Interview with Daisy Bala – Author of Blossoms and Foliages

Hi friends, today, we are having an interview with Daisy Bala, author of Blossoms and Foliages.

Daisy Bala is a nature as well as a positive poetry lover and is passionate about life & its humdrum. Cooking is her other love apart from reading, writing, & watching comedy stuff. She likes to spend time with her lovelies.

The first thing that made her feel independent and flying was her first bicycle ride. She knows how to turn her weakness into her strength. She used to feel her hair was her low point, but she made her curly locks her style statement.

Bustling with positivity and passion, this mom of 2 munchkins is a physics grad and MBA-HR, currently in Chicago playing the role of a homemaker.

When she walks the woods, smelling the wild buds, watching the daisies grow, and blowing dandelions, poetries flow out of her. Her book Blossoms and Foliages is an example of one of such happenings.

The book is condensed words dripping with nature’s musings and crispiness. A reader can identify with its ethereal beauty. Its lively descriptions of that blushing bud, mid-summer blooms, swaths of chiming bluebells will nudge and tempt you to read further to know what the trees are conversing, what about sun they didn’t teach you in astronomy, what stirs clarity in you when you walk the exfoliating beaches, etc. It’ll make you drink through your eyes and smell the bluebells spread as you linger with this fresh pick.

Interview with Daisy Bala—Author of Blossoms and Foliages

Nature and Daisy Bala

Welcome, Daisy Bala! Thanks for sparing time to talk about you and your book Blossoms and Foliages. First of all, tell us about the meaning of your name.

Daisy is a white flower with a yellow center, generally grows in wild areas. Daisies symbolize innocence, purity, and new beginnings. It is a beautiful feminine name that symbolizes beauty and freshness too. It’s the day’s eye!!

What is it that you so desperately wanted to tell that you wrote this book?

I want to tell everyone that nature is vivid and crisp. Her magnificence beholds us like ether. We just need to pause and ponder. She is ubiquitous and nourishing. Her virtue is patience and her beauty is bewitching.

Stand by her, and she will never fail you. Wait, relax, and unwind in her plethora, and she will help you understand everything better!! It will go alike with any nature lover or anyone who values beauty and replenishment!!

How do you get the idea of writing this book? Why did you choose this theme?

I have always been an avid nature admirer and I derive my positivity from my musings. Writing gives me a similar high so I combined both to get this formidable concoction which resulted in this bouquet of poetry.

Also, my home in Chicago suburbs is closer to this beautiful nature park with exhaustive blooms, Foliages, and canopies. My everyday walks were inspiration calls that glistened with my poetic fervor and I started writing continuously. My DNA is wired to resonate with nature, I guess (wink wink)!!

When Blogchatter provided this platform to become a published author, I was still jittery, but once I read the promotional email by Richa Mukherjee sponsored by Blogchatter, I had made up my mind to go published!!

How did you get interested in nature? Tell us about it.

I am a quiet thoughtful woman who is never bored of her own company. I am attracted towards serene peaceful things that are also beautiful and divine.

Nature lets me connect with myself better, silencing all the inner qualms and voices. I wonder at its majestic traits and behold its beauty in my thoughts.

For the last 7 years, while I have stayed in UK and US, I have got ample opportunities to visit gardens, walking trails, nature parks, conserved woods, and moorlands where nature and greenery have been conserved well in its natural habitat.

Also, my current home is amidst this vast nature park bursting with greens and meadow delights.

I have nature in my name, so I am innately attracted to its grandeur. It keeps pulling me in, making me happier and calmer and grounded.

One thing I noticed in your poems is that the word ‘blushing’ is often used. Any specific reason? Why the emotion of blushing is so close to your heart?

I blush easily. Out of intense emotions, desires, receiving attention, or embarrassment. My face shows that red tinge easily giving away clues!! I use the same emotion in my imageries. A beautiful naïve flower blushing with innocent love and beguiling beauty. That is my idea of defining the crisp virgin nature.

Backstage Information of the Book Blossoms & Foliages by Daisy Bala

Why do you think that people will read you or take your book Blossoms and Foliages seroiusly?

I will say, do not take me seriously, do not believe me, check it out yourself.

Does not that walk in the woods or being amidst nature chirp you up, revving up the senses? Isn’t that a mood swinger when you watch the blooms or smell that haven of perfumes in perennial garden beds? Does not that hill station landscape or stroll on the beach intoxicate you, stirring clarity?

