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 25th 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.
