74 successful sentences from showing up to write all January

By twenty two writers, when penning gratefulness

Paromita Goswami

1. “I had to wear pink muffs today coz I couldn’t find the black ones. Secretly delighted to wear such an outrageous outfit.”
2. “Who says winters are cold?”
3. “Grocery shopping is a fun-hunt when you eavesdrop.”
4. “The lil girl next-door and I had a deep conversation, though I couldn’t understand a word of what she said.”
5. “New Year’s Day was not lonely teary foggy in my fragrant chaste Greater Noida apartment, with only rabbits for company, and occasional lilting wind chimes.”
6. “Occupied her favorite couch for the entire day, and worked non-stop.”
7. “When grief mows you down, it is okay.”
8. “Be happy being the supreme idiot who is fooled repeatedly . . . some day the tomfoolery will stop . . . it has to. No options.”
9. “…The haziness just beyond the green fields, that tomato-red sun as the bus leaves campus, that smart answer in your new undergrad class, the unexpected visitor whose smile wanna hold your daughter, gulping down momos and hot sauce, and peppermint ball from a friend who remembers you have a sore throat . . .”
10. “A hug is what you need. And you get it. Through the lazy evening, painful night and unending morning.”
11. “And he refused to let his Janani go home.”
12. “Lucky to be loved, and luckier to still be able to walk into that place where she has a new daughter-in-law, a new grandkid.”

ADG (Anannya Dasgupta)

1. “I drove and waited for signs of dawn: the uniform dark of the sky breaking into a palette of blues, the tell-tale lightening of the sky — nothing.”
2. “No matter how uncertain and indifferent the world, sitting here on this couch, I know I am exactly in my place in the universe.”
3. “I have a new appreciation for large trees, their odd shaped fruits and startling flowers.
   …
   If I live here for longer, I think the place will yield to me as I yield to it.”
4. “At the pharmacy, I missed a step and I could have fallen flat on my face and smashed it in the process, but I managed to not fall or hurt myself.
   Nice save. Big one.”
5. “I have a history of landing in Kolkata sick or landing here and getting sick.”
6. “Nothing will endear you more to life than being cared for when sick.
   …
   I am in the very lap of care.”
7. “Little did I know that it is precisely when I think I have finally raised my mother right that she pulls out the trump card on me. Instead of asking me to call folks, she called the folks and had them call me! One uncle and one aunt actually landed up at my talk and actually sat through all of it. It felt like a school function all over again.
   …
   There might be hope for grouches like me yet!”
8. “I am useless with money. I am not proud about it, but I am beginning to accept it as one accepts a misshapen nose on one’s face.”
9. “How quickly we get weary and old; how rapidly the charming becomes a burden on our senses; how consistently the thing that worked needs to be fixed, updated or replaced. But for the ability to feel newness, it’d be a long sad trudge to an end that didn’t come soon enough.”
10. “Maybe that gym membership renewal is in order….”
11. “…where one discovers new talents in old friends. For over-eating. For an overly-affectionate large dog.”
12. “There are days, every once in a long while, when you feel distinctly different, like having turned a long due corner that was in sight but always felt too far away to reach.”

Aadya Kaktikar

“Once upon a time I used to write. Not for anyone or anything. Only for myself.”

Siddharth Ganesh

1. “All by herself she lives in a small one bedroom flat in Bangalore.”
2. “Six months back I was lying on my bed with right knee tightly wound with bandage and placed above my pillow. I was not able to walk. My knee buckled every time I tried to stand. My Anterior cruciate ligament was almost completely torn.”
3. “After hours of partying for the new year I slept at my friend’s place. There was a new kind of energy or still drunk when I woke up in the morning.”
4. “Under the shade, I got my breath back and my head cooled off. The mild breeze chilled my sweat and the chirping birds made me forget everything else. I removed my laptop bag from my aching shoulders and sat under the tree. I rested my eyes for a while and went back to work.”
5. “A lot happened during my rehabilitation.”
6. “A hug, a simple hug, nothing lost or won but made me feel great.”

Balakumaran

1. “Whenever I visit home, my mom would share the story of her day’s work.”
2. “Exchanging goodbyes, we parted ways.”
3. “Finally, I gave up and started playing with them. And at that instance, I realized how much I have missed playing with these small, cute kids.”
4. “And my wish did come true.”

Sundara Rajan

1. “Big mistake or a small mistake, it doesn’t matter.
   Brainy boss says this with a boisterous laughter.”
2. “Somedays I wouldn’t carry money while going to office, in a way, forcing myself to walk instead of taking the bus. And today was that Someday.”
3. “Stop being short tempered.”
4. “Food wasn’t that great at my university. So I decided to put on weight after leaving campus.”