Go find out what is your calling and let me know if being one with nature is not beating away your blues!! I bet you will find it irresistible and therapeutic!!

That is what my book resonates with, check it out to know, what all the buzz is about!

What difficulties do you face during writing the book, and how do you overcome them?

I have an 11-month-old munchkin and an 8-year-old inquisitive chatterbox. I was at a time crunch when compiling my collection and would work late nights to meet the deadline, but surprisingly the efforts did not seem tiring. I guess, work is not work when you are following your heart. I am the chosen one.

Any interesting thing that happened during writing that you might want to share.

I think Richa Mukherjee’s email was a turning point and surprisingly this thought of writing a book was simmering inside me strongly around the same time. I cashed the milking cow and had the cake and ate it too.

You twice mentioned Richa Mukherjee’s email. Could you shed some light on its content?

I was thinking of compiling my poetry blogs in an eBook and immortalize it, for long. Around the same time, I was reading Richa’s Kanpur Khoofia and admiring her literary genius. When I read Richa’s email, I was pleasantly surprised to know that she was also associated with Blogchatter and inviting aspiring bloggers to chalk out a pristine eBook out of the mundane blogs. I jumped at the idea and immediately decided to grab this launch pad. The rest is history.

Writing Journey of Daisy Bala, author of Blossoms & Foliages

How do you see the ability to connect with others through writing? Is this ability a skill (which could be developed) or a gift of God?

Writing is one of the finest forms of communication with others and poetry is an exquisite version of it. I express my self and my world through my verses and pieces written for the heart, by the heart.

My nature writing will surely connect with my readers because nature jibes with everyone. We humans are wired to be in the greens because that is where we all have bloomed.

Writing is a gift that needs to be skillfully developed and evolved. Everything needs polishing to shine and reverberate.

When did you first discover you had this gift that needs to be skillfully developed & evolved? Tell us about your writing journey?

I started writing when I was pregnant with my son, 8 years ago. Words flowed automatically, and I wrote in proliferation and abundance. I realized I was nurturing not just a life inside but also a writing talent that wanted to ooze out with its creative juices.

I let my heart sing and fingers dance in enchantment, as I wrote my pregnancy journey and stories. Not much later, when my son was 1.3 years, I traveled to the UK. Being in Leamington Spa, let me witness nature’s bounty in all its opulence and I was attracted to nature writing.

Poetry wrote on its own, in its verdant green canopies, and I was resplendent yet again. Ever since I’ve been feeling nourished in her company, and this became my strength and calling.

Do you have another project in the works? If so, what is it?

I do not have anything in the wings right now, but I would love to write a comedy fiction, someday. Let’s see what I might bring next year to the blogchatter platter!!

Hobbies and Fun Facts of Daisy Bala

What are your recreational activities? Tell us about your hobbies.

I love love love cooking and watching cookery shows. Apart from admiring nature and liquefying it into words and lyrical poetry, I love walking, reading books-blogs, and Hindi magazines.

I also love makeup (both buying and puffing it on me). I am a huge admirer of watching makeup and hairstyle videos on YouTube. When I was in school, filling slam books, I would always quote, “my most prized possession in the world would be an international makeup kit” (laughing heartily).

Share some fun facts about you most people do not know.

I am a big Bollywood buff. I love telling stories. I like mimicking people. Also, a comedian at heart, I’ve been practicing mock interviews as a bestselling author in my bathroom for the last 5 years!!

Favorite Authors and Books of Daisy Bala

Daisy, tell us about your favorite authors and books. Are there any specific authors whose writing styles or subject matter inspired your book Blossoms and Foliages?

My favorite authors are R. K. Narayan, Ruskin Bond, Twinkle Khanna, Sudha Murthy, Chetan Bhagat, Khushwant Singh, Arundhati Roy, and many more.

I have loved reading, Malgudi Days, Time Stops at Shamli, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, Dollar Bahu, 2 states, Train to Pakistan, and many more by all these authors.

My ebook Blossoms and Foliages is inspired by all of them because I’ve absorbed them in my core, and they tend to reflect everywhere in the words I speak and the letters I pen down.

