My First Award!!

A special thing happened to me a week ago-A recieved my first blogging award, which had me delighted! Thanks, Nimmi, for the wonderful award, :-), I'm still smiling!!! As per the way things go, I think I'm supposed to nominate my own list of bloggers who deserve an award for showing "attitude" and/or "gratitude" through thier blog posts. Now, this is especially difficult for me because I realise that there are hundreds of blogs out there which showcase these qualities, but I've decided to stick to the blogs I frequent the most. [ I've decided to exclude Mysore Blog Park members from my "nominees" because I feel ALL of them show great attitude (why else would Mr. GVK include them into the community??), and it would be impossible (and possibly unfair too) to just select 10 bloggers out of our blogging community!]

The Rules:

1. Put the logo on your post.
2. Nominate 10 blogs that you feel show great Attitude or Gratitude or both.
3. Make sure you link your nominees to this post.
4. Let them know they received the award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received this award.

So, my 10 nominees (in no specific order) are:

1) Sush : A Teenager with such an original attitude towards life and growing up!

2) Walk the Wilderness : A superb photoblog showing gratitude towards nature. The photographs are truly a feast for the eyes!

3) Shambhavi : She truly deserves one for her confident attitude, enduring optimism and such wonderful achievement!

4) Anandi : For continuing to blog at the age of 75, for her wonderful optimism and positive attitude!

5) Arise India Forum : Although still devoloping, the blog does manage to reflect the great attitude of the members of "Arise India" organization: their commitment towards thier cause and immense gratitude towards their natural heritage.

6) Pradeep Biswas : For telling me stories, sharing great experiences and showing such a genuine attitude towards life!

7) Prashanth : Although not a "blog" in a strict sense, I love Mr. Prashanth's photographs on aminus 3...they reflect his attitude towards life and his surroundings: A bit fun-loving, very observant and very interested in capturing those wonderful moments that some of us take for granted! And yes, he is immensely talented too!

8) Karthick : Great blog!! Love it again for the awesome attitude, for thoughts so nicely conveyed, and for being such a devoted fan of Mr. Tejaswi!!! :-)

9) Deeps : For deciding to blog at fourteen, for not hiding your "attitude" towards growing up and learning so much,...and yes, for being such a good friend!!...and this is expressing my gratitude too! :-)

10) Chutney: Of whom I've long since been only a silent admirer (never commented on her blogs.) But loved her attitude towards life...love her posts equally too!

So those are my 10 nominees!!

(PS: Those of you who follow my cousin, Sneha's posts (she's on my blogroll...due to some weird glitch in my blog I've somehow not been able to update it! Will look into the matter soon, Sneha! :-)), kindly note that she has shifted over here...and one of my very good friends, Mr.Pranesh has newly taken to blogging. He has started blogging here. Do visit them in your spare time! And yes, my holidays have ended, and I'm back to facing another quarter again! Have a great week, everyone and keep smiling!)

Another Saturday Hike

I was on an exile last week, enduring a set of difficult final exams. Well, by the end of the day, the sun was still shining and I caught my reflection grinning back at me from glass windows of the science building. Finishing off another quarter naturally makes the world look more beautiful to me. I stop to catch maple leaves before they slip helplessly to the ground, and enjoy the crunch, crunch of the dead ones beneath my feet as I hurry home. My heart is lighter, and my mind is busy delighting itself in holiday plans. Well, as far as my holiday plans go, it looks like they are directly proportional to unforeseen disturbances and deliberate excuses (some real and most hypothetical or invented). So this time when I declared that I wanted to go hiking, I did it without any serious expectations.

I was jabbed awake on Saturday morning by my father with a “You said we’ll go hiking!” Sleep was still heavy on my eyelids, but I knew that my sense of self-worth was in serious jeopardy. I’m not the sort of person who likes to get taunted for being fickle-minded. So I shrugged and decided to get ready. It was to be my little Saturday adventure outdoors…I was granted some time to satisfy my whimsical wishes, and I didn’t want to miss such an opportunity.



