To those of you who still read this blog, I apologize for the delay. I'd blame it on lack of time and writer's block, but that won't really make up for the lack of posts, will it?
Anyway. On with the post.

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is back this year, and Caferati is hosting some contests again, just like last time. I hope to participate in the Flash Fiction contest this year too, though I don't really have any realistic expectation of winning, or even making the shortlist. I want to write at least one story, if not two, if for no other reason than to have something to post on this blog.

The Graphic Flash (flash fiction in a graphic format) and Poetry Slam contests both sound really interesting. Do check them out.

And if you're cell-phone happy, you might want to try SMS Poetry.

The deadline for all the contests, is Feb 4 2007, so get off that block right now. (And if you do, let me know how you did it!)

I got my entry into the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival's Flash Fiction contest late on Saturday night (or early on Sunday morning, depending on your point of view). Since it seems to be permitted by the rules to post my entry on my own blog, I thought I'd do so without further ado. So here it is. The theme/trigger was Black Horse.

Joyride

"I can have my lawyer draw up the papers," he told her as the horse trotted away with their daughter.

"Whatever," she replied. For months she'd stopped looking at him when she spoke to him. But now she looked him straight in the eye. He looked away.

"Do you think she'll understand?" he asked as he looked at the child. They could hear her laughter tinkle through the air as she rode. "Black Beauty!" she'd called the horse, when she first saw it.

"No," was the reply. He could feel her eyes bore into him as she spoke. "But she'll learn to accept."

"I'll visit her on weekends," he said. He hoped she wouldn't refuse.

"She won't stop being your daughter," his wife said. But in a short while she'd stop being his wife. Would she find someone else? Would she get married again? He felt his knees go weak.

He couldn't bring himself to say anything more. So they stared silently at their daughter who was riding slowly back towards them. She'd stopped laughing and looked more scared than excited.

The joyride was over.

The End

I just found out from the The Unknown Indian's blog that Vasantahabba has been cancelled for the second year in a row. Vasantahabba, is a festival of dance and music that runs from sunset to sunrise on the first weekend of February, on the outskirts of Bangalore. It is usually held at Nrityagram, the dance school founded by the late Protima Bedi. 2005 saw the organizers canceling it to pay respect to the memory of the victims of the December 2004 Tsunami. This year though, the festival was cancelled due to lack of funds.

I attended Vasantahabba on a visit to Bangalore in 2001 and have been aching to go back ever since. It was definitely one of the best experiences I've had, ever. To find out how to make sure there is a Vasantahabba 2007, check this post.

I'm in Bombay for the weekend on some personal work and have been seeing huge billboards all over the place advertising the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. From coverage at the official blog it seems to be an event that no art lover in Bombay should miss. Now I don't consider myself to be one of those artsy/intellectual types, but I'm still not happy that I'm probably not going to be able to take advantage of my trip to Bombay to see some of the events, like for example "Prayog" - An experiment in Bharatnatyam at Rampart Row.

But if you can, do check out the schedule and take advantage of this once-a-year amalgam of art. There's an HTML-only version of the schedule here if you have any trouble with the PDF link.

Update: Do check out the contests hosted at Caferati as part of the fest. The deadline for the Flash Fiction contest is gone (unless there's another extension) but the SMS Poetry contest is still on. So get your entries in quick!