Rainbows On My Windscreen

As I’ve mentioned earlier this week, its been raining here, in Rajasthan. That in itself is a rare blessing. But, someone up there must be very happy with us down here, cause today we were blessed with a rainbow!  A ‘full fledged seven colors showing clearly ‘ kind of rainbow. The kids and me were getting back from the circus! Yes, we have a circus in town these days. Just as we were climbing over an over-bridge, Lo and behold! Right on our windscreen, stood the rainbow. The kids in their 7 years of existence have only seen rainbows in books and cartoon movies and were duly ecstatic. We were so spellbound that we pulled up, right in the middle of the bridge, rolled up the sky-roof and  stuck our heads out to soak in the sight.  After we had  our fill (of our own live rainbow show) and the honking of the cars behind us could no longer be ignored we settled back in and drove out. In all the excitement we forgot to click pictures!

Just like me! To soak in my blessings but forget to put it down in black and white for posterity.

That brings me to the other reason I am  writing this post. To duly acknowledge and record  for posterity, the other blessings I have received recently.   Many of you know about my tentative journey into blogging. A lot of you are personally responsible for my continued existence in the blogosphere. With your comments and visits you’ve made the humble stuff I have to say, special conversations to cherish. A few of you have taken the encouragement a step further and converted the encouragement, into the special things called – Awards!

When I finished studies I assumed my days of awards and recognitions were over.  After  getting on with adult life for a decade or two I had also  started to think the satisfaction one derived from one’s work was its own reward.  (Huh! All humdrum I tell you!) There is a joy in receiving rewards.  Just like there is a joy in watching rainbows.

Rainbow number One – The Sunshine Award

 

The Sunshine Award requires

• Answer some questions about myself
• Nominate some of my favorite bloggers
• Let them now that they have been nominated
• Share the love and link the person who nominated me

I would like to thank Somesh Mahanty  of  Santu Online for nominating me for my first rainbow award! Somesh is  a full-time B.tech fresher (on the job-hunt) and a part-time computer mechanic for his friends. He describes himself as an Optimist, yet a realist. He specializes at cracking practical jokes. Blogging is one of his passions. He is also good at photography. Thank You somesh for my first blogging award!

The questions are

1. Love or Money?
   Love! that’s a choice I made 14 years back and never regretted!
2. High salary or job satisfaction?
   I have never worked for a salary or for anyone. I firmly believe in self employment. Fortunately my line of work allows me that freedom and guarantees great work satisfaction
3. Favorite Book?
   I love books. Picking one will just not be possible. So – Love story by Erich Segal (I am a die-hard romantic), To kill a Mocking Bird – I just love Tich! , Jonathan Livingston Seagull – short and so inspiring, The little Prince – Don’t you just love the simplicity of it, The Colour purple – In some ways it speaks about me, Bridges of Madison county – one of the most romantic books I’ve read. I better stop now or this will turn into a post about the books I love.
4. Television character that you simply adore?
   Now this one foxed me. I am not a TV person. An occasional movie or so is great but regular TV is not my game. So for lack of a clear favorite let me say I kind of like Malcolm, and the writer from  the Castle series. I love the kind of dad he is. As a child I loved Tom and Jerry! I hope that counts 🙂
5. Favorite Music
   I have grown up with 60s –  80s English music. The Carpenters, Beatles, Abba, Cliff Richards you know the kind. I adore John Lenon and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Lately I have begun to enjoy old Hindi music too. I also love children’s songs and have a great memory for them. Can still remember every word of a song I learned in grade 3. Considering I can’t remember where I kept my keys two minutes back. That means a lot!
6. Favorite type of movie
   The types that are usually classified as chick flicks 🙂

Now, that I have answered the questions. Here is a list of my nominees.

Arindam from Being Arindam

Rachel from Hands free Mama

Zinal  from All Things worldly

The idealist from An idealist thinker

Island traveler from this man’s journey

Deborah from Deborah the Closet Monster

Valentine Logar from QBG Tilted Tiara

Darla from She’s a maineiac

Kathryn  from Reinventing the event horizon

I could write entire posts about each of these bloggers. I  love the kind of people they are! But most of them are older and more popular bloggers than I can ever hope to be and are quite well-known already. I nominate them all for the sunshine award because what they write about fills our world with sunshine and hope!

While I was still enjoying the beauty of my first rainbow  award. bang , came another!

