Tag: Blogging

Challenge To Be Creative.

Val in her latest post “My Challenge To You….” throws a challenge at creatively minded bloggers, to come up with a creative post based on her poem and art. The above work is the stimulus. To read her poem, do visit her blog and decide whether you can come up with something creative.

For me, after I wrestled with the challenge, the only thing that I could come up with in response, is this post adding a bit of momentum to Val’s attempt at getting the creative juices of her readers flowing.

If you do take up the challenge, please inform me with a comment on this post so that I can visit your blog too.

All the best.

Criminals.

“Smiling Faces Do Not Mean That There Is Absence Of Sorrow!
But It Means That They Have The Ability To Deal With It”
– Anonymous.

The above two smiling faces featured in my post “Brothers”. It was suggested there that one of them was a criminal and the other a police officer and the readers were asked which one was the former and which the other.

I reproduce below some responses which may not have been read by many of my readers of that post.

Cheerful Monk – “…who is the criminal and who is the police officer in this very unlikely story?” The fellow who needed hip replacements because he jumped out the second story window, of course. :)”

Nick – “The two of you do look very similar. Clearly the dapper, well-groomed individual on the right is the upstanding police boss, while the dissolute old rogue on the left is obviously the local Mafia boss trying to conceal his latest highly lucrative drugs shipment.”

Darlene – “I think you are both plotting a lucrative crime. You are too much alike to be a policeman and a criminal.”

Melody – “Forget the cop/criminal films, I think your life story would be a blockbuster movie here in the U.S.”

Ashok, do I need to say anything more?

I hope that you enjoyed reading another post of the Friday Loose Bloggers’ Consortium when eleven of us post on the same topic chosen by one of us. Today’s topic has been chosen by Ashok the lawyer in the making.

Please do visit Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy, Anu and Ginger to see ten other views on the same topic. Some of these bloggers may be preoccupied with vacations, examinations, family problems and/or romance, so be a little indulgent in case they do not post or post late.

Asking For Trouble.

Nick at Nickhereandnow forgot to include my name in his list of blogmates who may wish to take up the challenge of answering some questions. I am not one to hold grudges and despite his forgetting me, I shall answer the questions on his blog. I now have no choice in the matter any way, since Grannymar has thrown the gauntlet at me.

1: Do you prefer asking questions or answering them?
Neither. I just want to be left alone.
2: What is your favourite joke (or favourite one-liner)?
Count me out.
3: Have you ever fantasised about being on Big Brother?
I am the big brother.
4: Have you ever wanted to enter a talent show?
I am totally without talents.
5: Is Simon Cowell really necessary?
I don’ know him or about him.
6: Tea or coffee?
Tea, the Indian way.
7: What is your favourite perfume? Or smell?
Jasmine on moonlit nights.
8: What is the quickest route to Wales from where you live?
Pune to Mumbai by road, an airplane to London and train from there should be the logical route.
9: What does the word ‘Wales’ conjure to your mind?
My friend Hywel.
10: Are you dreading dreaming up ten questions to ask six bloggers?
Have a heart! I can’t think of even one.

Nick’s take on the last question -“Ten new questions for other people, eh? Is five enough, miss? Give us a break, miss.”

1: Do you believe in life after death?
No. The I does not die.
2: Do you believe in fate?
Yes.
3: Do you ever have dejà vu?
Often.
4: Have you ever read someone’s mind?
No. Never tried to either.
5: Have you ever had a premonition?
Yes. Often.

Now to answer Grannymar’s questions, I have decided to take her suggestion that the seven are for seven days of the week and shall answer one every day next week commencing Monday. I shall try and make the answers as elaborate as possible. Thank you Grannymar for giving me seven ideas for blog posts next week.

I understand that in this game, one must ask some questions for other readers to keep the chain going. I shall ask one question and leave as many readers as are interested to write one post on “What do you get out of blogging.”

My suggestion to Nick and Grannymar:

One Million Indians!