Varun Ravikumar

1. “The decision to head early to my lab today morning proved to be enchanting in an invigorating sense.”
2. “Simultaneously, I am browsing LinkedIn for internships, contemplating on what to cook for lunch today and plotting on how to manage time for laundry, research and math efficiently.”
3. “Beginning of the week, a brand new day. I wake up at 4.00 am and with the university re-opening today, I decide to embark on a fresh routine henceforth. With a plan in mind, I catch the first bus to campus in hopes of starting my day with a bout of swimming. But as luck goes, I discover that the building in question opens an hour later from my current time.”

Aditi Seth

1. “I have never been a writer, never written beyond the necessary class assignments.”
2. “Our dog, Scruffy, was the one who found her and in his own way begged my mother to take her in, refusing to budge from the tiny kitten’s side until she was indoors.”
3. “She is the first person I wish in the morning and the last at night. The first person I meet when I come back home and last person I see when I leave the house.”

Ritu

1. “Only an hour ago the blackness was absolute, but now the mist was visible. Gold and pale, the sunlight filled my entire room with a warm sensation that made me smile.”
2. “Worst enemy and best friend, all in one neat package.”
3. “Hopscotch, with a broken chalk and the sun beating down.”

Ganesh Srinivas

“I have always wanted to present a calm, unemotional demeanor in front of you. None of that lovey-dovey, sniffle-sniffle stuff.
…
This gratitude would fall into that bucket of discomforting emotional things.”

Sai Charan

1. “You’d wager that I have long since relinquished my initial impression.”
2. “Three hours a day, two days a week through grades 11 and 12. Never did I miss a single lecture.”

Ishan Gupta

1. “Yours and truly yours only,
   Me.”
2. “I enjoy your company & I wish to befriend you.”

Gautham G

“Being someone who uses the public transport regularly, I also had my earphones on (to ward off people and discourage any initiation of small talk).”

Tanveer Ahmed

“I, for one, till then had a strict say-no-to-vendors policy. But there was something pitiful about this woman. The tired wrinkled face,the color-faded saree,the frail walk. And I was a tad hungry as well.”

Harikrishnan

“The day went as usual as it is supposed to go for a lonely research student…”

Abhishek Sharma

“Gratitude guy had no idea where to begin feeling grateful, so he shout out into the void for all that the void encompasses — probability, love, air.”

Rakesh Munnanooru

“I got furious. I called up the driver and asked if he is ever gonna show up.”

Vinith Johnson

“As soon as I started strumming and singing again, the crying had stopped.”

Anagh Narain

“My hostel floor is mostly empty, my Snapchat is filled with stories of Day #1 at the office, I have no classes or lectures to attend.”

Kattyayani Tushar Joag

“Jara hat ke
Jara bach ke
Yeh hai Bombay
Meri jaan.”

Sanya Sawlani

“My mind was full with all my major subjects this semester and a feeling of losing, again!”

Ranjit Raj

1. “Failing at any of these usually sets off the mental bomb made to mom everyday at work.”
2. “…I imagined myself this way — dead, not in the immediate grief of the scene, but as hence quietly deleted by people from a possibility of existence somewhere.
   …
   Just as handing your game a death yielded an intensity on field, to enjoy every game as much as possible, handing my presence a deletion brought me to intensely be.”
3. “On reading her entire gratitude, you’ll see her dog’s heroism & her cat’s fortitude & her family’s tenacity are given center.”
4. “It’s useful not to overthink an expression, but to simply cure the written of negativity one finds.”
5. “Your voice into our school mike was the only part one could greatly look forward to, after the sometimes agonizingly long morning prayer.”
6. “to the welfare breeze visiting a hot summer night,
   to active mosquitoes who’ve stayed their corner,
   to barking dogs that omit me on street,”
7. “This curve you’re on is sexy. A serious school kid, a lofty first-year, an unruly second-year, a bit of a silly romeo in third year, mysteriously quiet & attractive in fourth year.”
8. “Gratitude, that pious pearl is so deep a swim down Unsexy, Ranjit.”
9. “Strangers never open up to me like this, so I listened, not with sympathy but a positive curiosity in this cobbler’s life, till his talk fell when the wife returned with a cover of flowers to set up bench beside, tie and sell.”
10. “Empathy. The thumping grasp by the heart of the desires & fears & ambitions of another. The very quality that close reading & critical analysis of text and characters promptly heightens in one.”
11. “How reassuring in the teeth of being, good sleep can be.”
12. “Today was a perfectly normal day. Nothing saved. Nothing wasted.”