Versatile Blogger: Nomination and Tag

Nominated for the Versatile Blogger award by Aparna here. Thanks a lot! I wasn't sure the origins of it, so searched the Internet and found the Versatile Blogger Award site here. They have a blog roll of all the winners - which is periodically updated. Aparna, your nomination is well deserved and sound me out when you win it - All the best!

The nomination does not come easy. It has a set of rules and here I go...

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers.

Here are the fellow bloggers I nominate... (excluding bloggers who have already been nominated, I got only 10)

• Chandrika Shubham at Chandrika Shubham : A reserved chit-chatter.
• BK Chowla at Change India.
• Creative Rumblings at Creative Rumblings.
• TBG at Desi Ghee and Coffee.
• Katherine Jenkins at Lessons from the Monk I Married.
• Sameera at Life in a jiffy.
• Mr "Niraj" Lemon at Masalla Lemonade.
• Susan Deborah at Meanderings and Reflections.
• Ram at Trails of a Traveler.
• Prathama at Towards Harmony.

2. Inform the bloggers of their nomination.

Consider this done - the minute I publish the post, will let the nominated bloggers know.

3. Add the Versatile Blogger award picture to your blog post. 

Here it is...

4. Share 7 random things about yourself.

Okay, let's see how random I can get...

• Though I can't sing for nuts, for as long as I can remember I have fancied being a top-notch singer - I used to sing along with the tapes, with a magazine rolled up as a mike and pretend I was giving an Oscar-winning performance. I still do it when nobody is at home (and now with YouTube instead) :D.

• My first career option ever as a kid was to join the army and fight at the borders. In the 80's, women were still not part of the Indian army; and when my parents told me that, I wanted to be an army doctor. (Until ofcourse I later realized I just don't have it in me to become any kind of a doc :()

• The first job I ever "interviewed" for was for the position of a Management Trainee at the Taj Group of Hotels. This was when I was still in college.

• I have carried dividers, compasses in my bags during the bus rides to and from college. I was in Delhi and it was almost a necessity to carry such equipment for self defense. I have used these and umbrellas, elbows, knees to hit so many men (ofcourse the guilty ones only), real bad, where it really hurts the most.

• Till I was in my early 20s, the worst abuse I had ever used was "bitch". And if I called so it was someone that, it was understood that they really deserved it and infact much more! I couldn't bring myself to use to the more illustrious vocabulary that I seem to fluently mouth out these days! 

• I have admired and been infatuated by various celebrities from different field over the years. However, I have always proudly proclaimed that I have never been so star-struck as to put up posters in my room EXCEPT for only once in all these years - I had Rahul Dravid's poster on my bedroom wall for exactly 10 days when I was in Grade 8.

• Though not at all a sportsperson, I have tried my hand (literally only that much) at most sports - lawn tennis, badminton, javelin throw, short put, karate, long jump, golf, volley ball, basket ball, throw ball, even cricket, and what not - only to come to the conclusion that all these are too "rough" for my taste :P. The one sport I have "seriously" pursued, for say 2 years continuously in school, was Table Tennis :).

Wow! I actually enjoyed doing this post! Thanks Aparna, once again.

Over to you guys, now! 

A blogging award for a merrier Christmas...

IHM is a very popular Indian blogger who primarily writes against injustices, violence, biases and atrocities committed on women. She recently announced THE BLOGSCARS: Tejaswee Rao Blogging Awards (after her daughter) wherein bloggers were invited to submit relevant blog posts under various categories that focused on feminism, women's issues and so on. Here's the complete list. 

I did submit a few of my own blog posts that I felt were relevant to the topics, and am really delighted to have won in the category, "The way a woman dresses...". My winning blog post is titled, "Dressed to kill!" and you can read it here.
Here's the award badge that I get to proudly display on my side panel. If you have the time, I would suggest that you read the other winning posts to at the link above. They make for some really good reading - informative and eye opening.

This, added to the short weekend trip (which I do hope to write about :)), did make my Christmas merrier. How have you been?

The centennial post!

So Blogger tells me this is my 100th post, and I am super kicked. What makes the milestone even more special is the fact that it coincides with my entry into the third year of blogging!

Yes, My Musings completes two years today!

What started as an impromptu expression of thoughts has become a medium that has grown on me - has become a very defining aspect of who I am.

Though quite a diary person from my kiddie days, when I used to write long pages on events, experiences that touched me – blogging has been a different adventure. While I would be more than content to just put down on paper (e-paper ;)) my feelings, thoughts and musings, being read brought in a whole new exciting dimension to the act of writing itself.

If blogging has been cathartic, having readers – known and unknown - from different spaces – physical and philosophical – has been exhilarating. I want to thank all the ardent “followers” on the blog, RSS feeds, Twitter, and the family and friends on FB and Buzz who have been patient enough to read through my posts, share their valuable insights, and always been so appreciative of my efforts.

