Added to the Mantelpiece are...

three more awards, from Shail Mohan, Bindu John and Soma Mukherjee. The versatile Blogger award,the Christmas award and the Candle Lighter Award! Congratulations to all the bloggers who have received the same, and my thanks, to each of you, Shail, Bindu and Soma, for considering this space worthy of the honour you bestow.

Shail, of the blog we all love so much, “Shail’s Nest”,  is a blogger par excellence, and the most deserving of the Versatile Blogger award, when one thinks of the excellent stories, essays, photoblogs, and moving poetry she pens. Versatility should have been her first name, and it most certainly is her second.

Bindu John is a blogger whom I met, virtually, only recently, but her writing and her concern for her students, for humanity, for the ways in which we could better ourselves, is clearly evident in all that she shares on her space “I Think So”.

Soma Mukherjee is yet another warm soul who happened to chance upon this post, on the other blog I ramble about in, A Quest, where I had strung together the poetic comments written in by Govind, and had replied there. On her blog, “Somkriya”, I have read a variety of poetry, stories and essays, and they have all assayed the sensitivity of an aritst, and of a mother, and above all the empathy that permeates and touches, through her writing.

It is indeed an honour to have been picked by these bloggers for the Versatile Blogger award (though I am a most infrequent blogger ). Shail has also graciously conferred (:D) the Christmas blogger award too. Well there is time till next Christmas, so she reminds me, when she speaks of the “rules ” of receiving the award! And Soma has passed on the Candle Lighter Award!

Thank you Shail!

Thank you Soma Mukherjee

The rules then.

The Versatile Blogger Awardee has to…

1. Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post. (Done it )
2. Share 7 things about oneself.
3. Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs you enjoy reading.
4. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know about the award.

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The Christmas Blogger Awardee has to… (copy pasted this from Shail’s Nest )

1. Nominate 10 fellow Bloggers

2. Inform the Bloggers of their nomination

3. Share 10 POSTS  you have enjoyed reading of ANY of your Blogger friends

4. Thank the Blogger who nominated you

5. Your Post should be PUBLISHED by 24th December 11 p.m (disclaimer, here, please note is that the year is not mentioned… Courtesy, Shail  :D  )

 ADD the Christmas Blogging Award picture to your Blog Post

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The Candle Lighter Awardee, well, has to enjoy it and pass it on in appreciation, is what I have been given to understand!

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The Seven Point Me

#1 A ditherer. If there be such a condition. I should have been a Gemini or a Libra (who I am told cannot really decide once and for all! ), if one goes by that eccentricity I carry around.  :D

#2 Love plants, flowers, trees. Don’t, can’t garden, much I try and make an attempt. Some mental block, I think.

#3 Am a cat/dog/animal person. You’ll find out soon enough, how insanely I am that

#4 And so, I am like a dog with a bone, on certain issues, and can be very stubborn

#5 I hoard. I collect. What? Stuff. Almost everything from scraps of embroidery, paper on which something has been scribbled, pens… well, stuff. I am sure I should not continue… writing about them here, I mean!

#6 I’m a survivor. (*smiles mysteriously* )

#7 Promise you won’t laugh? Please? Pretty please? I am about to shatter my image with this one, but I have promised myself that I will be who I am, so … I enjoy reading all kinds of books, but have had a penchant for Mills and Boon, ever since college! So there!

The common one is that we pick bloggers to whom we’d like to pass this on to, and here is my list of 15. (I decided to go by the maximum !)

I’d like to pass these Awards to the following bloggers, though they may have received it already from others

1. IHM (for all seasons, an inspiration beyond compare)
2. Soumya Sinha (poet, philosopher, and Oh! so young yet!)
3. Sashu (a dreamer she calls herself, an awesome poet too!)
4. Deboshree (earnest, and interesting, her views, her perspectives)
5. Govind (provides food for thought, and for laughter!)
6. Achyuth (a young blogger, who has a way with words!)
7. Tito (sharp sometimes, honest always )
8. Shail ( )
9. Bindu ( )
10. Soma Mukherjee ( )
11. Pallavi (always makes me smile, with her posts, her replies too!)
12. Deeps (engages you in a multitude of topics and thought! )
13. Dhiren aka Hitchy: Cricket fiend, and someone who can write on just about anything else too!
14. Shilpa Krishnan ( an extraordinarily talented ex student of Bhavan’s who  is blogging a post per day in “Chronicling the 1000 days before I hit 30 ). She’s already three quarters of the way there!)
15.  Trinath (Musings of a Wanderer, whose muse calls out to him, and he writes beautiful poetry)

I have to also mention 10 blog posts of ANY blogger that I have enjoyed reading. So, offhand, here goes:

Tito’s :  http://indianthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/2011-bloody-awesome/
Hitchy’s poem: http://hitchwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/the-flame-still-flickers/
Soma’s : http://somkritya.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/autism-is/
Bindu’s : http://bindujohnroy.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/stop-cooking-for-heavens-sake/
Shail’s : http://shailsnest.com/2012/01/03/tigers-threaten-suicide/
Govind’s: http://satmuse.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/lesson/
Sashu’s : http://adorablesashu.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/moon-kissed-this-love
Deboshree’s : http://paneerandpulao.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/year-end-laziness-topped-with-mustard-sauce-meow/
Soumya’s: http://jstfrndb4u.blogspot.com/2011/06/days-tale.html
IHM ‘s : http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/so-how-did-you-begin-your-new-year/

Phew!! I wish you all well, and hope that you will read the posts shared above. They are a delightful mix of poetry, of pictures that speak, of the sharing of self, and of a blogger’s Dharma… Thou shalt keep writing, because thou dost it well

8 January, 2012