Some of my readers keep urging me to write more about India and Indians. I am trying my best to and here is help from an unexpected source for which I am very grateful.

My friend Sandeep, yes the same one currently in hibernation at Qatar, is in awe of numbers and particularly mass meetings of Indians.

He has this to say about the latest Kumbh Mela held at Haridwar.

The Kumbh Mela in India is the largest gathering of people in one place, anywhere in the world. It occurs every three years, and its current edition, in the Himalayan mountain town of Haridwar (25 kilometres downstream from Rishikesh) has drawn ten million pilgrims. Ten million!
 
“The Kumbh Mela derives from Hindu mythology, which holds that gods and demons struggled over a pitcher, or kumbh, containing the drink of immortality. As the gods raced toward heaven, drops of the sacred nectar spilled out onto four locations on the river: Allahabad, Ujjain, Nashik and Haridwar. Today, the Kumbh Mela is held every three years, rotating among the four cities, meaning that each hosts every 12 years.”

He then goes on to give a link to an article in the New York Times which is what prompted that creative piece of writing. The article is worth a read.

Gaelikaa who many of you know as another keen blogger with two blogs, has been hearing about Haridwar and is quite keen to go for a visit. I only hope that she goes when it is not Kumbhmela time.

Collecting Or Collections.

This post is the Loose Consortium Bloggers’ Friday post when Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Marianna, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy the latest addition, and I write one post each on the same topic. Please visit the other blogs too to have different views on this fascinating subject.

library_290475

I am a compulsive buyer of books and can thus qualify for possessing a library conisisting of over 300 books. This after having got rid of over 200 books just six months ago! I have read almost all of them and those that are yet to be fully read are normally where I sit to read on my easy chair, or near my bed where I read before sleeping every afternoon and night. The subjects that you will find in my eclectic collection will be, History, Philosophy, Economics, Religion, and many other odd subjects. While most visitors will find it difficult to locate a particular book that they know I have, it will be no problem for me and within a couple of minutes I can locate any book in my, rather, haphazardly arranged library.

Usually, reviews in magazines and newspapers or references from friends will trigger off a hunt for a book and I normally buy online from an Indian bookseller who is highly competitive in his pricing and offers free delivery by courier to one’s doorstep.

seductive

The other tangible things that I collect are Recipes. I have them in the form of books, print-outs, handwritten notes, typed notes, pages removed from magazines and books etc. These are in reasonably good order and I can easily locate what I want without spending too much time searching for any particular recipe.

tanjore-art-paintings

Before illness felled Urmeela, she was an avid collector of curios, wooden carvings of all kinds and Tanjore mirror paintings. Apart from her own works, these are treasured and stored away. Some are used as wall decoration, but most of them are simply wrapped and stored away. A couple of years ago, on an impulse, Urmeela took down all her collection and chose only those that she thought would be right for Ranjan, to be stored and had a bonfire with the rest of the stuff including many of her own paintings. A kind of spring cleaning as it were.

Memoriesrcln111l

Old memories of people, events and places collected over a rather eventful life are the intangible collections that I cherish too. Many things trigger them and with modern access to all kinds of information and thanks to google, I can revisit many of them. Some times it gets to be quite maudlin and I do not often indulge in such reveries. It is however quite rich and at least for me, worth visiting every now and then.

rwbblogcartoon58290908

From June of last year, I have started a new collection and that is priceless. I have made a collection of friends via my blog and many other blogs, and though except for a couple of them, I have not met any, I feel as though they have been my friends for long. Blogging enables people to be more open than they normally would be on face to face situations and perhaps that is why, the friendships made in the blog-world are more informal and shall we say, interesting!

For all my Blog Friends in general and my fellow Loose Consortium Bloggers in particular, this is to wish you a very Happy Diwali. By the time this gets published, I would be out of Pune for two nights and shall return only on Sunday evening. My comments on the other LCB posts will have to wait till either late Sunday night or Monday morning my time. Please however leave your comments for me to peruse on my return. I shall be eagerly looking forward to them.