I am Back!!

Let the drums roll and the fireworks burst, as Cartic is back, with the "Liebster Blog" award!! And this time around, it's not a witty post or a ten-pointer post, but it's a question-answer post for a change. As one of the budding bloggers, Ashitha, had woke me up from a long slumber with the Liebster award (indeed the first one for me), I am back here again writing a post after two months.

Rules

The Liebster Award is for bloggers with less than 200 followers. Award winners share 11 facts about themselves, answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who tagged them, come up with 11 of their own questions and tag 11 more bloggers with the award.

Thank you Ashitha for the award and most importantly for helping me overcome the writer's block I was facing lately.

I will skip the 11 Facts section as I have already mentioned many a facts about me in an exclusive page on my blog. Hence, it would be redundant to put again some facts here.

Here goes the 11 questions from Ashitha and my responses -

Yet to grow up or Grown up?
Growing up is an ever evolving process. I am still growing up. Meeting new people, gaining new experiences, facing situations, all these would help me keep growing.

Well, that seemed like an answer I would have given in an HR interview. But that's what it is.

Forbidden fruit- is tasty or bitter?
I would say bitter.

Fantasies or Real?
I am a person more into fantasies than reality, indeed, fantasies attributed with sheer weirdness.

Most prized possession?
When it comes to something materialistic, it is the golden beast, my bike!

Others include my blog, books(I consider books as non-materialistic, as what we derive from those is not physical in nature), and loved ones.
 
Person who most influenced the way you are?
Paulo Coelho. Reading around ten books of him should certainly influence anyone. What say??

First thing that attracts you to others?
I think others gotta say this.

Ever been ditched by a girl? 
An unanswered question for me too[Shrugging my shoulders].

If you are writing a book about yourself, what would you like the last lines to be?
"It doesn't end here. All the hell broke loose just now. Wait for the second part!!" :)

Premeditated or Spontaneous?
Premeditated.

If you had only six months left to live, what would you do with the time?
Go around the world. Eat. Drink.

Rate your blog out of 5
This is left to the readers. For me it is always a 5. He he!


11 Random Questions for 11 other bloggers [This must be an easy part for me] -  
I thought I would keep the questions simple. Here goes the questions -

1. What is your blog to you?

2. The most funny incident that had happened in your college days.

3. The last call you made, the last night, before 11PM.

4. Your favorite quote.

5. Who comes to your mind first when you think of 'The Dark Knight Rises', Bane/Batman/Selina Kyle(Anne Hathaway)?

6. Road Fighter/Super Mario/Adventure Islander/Mappy/Lode runner?

7. The book you are currently reading (Or the one last read)

8. What is your cousin's neighbor's daughter's son's pet-name? If you don't know, please call up your cousin, let him/her take the trouble and get the name for you! ;) 

9. First follower of your blog?

10. Believer of Love at first sight?

11. What was the facebook status update done by you that recevied the most number of likes?

I have nominated 11 other deserving bloggers and have informed them on their respective blogs.

A blogger will know this!

Ten random things about the life of a blogger!

# A movie which was watched solely as a piece of entertainment before, is now a three-hour case-study, where in the blogger within takes some mental notes about the background scores, the direction flaws, the colors and the costumes!

# A photo blogger always gets quicker responses or 'likes' compared to a 'writer' blogger! 

Courtesy - Human Laziness!
  

# When a blogger thinks 'Yes, I need to write about this', 90% of the times he ends up not writing about it! If ever he writes something, its because it just happens!

# A post published on the blog gives a blogger more kick than what a scotch or vodka or a mix of both could give!

# The number of drafts is always 2-3 times more than the number of posts actually published

# A few people who use their laptops for some productive work must necessarily be bloggers!

# Other than FB notifications and messages, the next interest for a blogger would be to look at his blog statistics for the day, and the best part of that is to see some random visitors from countries like Zambia, Mozambique, and yeah Colombia! (And I always thought Colombia is all about drugs,bananas but not blogs!)

# A blogger sometimes faces this too - A thoughtfully written post about a crush, with the best of the adjectives used, and she comes back and says, 'that was too poetic and too verbose to comprehend, couldn't you keep that simple!!?'

# Your fellow rickshaw traveler during your primary schooling, whom you met on FB recently, is not just an old pal, instead he/she is a potential reader of your blog now!

