In Retrospection : The AtoZ challenge days

Reflection is sweet when a demanding challenge like AtoZ- simultaneously arduous yet invigorating, is successfully done and dusted.  It tastes sweeter when a few awards, in the form of appreciation from your fellow friends, are thrown into the mix.

When I retrospect on my decision  of 25^th March,2014 to join the writing experiment  from a write tribe post of  Corinne, I have no hesitation in concluding that this not-so-well-thought-out  jump covered quite a distance and it helped me validate myself. I was neither aware of this event earlier and nor was I in a position to pre-write a single post. Only thing that pushed me to take up this task was my blogging journey that had initiated just a couple of months ago. It did put me into a web zone with a set of like minded people- accomplished in their own merit, with whom, given a chance, I would sincerely like to trudge along, any day.  I don’t want to sound artificial and untrue with mere mention that everything went hunky dory and I enjoyed every minute of it. Yes, I had my own highs and lows, laced with myriad emotions running high on different days.

The zeal and zest for the initial few days, with so many thoughts to talk about, soon gave way to the dreadful deliberation of trying not to sound monotonous, repetitive and painful to others. The thought about not ending up being a burden on my fellow bloggers, did cross my mind from time to time. While in the mid game, I was close to feeling penitent on the choice of the topic – commented at the beginning by Beloo as a tall ask (!), but somehow I held the fort with spirit and continued.  

 It has been a great learning curve for me and helped me mature towards rearing my long cherished passion to take up the pen again- just for the sake of writing.  On the jagged corners of the course, while I was pushed to the brink to withdraw during my nocturnal writing sessions, the soothing zephyr of dawn through another read coupled with the motivating comments kept me going. The dollops of zing poured through the kind support of the facebook group mates, not allowing me to give up, were at times the only succor to stay put. Sometimes, I faced an internal dilemma if a theme based writing, on a daily basis, does suck out one’s creativity which was then countered with getting over the anxiety of going blank on writing and overcoming the dreadful syndrome –the  writers’ block.

Today, while writing this post, I feel immensely gratified that this series opened up a whole new world in front of me and I got to know and exchange thoughts with people across the world, from all the continents. There were so many beautiful writings keeping me hooked and glued day after day, such breath taking snaps introducing the places I might not physically visit and awesome food, philosophy, short fictions, haikus, festival tours, nostalgic diary of college and school days, amongst many more thought provoking contributions from the participants. While any kind of particular success was not in my mind other than challenging my own self at the beginning , I am fortunate to come closer to so many wonderful philosophers, educators, linguists and other personalities, all of them, I collectively and fondly call as friends.  Yes, friends – Beloo, Eli, Tom, Vishal, Carol, Kathy, Usha ji, Damaria, Philip, Rajlakshami, Proactive Indian, PravashPheno, Shailaja, Shilpa, Vidya, Richa, Sunila, Srilakshmi, Shesha, Sreeja,  Sheela, Sitara, Sugandha, Inderpreet, Tulika , Shalini, Maniparna, Nabanita, Angela , Danny, Dr Sushree and many more , it was only because of you that I could sail along and this poor soul remains indebted to all of you for making me a part of your journey.  Though unintentional, I am sure I have missed mentioning quite a few of the names who have visited my pages from time to time and encouraged me. I sincerely apologize for the inadvertent oversight.

I also thank my wife, Sharmistha, for putting up with me while I was in the zone and helping me with her timely reviews and comments.

Thank you all once again for being there.