Well, for that slow trailer such as me, the these trails are quite a task. I don’t complain though, because there’s such a lovely creek which bumbles along with me as I walk, reminding not to take it so hard. This is exactly why I hike—it’s not because I enjoy sweating so much…it’s because hiking makes me feel like I’m blending into this entirely different world. It’s an escape from everything I don’t wish to remember because I become that silent dreamer when I take a walk—I transform into that annoying squirt who shuts into herself and smiles without knowing why. I’m unusually unresponsive, and do look lost. But the truth is, I enjoy every precious moment of that silent experience…dreams swim and take shape, I become calmer, happier and strangely detached. Somehow, loud jokes and cracking laughter destroy that tranquility within me—they are better suited for those special sleepover parties or family get-togethers. Hiking is everything about catching up with yourself, and everything not about mechanically burning calories in my opinion! :D Well, hiking is also about appreciating the little rewards of mild spring days before sweltering summer and another busy quarter come hurrying into your life.



(The sun has been especially cheerful the last week, as you can see!)

I have also done a lot of prodding around on this trail—everything from disturbing that meek little creek to staring at farm sheep. I had stopped by to listen to this old lady’s lecture about poison ivy the last time had hiked but I couldn’t spot the “dangerous plant” this time…looks like the ivy is scared of the spring! Meanwhile, I can feel it getting warmer here, and the skies are growing clearer by the day. There is very little cloud-cover and one feels the urge to star gaze into the depths of the sky. I wished on a star yesterday, as I stared out into the night, hoping for more such pleasant experiences to bring respite to me in the fast approaching hotter summer months. And I still have my fingers crossed!

Remembering the ‘March Finals’

Sometimes, life comes at you fast. I thought so as I rushed to pick up my books before my afternoon session of classes. I spied on my brother’s calendar for no particular reason and observed that it was already the 17th of March. It didn’t mean anything significant, other than the fact that it was already over a year since I wrote my PU boards. Here I was now, a year later: absorbed, confident, and inching towards the uncertain boundaries of the future. It was as if timelessness had enveloped my life, as if I had forgotten myself in it.

As the realization stuck me, I felt like that person who had seen a ghost for the first time. Life had moved on at such a terrific pace that I actually struggled to realize that it was already the march of 2009. I wouldn’t have disagreed if someone had asserted that it was still last year. Things had certainly changed since then, and it made me catch my breath in surprise.

The exams had been so slow back then. All had been different in the season of the ‘March finals’. There had been that tingling sensation in my nerves as the boards loomed closer and closer. I can clearly recall staring out of my window, escaping to the most fantastic dreamlands when studying felt too draining. I remember I had even religiously given up on reading the paper and answering the telephone because advises had made me even more nervous. In the ‘March Finals’ season, everything had felt important. My entire world had felt like it depended on this one experience: The exams were my life, and March seemed synonymous with only that. The days had stretched on endlessly, and the nights had been too short for revision. There had been pencil marks at the back of the textbook to tick off the end of every exam. I had cursed time for being so sluggish, as if everything on was its fault.

This March is so different. I write many exams, but I don’t panic. I don’t feverishly recite a million formulas in my head before entering the exam hall. I don’t wrestle with a teacher to complete lengthy passages anymore. Sometimes, I wish I could. For one thing, I don't hear the wisper of "All the Best," anymore. But March still stands for the same old things for all those students who are writing their exams this year. I caught myself asking these standard questions to my cousin who’s writing the boards this year. “How have you done? How much do you expect?...” almost slipped out of my tongue. It amused me how I was now not that timid cow nodding her head to all the advises. I was actually the one spewing them out. “Don’t refer to Deepa Publications for Chemistry, it’s a horrible book…” "Refer to MES for Physics if you have time, it's so conceptual..." She then listened to me with rapt attention, like I was that enlightened one with all the answers. But I certainly didn’t feel any wiser! True, it seems like time is trying to change me too...But here’s wishing my cousin Renu, along with dearest friends Medini, Shravya and Monisha who are writing the boards this year all the very best. May luck stay with all you, along with the unwavering confidence that is always yours! Let’s hope that time is as kind to all of you as it is to me! And yes, I shall repeat that same old phrase without which no board exam is complete: "All the very best! Slay ‘em gals!" :-)