Vaishali Chandorkar Chitale – Co-author, Out of My Box

By WriteFluence on June 16, 2021

Our winning co-author from the compilation Out of My Box born out of the winning entries of the FemmeFluenza contest for women writers, Vaishali Chandorkar Chitale is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. She is an English (Hons) graduate from Hindu College, Delhi University. A free-lance journalist and writer, she likes to write about her life, anecdotes and fiction.

She has lately taken to pen lyrical poems too. Her stories have been published on online platforms of StoryMirror and Bonobology.

Her story, ‘Romancing the Husband’ has been published in the Impish Lass anthology, ‘Dating After Death’.

_{Wanna see yourself published in this space? Participate in our ongoing contests and win yourself this feature!}

She has taught English in many schools and retired from Delhi Public school, Pune in 2004 after a career of over 14 years to follow her passion for writing.

You can follow her on her blog: https://anenviablejouney.wordpress.com
She can be reached at vchandorkar@gmail.com

Here’s an excerpt from Vaishali’s winning story ‘Bittersweet Chocolate‘ published in Out of My Box

Harshita sat despondently on the chair, sipping her morning cup of tea. The daily bunch of newspapers were lying unopened next to her, on the coffee table. She could see the vast emptiness of her life spread out in front of her. How had things come to this pass, she wondered?

Today, when the world was grappling with Covid-19 pandemic that had everyone in its deadly grip, her services were most needed (she being a microbiologist!), but she was sitting at home, frustrated and straining at the leash to be let loose in her beloved laboratory to research this miniscule coronavirus and find out its genesis. She wanted to join the race for finding the vaccine for this life-threatening infectious disease, but it would mean to rock the marital boat, which was anyway on dangerous waters as it is! Life had literally been a bed of roses till some years back. The roses had now wilted and the thorns had begun to prick.

When had it started? Was it when she took a step back in her career to pander to her husband’s fragile ego or when she deliberately underplayed her achievements for him to shine in the world?