# And finally, what does a blogger do when he is bored?
Some posts of this sort would get published! 

In one word I say, Discordance!

When the blogger within me woke up on a late Saturday night and rambled few random thoughts that were marked by vent, and signed off  with a tinge of tollywood!


Work-life Imbalance!
The last two months have been the busiest of my work-life so far. There were some heart in mouth situations followed by a little phase of contentedness. And the time when my mind was idle, it went in retrospecting 'being 24 - Something'. Thought I would write about it, but backed off thinking that wouldn't be 'Substantial'. Then I realized, like many cricketers who lose form, may be, I too have hit a rough patch, and needs some time to get back to the original form flair. Also, this phase has helped me understand the importance of the line This too shall pass better than ever.

Sucker punch!
I thought I should write about this song, which talks about the 'firsts' of a couple in a relationship. This song meant a lot to me then! and a little now! (Please excuse me for the poor quality of the video. That was the only one available on the net.) And yeah, the human senses are so powerful, aren't they? Just the tune of a song, smell of a perfume/deo would make you travel to the past in a split second time.
Thank God! we are blessed with forgetfulness as well, else life wouldn't be that easy. I wish I write a dedicated post about the power of forgetfulness and olfactory!

Athithi Devobhava!
I was on a short vacation to my home-town the last week, my not-so-cricket-crazy parents didn't opt for 'Star Cricket' in their channel À la carte and hence I had to catch the action on National TV, it was after some years that I tuned into this channel.

One thing that amazed me the most were the advertisements broadcast-ed, those of educating people to maintain cleanliness while cooking and serving food, and Aamir Khan endorsing the 'athithi devobhava' campaign, enlightening us not to spit on roads,  scribble on walls of heritage sites, and other conspicuously trivial matters. That shows that there is still a large population of our country engulfed in stark darkness, where the light of civilization is yet to break through.

But considering some of the oldest civilizations being flourished and evolved in this great country, how did these common and basic human behavioral skills vanish? or were they never here and only we imbibed those from other countries/civilizations or through education?

After all this, they still stay, "India Shining!"

PS: I am perplexed why I kept one of  the sub-titles as 'Sucker Punch'!

Off-topic: My FB status read 'spider man.. spider man..' today, its because of this, its quite sweet, funny, raunchy, and a little stupid! The USP of this song could be accounted to the mellifluous voice of Gopika Poornima.


Image Courtesy : Google Images

A year of blogging!!

The love towards blogging would usually start with a friend sharing his/her blog with us, and as we keep reading the blog we develop the feeling 'Why don't I give a try and write a blog too..'

My closest encounter to blogging happened when a friend shared his blog and the blog which he follows, after several hits to their blogs, the interest within me towards writing and blogging started taking shape and after few months I did start off my first blog with the title 'Will I complete it' and the first post was about the beast.

However, I later copied the content of the blog and discarded it citing a not-so-good title and created a new blog with a catchy title and a peppy design and this incarnation was titled 'The Lubberwort' ;)

The next thing I did was to send the blog link to few of my friends and compelled them to read and demanded a feedback!!! Yes, sometimes you need to that! The initial posts clearly portray that I was a beginner and they were marked with naivete and T9 mode of spellings. I still kept them the same just to gauge how my blog evolved over time.

Thus, I made a beginning and kept posting sporadically and also inculcated blogging etiquette by reading blogs of more established bloggers and by registering to blogger communities.
  
It was all good initially, no worries of what the content of the post be, whether it appeals to everyone or not, it didn't matter to me much.

But a little worry and a responsibility surged when a good number of readers were following my blog be it by force or by unsolicited interest, and when I started receiving good responses for the posts published.

So the next time when I sit to write a post, consciously or unconscioulsy, I used to think of the audience and at times that would limit the way I express something, unlike the free-style of writing employed in the earlier posts.

However, the initial discomfort turned out to be a good sign, as it helped me being more fastidious and more purisitc than earlier. It did help me to think about more creative ways to present a content however at the expense of a little more time and a little extra effort.

Also, with the blog getting a little popular, it helps me not to keep the blog dormant for a long while, and I could avoid procrastination. Thus, not letting my dynamic thoughts go down the drain.

'The Lubberwort' is one year old now, it turned one the last september! And I hope to continue and publish at a higher frequency than before and keep the blog alive and kicking!!

Happy Anniversary 'The Lubberwort'!!!