My Award

                    Every time I upload a post, it takes a mammoth effort to resist the temptation of checking the traffic feed  by the minute. No,  that's an exaggeration. Make that by the hour. When the votes on the indiblogger surge, I swell directly proportionate to it. And well! when the tide is low so do I wane much as I would like to say otherwise. Over a period of time, I have made many friends in the blogosphere and come across some incredibly composed posts. And today when a fellow blogger nominates me for the Leibster Award, I can only thank you for showing me so much love. To be honest, I was nominated once before by Preethi but somehow never managed to honour it. Thank you Shweta Dave of   www.sunshineandzephyr.com  for this award. 

Liebster blog award

Now for the rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog. 

2. Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post)

3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. Nominate 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

5. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

6. List these rules in your post. Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

7. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Questions that came from Shweta   -

1. Tell us something unique about your blog?

For each of us our thoughts and ideas are unique to us and also how best we express them. So in that context my blog is unique as it comes with my experiences and the way I look at the world.

1. What time do you best write on your blog and why?

During school timings. Being a mother of two, it's the only time when they are in school that I have my mind to myself. 

1. What if you had a super power what would that be?

Travel to all the nooks, corners, crevices, mountain fold, every place.

1. What is the most adventurous thing you have done in life?

Living in a tin shed for a year in Leh.

1. Are you an impulsive shopper?

I don't think so... my husband will have another opinion of course..

1. What makes you angry?

Politicians

1. What do you mean by the word freedom?

To live the way you want to.

1. What is your favourite cartoon character?

Does Suppandi count?

1. What is that one object you can’t live without?

Books

1. Do you believe in destiny?

Yes, I do. There have been many instances

1. What is your biggest learning of life so far?

In our race for survival we forget to live.

My nominees are

Choki Gyeltshen  http://chokigyeltshen.blogspot.in/

Mahesh Semwal   http://maheshndivya.blogspot.in/

Kokila Gupta       http://sunshineandblueclouds.blogspot.in/

Deepa Gopal Sunil    http://deepazworld.blogspot.com/

Amrita Sabat         http://amritababat.blogspot.in/

Ranu       http://mypinkcloud-ranu.blogspot.in/

Chaitali Bose Bhattacharjee    http://chaitalibhattacharjee7.wordpress.com/

Jyotsna Bhatia   http://jyotsnabhatia.blogspot.in/

Ayushee Ghoshal     http://ayusheeghoshal.blogspot.in/

Renu Vyas        http://www.renuvyas.com/

Alok Vats          http://www.inewsindia.com/ 




Now my questions for the nominees are

Which part of the year do you enjoy the most?

What inspires you to write?

How does blogging help you?

Which genre of books do you like the most?

One of your most joyful moments.

Your best childhood memory.

The one place you would love to visit once in your lifetime.

Which is the best time for you to write?

Is social media making or breaking writers?

How do you look at life?

What's your idea of a vacation?



Pssst...I really don't know what happened to my text and have tried and pulled my hair apart to set it right, the technology challenged that I am. Finally, I've let it go. Please do bear with me.

Beacon Of Light

                                                

courtesy Wikimedia

                                                  

     If truth be told, I've attempted this post many times only  to 'backspace' or 'delete' all the words. Every letter keyed in seemed inadequate to express myself.  The month of April was an extremely challenging one, having taken the plunge with the A to Z Challenge with posts pivoting around the theme of my travels in India. There have been times when I was beleaguered with domestic travails, social and personal commitments tempting me to go astray, to give it all up. For how did it matter whether I finished the Challenge or not? Was there a trophy at the end of the day? No. Did it make me a shining star in the horizon? No. So why did I continue although I had many sleepless nights and jittery mornings, snapping at every hurdle that came my way? 

    It was the beacon of light that egged me on to swim further every day, post by post, till the finishing line. If it wasn't for the beacon cheering me on, I would have just drifted away. And that beacon, my dear friends, is YOU. Having updated a post each day, I would return to it every evening to see if there was anyone who visited it. And you, my dear fellow bloggers, have never let me down. Your votes on Indiblogger and comments have cheered me and energized me to tread on. I realise that someone like me who is not in the habit of posting everyday, I may have compromised on quality at times unwittingly, but you never gave up. And when your votes took my posts to the home page of Indiblogger as Top Post, I was humbled and filled with gratitude. It was for the first time that my posts managed this feat. For this, I only have you to thank for, in the true age old Indian tradition of folded hands and head bowed. 

   On the way, I came across some wonderful blogs and made some great friends whom I promise to keep in touch with. My blogging world is gradually filling up with more colours and opening up new windows. All this while, I also discovered that I can write every day IF I persevere. And for this I can only thank the A to Z Challenge team for showing me the way. 

         My fellow bloggers, I THANK YOU for being my beacon.