Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2024 #Potluck – Thursday Doors 16.11.23 : Colorful doors of Punjab by Smitha Vishwanath

Welcome to the series of Posts from Your Archives and I will be sharing posts from the SECOND six months of 2023 from your archives.

This current series is now closed to submissions but there will be a new series to participate in later in the year.

This is the first post from poet, artist, photographer and author Smitha Vishwanath and she shares some amazing doors in Sada Pind in Amritsar as part of the Thursday Doors challenge hosted by Dan Antion.

These are pictures I took at Sada Pind, which is created to resemble a village in Punjab. It’s a tourist attraction spread over 12 acres of land. You can read about my visit to Amritsar here..

Here are a few of the doors I found at Sada Pind. The place is a door lover’s delight.

I find this door very welcoming.

The blue color on the wall around the door makes this door attractive

A mud house with a normal wooden door

A cabinet door.

These days, this kind of furniture with a distressed look is sold at exorbitant prices.

Did you see the green door at the back of the room, painted doors on the taller cabinet and the wooden doors of the smaller cabinet?

Copyright@smithavishwanathsblog.com

My thanks to Smitha for inviting me to share posts from her archive and I know she would love to hear from your..

Books by Smitha Vishwanath and also with Vandana Bhasin

One of the reviews for Coming Home

HarvestingHecate 5.0 out of 5 stars A book about love, grief, family and home  Reviewed in the United Kingdom

This is a book about love, grief, family and ultimately finding ‘home’ wherever that might be for each of us.

The book opens with Shanaya’s mothers funeral, a vivid and heart-breaking account of confronting grief, while being aware of everyone’s eyes on you to make sure you follow tradition and do the right thing. The descriptions and heartache of the rituals drew me in and gave me immediate sympathy for Shanaya.

We then see her throw herself into work to try to deal with the grief. Her mother had been the thread that glued the family together and kept everyone up to date with everyone else, now that was threatened as she was no longer there. Moving back to India, Shanaya re-connects with her sister and dad though finds it difficult that they don’t talk about her mother. But it isn’t long before her sister goes to university in the USA and it seems her dad has an arrangement with the mysterious neighbours, the Shanbaugs, to find him a new wife.

Shanaya is a strong, successful woman – it is taken for granted that a woman should want to be successful, work hard and be extremely competent. But it is also gratifying to see the depictions of warm, female friendships, where women support each other, rather than compete or put each other down.

Shanaya moves from Dubai to India and will travel to a number of different cities before the end of the book. The author conjures up details of food, dress, the landscape and people that bring these places to vivid life, so that you can picture the environment in your mind. The depictions of food are particularly mouth-watering, but I also enjoyed the portrayals of the natural world and Shanaya’s delight in the wonders she sees.

This novel is also a love story. Woven into the narrative are Shanaya’s relationships with prospective husband Suresh, and colleague Jai. I won’t reveal any spoilers, but you will be keen to find out what happens at the end. Here too, there are references to moving – or not wanting to move, which contribute to one of the questions of the book – where do we find home?

By the end of the book, we have travelled far, met many interesting characters and experienced a range of emotions, all leading us to a satisfying conclusion. 

Read the reviews and buy the books: Amazon UK – And: Amazon US – Goodreads: Smitha Vishwanath – Blog: Smithavpennings – Facebook: Smitha Vishwanath – Twitter:@SmithaVishwana4 

About Smitha Vishwanath

Smitha Vishwanath is your quintessential ‘bored banker’ turned writer. After a rewarding career of two decades in banking in Dubai, where she worked for leading banks in senior positions, she quit and moved to India in July 2018 with her husband and two daughters. Therein, she began her writing journey, which she did through her blog: https://lifeateacher.wordpress.com.

Smitha’s poem, ‘Omid’, was nominated ‘Best of the Net’ in 2019. Her poems, ‘Do you have Dreams’ and ‘Forgotten’ written for the National Poetry Writing Month challenge hosted by Maureen Thompson, won recognition on an international level for two consecutive years, 2021 and 2022. She was nominated as Author of the month by SpillWords Press for her poem ‘Ye Birds on my Window Sill’ in May 2022. She was recently voted Author of the month for the months of January and February 2023, for her poem, ‘Two years since you left’ by Spillwords Press. Her poetry has been published by several online publications including Thieving Magpies, Spillwords Press, MasticadoresUS, Silverbirch Press, Rebelle Society and has found a place in several noteworthy anthologies.

‘Roads’ was the first book she co-authored, which was published in July 2019 and received positive reviews. She’s working on her latest novel.

‘Coming Home’ is her debut novel released in March, 2023.

When she’s not writing, you’ll find her reading, writing book reviews, sharing her experiences through her blog, painting, walking travelling, or just being. She currently resides with her husband in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her poems and writing reflect the experiences that come with having lived with people of different cultures.

 

Thank you for dropping in today and I hope you will be leaving with a book or two… Sally.