Rainbow number Two – The Inspiring blogger Award

By

Tapish gupta from   Life of 24 hours

and

Dan from hurdles to happiness

 

Here are the rules to participate when you get nominated:

1. Thank the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Nominate seven other bloggers for this award.
4. Put the logo of the award on your blog site.
5. Post the rules.
6. Let your seven picks know they have been nominated.

Tapish is an amateur writer and  an electronics engineer. He has been writing things since he was 13  !!! Tapish too has varied interests reading, sketching, painting, playing chess or snooker, photography,  and poetry.

Dan is a student , majoring in Creative Writing and double minoring in Spanish and Hospitality Management. If that isn’t impressive enough she has also recently completed her first book, a self-help for teens! Her blog is meant to give readers a deeper look into the life of a teenager wanting to become a published author, as well as offer tools and tips of advice to help them ultimately achieve the life-long goal of Happiness.

Thank you Tapish! and Dan! for nominating me 🙂

I am not sure anyone would want to know any more about me, than is already evident from my posts. But, just in case you do check out the  Seven Things about myself  . The idea that anyone could find what I write inspiring is awesome. It got me thinking about the bloggers who inspired me. I have interpreted this award to mean – the bloggers who have inspired me to write.

My seven nominations for the The Very Inspiring Blogger Award:

Leo from I rhyme without reason

and

Someone is Special from Few Miles

Together they manage an event Blogaton. That gives creative challenges inspiring bloggers to write. I have found some amazingly creative bloggers here. Many of them specialize in the art of writing short stories.

Mukesh Rijhwani from My world My space

He challenged me to write my first short story. I discovered I quite enjoyed it.

The poet community  at We write poems

is a  community to encourage and support like-minded people with an interest in sharing and growing their ability to write poetry.  I have enjoyed dabbling with their  weekly poem prompts.

Neil Reid of Bearly Audible.

Neil is a great poet and spends a lot of his time and effort initiating  newbies like me into the fine world of poetry writing.

Shivya of The shooting star

  is a brave young girl who has a passion for traveling to lesser known destinations. She writes wonderful travelogues and has inspired me to write some of my own traveling experiences.

Alisa of Where’s My backpack?

runs a weekly travel challenge. She loves traveling too and her blog has beautiful photographs from her trips. I specially enjoyed her recent sunset challenge!

Yousei Hime of Shiteki na usagi

maintains a beautiful blog that she calls the journal of a poetic rabbit. She was the first one to introduce me to the world of haiku.

And now for the last but equally beautiful rainbow of the day!

The Third Rainbow Award – The Kreativity Award

This one I discovered accidentally while doing some research  for this post.  When I visited Zinal at All things Worldly. I came upon this post !

Was pleasantly surprised to see, she had nominated me for the Kreativity award. Zinal is an  MBA in Marketing, works as a Corporate Communications Manager and blogs in her free time. She likes to read, cook and exercise. She is the author of a book , ‘She is not an MBA’. Besides being creative and very witty she is a sweet heart! leaving the sweetest comments on everything I write. Thank you zinal for this award!

The rules to accept the award were simple enough. I had to say seven things about myself, which can be found right here   and have to nominate 15 other bloggers. So, here are my nominations for those, whom I find Kreative Bloggers.

Amira from Mind blur

Isadora of Inside the mind of isadora

Madhu from theurgetowander.wordpress.com

Amit Agarwal from amitaag.blogspot.com

aativas from thistimethattime.blogspot.in

TInu Menachery from sameoldnewstuff.blogspot.in

C. Suresh from jambudweepam.blogspot.com

Vikram Karve from Academic and creative writing journal

the wonderful lady  from a day in paradise (Sorry! I don’t know the name yet :))

The wonderfully sensitive Zebra!!! 🙂  at I am not defined

Indu at hridyanubhuti

Becky from An improbable life

Shawn from awesomely awake

Julie from Go Jules Go

The  writers – mothers community at Peanut Butter On the keyboard

Paloma Sharma from Going bananas

The amazing mom at Transitioning Mom

The incredible runner from Running from hell with hel

Arshat from The Time pass of India

Christine from Blossom rain

I may have over stepped my number limits here and there, but there were just too many inspiring, creative bloggers who I wished to acknowledge for bringing sunshine into my blogging life.

Thank – you all. I sign off with one of my all time favorite songs! Why Walk When You Can Fly? Listen to the lyrics carefully, they suit perfectly, all the beautiful bloggers I have mentioned here today! Cheers to all the ‘flyers!!!’