The journey so far…

In 2006-07, with constant traveling and moving, personal journals were getting difficult to maintain – so much so that I had almost lot touch with the “pen”. I had been trying to get a foothold on the blogging space but more than anything else, it was sheer laziness that kept me at bay.

Finally, in October 2008, though having registered on Blogspot more than a year ago, I did my first blog post. Usually, most bloggers do a Welcome or a Hello World post to mark their entry into the blogosphere – I was abrupt.

The death of Sowmya Viswanathan was shocking, and more tragic was the reaction of the politicos – You can read the post here.

On hindsight, I don’t know what made me a regular blogger after that post. Maybe I needed that impetus, that push to break the writer’s block.

Since then, this blog has been an expression of most things in life that hold meaning for me.

I have done a range of posts from seemingly frivolous ones to more introspective ones. What’s kept me going is that I have been able to be true to myself. Though I love the reactions of people to my writing I don’t write to please anyone in particular. What I write is essentially me and that is a satisfying emotion.

There was a time when I felt that an anonymous profile might suit me better. Anonymity might enable me to write more honestly and openly.

I argued that against integrity. If I feel strongly about something, why should I be scared to associate my identity with it? However, there are still times that I am not enable to share an experience that involves others for fear of compromising their privacy – but I guess trade-offs would always be there.

The making of My Musings…

Though I started with quite a simple template from blogger.com, I am in love with my current template from pyzam.com.

The daisy is your everyday flower – yet it is beautiful and exquisite in its simplicity. The green is for life and the sunshine peeping through the clouded sky is the hope we all live on!

Indiblogger and BlogAdda memberships have had their advantages – apart from being ranked, I got to interact with fellow bloggers, each gifted and uniquely talented!

Not a tech savy person, I have been able to get some widgets going. My favorite ones include the visitor counter (I love to see the so many flags of countries from where people access my blog – Oh how on top of the world I feel :)), and the Link Within gadget that adds associated posts below the latest post.

As for my favorite posts, I cannot choose among my creations, can I?

So here’s raising a toast to the blogosphere! Cheers!

Remember,

I RANT, THEREFORE I AM.

Over to you now…

Award time :)

Masalla Lemonade completes one year of blogging and celebrated the occasion with the Lemonade Carnival!

Mr. "Niraj" Lemon was kind enough to present me with the following award:

Thank you! Feels awesome to be awarded by a fellow blogger! The beautiful lemonade award now proudly adorns my right panel!

Let the ink continue to flow :).

When bloggers meet…

…There’s bound to be a lot of communicating, networking, witticism, and ofcourse fun! The IndiBlogger’s Chennai Meet this Saturday (20th March) at the GRT Convention Center was all this and more!

I personally was very hesitant going for a meet like this – I had absolutely no clue what I would do – I was not looking for any “real” networking per se, I didn’t have a commercial or a very topical blog, I would love to be read by many more people but was not sold out to the idea of advertising for my blog, or like someone commented “capturing victims” – Nevertheless, I did go, and this post means that I did not regret it one bit!

The 30 seconds to fame item on the agenda really formed the core around which the rest of the evening revolved. As each blogger introduced himself and herself, I was in splits laughing, taking notes of the blogs that seemed of interest, and even once in a while waiting for the time keeper to beep ;). It was fantastic to see a conglomerate of people (I suppose around 200) passionately talking – there were bright sparks, hilarious ideas, unique sentiments – a myriad musings.

The “back panels” (my back panel seen in the pic over my very own IndiBlogger ‘T’ – yes, one of the most eagerly sought after “freebie” at the meet) provided a good opportunity to interact with all the bloggers – we exchanged our URLs and tweet IDs – The lazy me is yet to go through the ones I collected and reach out – I plan to do a lot of online reading over the coming days to make up for the backlog – But, I have already begun to receive some comments on my blog posts – which is very thrilling (and makes me feel a tad bit guilty as well), apart from the fact that the hits on my blog go up :).

A bit of a dampener was the Traditional Media vs. Blogging session, where my lack of knowledge of Tamil (yes, the “predominant” speaker from Zee Tamil refused to offer even a summary translation) saw me smiling at others who were in the same boat. Pleasantly, I did have the honor of sitting with a few “just-made” friends, who offered some lingual help. The media person from the Australian channel spoke well of the contradictions that arise professionally for a journalist who also blogs.

We had the Univercell (the sponsors of the event) announce a contest – no, they are not paying me to announce the contest, so go find it for yourself on the IndiBlogger’s or the Univercell site.

The “chaai”, “kaapi” and random conversations on blogs, RSS, hash tags, followers, page hits, SEOC (or some weird technological nazi like that) and the much coveted IndiRanks provided the perfect close.

Great job Rene, Anoop and the entire gang at IndiBlogger. You guys rock!

Also cheers to the wonderful blogger-friends I made – Deepa, Sonia, Anju, Akshay, Susan, Tariq, Shilpa, Akshay, Karhik, Gomati, and the many others (If your name is not here, apologies, I might look young but my memory fails me once too often).

Wishing you all greater blog posts, page hits, followers, and IndiRanks!