Maya Angelou and Feminism

You seem to be a big fan of Maya Angelou. Tell us about it. And share your opinion on the idea of Feminism and its implementation in the present time.

Maya Angelou was a phenomenal woman of strength, courage, and unapologetic repartee. She was a crackling poet, literary genius, and advocate of feminism.

A female role model in American history, she did not jitter to speak her clairvoyant heart & mind and quote her miseries as a deprived black girl.

Her ticket to glory “I know why the caged bird sings” is evocative and lingers with taboo issues like rape and racism. Maya said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” She was a force of nature, to reckon with!!

For me, Feminism is about more power to the woman. Recognizing her abilities, giving her the sky, and letting her fly with prowess without inhibitions.

Ironically, women were never made to compete with men. She was made for higher things that men could never achieve. Marilyn Monroe said, “Women who seek to be equal with men, lack ambition.” (Note: This quote is also attributed to Timothy Leary)

But, if I gravitate towards the truth, Women across the world face differences, injustices, glass ceilings, chauvinism, inequality in all facets of life, thrown at her by the other gender.

And, owing to this malfunction, I believe feminism is very much required. It’s required to show that Women are equal to men, if not superior and this adage should be practiced promoting the common good and the betterment of the society at large.

War and Spiritualism

I read somewhere you said that love, war, karma were all sweeping impactful words, but nothing justifies bloodshed. Could you tell us more about it?

Certainly! I believe, there are no winners in war, and agonies & miseries are the only things left behind. And all this over that disputed line of control, that meager piece of land that is nobody’s baggage.

War is never justified because the stakes are too high, and the bloodshed is irreversible and barbarous. Even if your Karma guides you towards a war, for righteousness and morality, it will never be vindicated.

Life is a gift to be treasured, and each life is worth living. Bloodbath can never bring peace upon humanity and calm that tormented mind.

We are engineered to love. The human mind is a concoction of emotions, ploys, possession, and prowess for power. Taming those bunches of neurons is particularly important.

What is spiritualism is your eye? What is your philosophy in/about life?

Spiritualism for me is oneness with yourself. Meditation like a mindfulness practice where the heart, mind and soul connect and replenish each other.

Believing in a supreme power and being true to yourself and his identity. Spiritualism is the mirror of our own manifestations and ideologies.

Would you like to share something with your readers apart from these?

I would like to say that following your heart’s desires and passion is the best gift you can give to yourself.

Never be too harsh and always reward yourself for a goal achieved. However, always set realistic goals and take calculated risks in your endeavors.

Take each day as it comes and treats it well with warmth and love. There would be days when you would feel blue and disappointed, but always remember, failure is not when you fall down, it is when you don’t get up.

Stay motivated and positive. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and above everything else, always LOVE YOURSELF and give your heart some TLC.

Thanks, Daisy, for joining us. It’s a fabulous experience chatting with you.

Reviews of Blossoms and Foliages by Daisy Bala

That was Daisy Bala with us talking about herself and her book Blossoms and Foliages in detail. Let’s see what others are saying about her book.

Reading this book is like taking a dip among picturesque nature. Lovers of poetry and nature will absolutely love way Daisy has crafted each poem to offer an amazing experience to the reader.

Word by word, the poetess evokes a sense of enchantment, drawing the reader into her world, to witness with her the ephemeral beauty of nature through a kaleidoscope of seasons.

This book is just superb…It not only paints nature’s images in front of you but also casts a spell and transports you amidst nature…A beautiful way of describing beauty of nature…And what usage of words…I am still spellbound!

Details of Book Blossoms and Foliages by Daisy Bala

Book Details
Title	Blossoms and Foliages
Subtitle	A Bouquet of Poems
Author	Daisy Bala
Genre	Poetry
Sub-genre	Nature Writing
No. of Words	4306
Reading Time	25 min (Approx)
Format	PDF
Available at	Blogchatter

Contact Links of Daisy Bala

Do read her book Blossoms and Foliages, and share your views with her here:

Website: freshdaisiesdotme
Email: baladaisy08@gmail.com
Twitter: @baladaisy08
Facebook:  @daisy.bala
Instagram: @daisybala_delhi
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/daisy-bala-6a92439

If you’d like to watch or hear Daisy talking, here’s an interview of her with Rashi Roy.

Hope you enjoyed the conversation with Daisy Bala, author of Blossoms and Foliages.

Thank you.