The Liebster Award can’t be taken Lying Down!

The Dark Knight rises again with some help from Gabbar, Trump, and Batman.

I’ve broken the chains of bondage, straightened my back, cracked my knuckles, and returned to this lovely world of blogging. You know why? Because the Liebster Award cannot be taken lying down.

Honestly, it’s the first award of any kind conferred upon me. Wifey’s underhanded compliment on my achievement doesn’t even deserve a mention in this post. It should suffice to say that in this world there are two kinds of people. there are those who can make a beggar feel like a king; and then there are those who can make a king feel that the job of emptying the chamber pots in his castle was above him!
Enough said.

Let me begin by thanking the five awesome bloggers who found my blog worthy of the Award. (They obviously are people with great taste.) I list them in the order in which arrived on my blog bearing the shining cup of the Liebster award.

1. Vibrant Anand whose blog exudes a vibrance of wholesome goodness.
2. Scott, the keeper of the H-Files – artist and photographer, who pulled me out of a guilt-riddled existence that arose from not doing the Blogging101 course properly. h
3. Ishita, the exclamation mark who travels around India in her twisted top and flip-flops, who is looking for a guy like me, except that he should be 10 years younger and unmarried.(Do those flip-flops hurt when flung at you from a distance!)
4. Cathy Lynn Brooks, the teller of a story that isn’t hers to tell; her witty comments keep me on the edge.
5. Ramida who is actually two people residing in one body – an artist and a management student, I think the artist chose my blog for the award.

The Rules:

As I said before, accepting this award isn’t easy for the acceptor. You’ve got to abide by the rules, which you must also reproduce in their entirety, without any body-modifications, tattoos or otherwise.

Here are these intractable Rules (un-modified, but explained and illustrated for greater clarity.)

1. Once you are nominated, make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you. (If you have noticed, this has already been accomplished.)
2. Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post too. (Check out the beautiful green award image right at the beginning of this post.)
3. Nominate 5 -10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you. (Returning the award to the five bloggers who’ve given me the award could help me cross this hurdle. But it would be like changing the wrapping paper of your Diwali gift and give it back to the person who gave you the gift in the first place. Any Punjabi lady worth her tandoori chicken and butter naan will tell you that this should never be done. After you’ve reviewed the gift within and changed the wrapping paper, you must give the gift to someone else – never to the original giver of the gift. Mom’s going to go “syaappa!” if I did that – so it’s out of question.)
4. Ensure all of these bloggers have less than 200 followers. (By my crooked reasoning, what this means is that if your blog’s got more than 200 followers, it isn’t a lovely blog.)
5. Answer the eleven questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make eleven questions of your own for your nominees or you may use the same questions. (Eleven Questions?! I haven’t ever answered those many questions in a go, not even in the board exams!)
6. Lastly, COPY these rules in the post.(Done.)

 

Nominating Other Bloggers

Now Nominating 5 Other Bloggers.
Hold your breath. Here you go…(Ho! Ho!)

I nominate:

• James (who Proclaims) that Sudoku Toilet Paper Rolls are the best gift for Donald Trump (the man who has everything?)
• Shilpa whose blog is a fun-park of sorts
• The Anonymous Stalker with lines that can take you on an emotional roller-coaster.
• Brey’s cozy little corner 
• Srinath, the writer who loves to write.

Answers to the Eleven Questions:

Now the questions. I’ve picked two questions from each of the bloggers who’ve nominated me for this award.
As the original Gabbar would say:
Kitne Questions they?
55, Sarkar!
Aur kitne Answer dene wale they?
1, Sarkar!
Questions 55, aur Answer dene wala bas 1!
Bahut Nainsafi hai!

1. Who are your heroes or role-models? (Anand)
2. Goal or mission in life, if any? (Anand)
3. If you had a superpower, which one would it be? (Scott)
4. Which of your posts so far, is your favorite? (Scott)
5. What you hope to achieve (from blogging)? (Cathy)
6. What you enjoy about blogging?(Cathy)
7. If you have to observe the world as a ghost, what would you see? (Ishita)
8. What is the one topic you would like to write about, but have always postponed? (Ishita)
9. What flavor would you describe yourself as? And Why? (Ishita)
10. An embarrassing moment in your life?(Ramida)
11. A proud moment in your life?(Ramida)

1. Who are your heroes or role-models?
Batman of course. Who else?
No. Not Donald Trump. I don’t mind having a jet and I’d welcome $10B in my account. What I mind is having his hair. Mine are receding in a nice manly fashion.
Batman, more specifically, Christian Bale (in The Dark Knight Rises) – the handsome, wealthy billionaire, fighting the forces of evil – that’s who I’d like to be, with of course a sense of humor.

2. Goal or mission in life, if any? (Anand)
I like the “if any” part – a safe exit. If I have no goal or mission in life, then I can slip into the next question. No goals, no mission – just a hope that I’ll have the sense and the ability to live a small part of each day.

3. If you had a superpower, which one would it be? (Scott)
Make people laugh and smile and talk – so that the tension in their shoulders ebbs away, and they return to do what they were doing with a smile on their lips. But there aren’t any superpowers, are there?

4. Which of your posts so far, is your favorite? (Scott)
I’ll risk my goodwill and say, that “Porn Banned and Unbanned – A Collective Sigh of Relief” is my favorite post. It’s honest and frank, it touches upon a raw nerve, and it hangs from the cliff of decency but doesn’t let go. I think I did a reasonably good job of writing when I wrote that one.

5. What you hope to achieve (from blogging)? (Cathy)
In one word: Readers for my Quirky, Snarky, Malarkey.

6. What you enjoy about blogging? (Cathy)
The fact that blogging lets me be myself. It allows me to write without thinking, to draw without visualizing, and to talk and comment freely.

7. If you have to observe the world as a ghost, what would you see? (Ishita)
The same things that I see now, because I am a ghost. I’d see people sans the faces they put on, I’d see knives behind backs and love behind anger. I could go on about what I see, but if I said it all, what will be left to write about?

8. What is the one topic you would like to write about, but have always postponed? (Ishita)
I would like to write about Gender-bias.
I think that men must now fight for equality. It’s happening everywhere. Women are excelling at everything. They aren’t just entering, they are storming the traditional male bastions. Take the recent example of The Ghost-busters movie! They can at least leave the fictional jobs alone for men! They can do everything that men can – and more. I have a feeling that soon men will be nothing more than arm-candies and handymen for women.

9. What flavor would you describe yourself as? And Why? (Ishita)
I am a merchant of salt, pepper, and spice. The flavors change, but mostly, I am spicy. A few days ago, I was feeling rather bland. I know a flavor that I never am – I am never sweet.

10. An embarrassing moment in your life?(Ramida)
It happened a decade ago. When the power went off, I silently crept into my then fiancee (and now wife’s) room, bolted the door, saw her silhouette, and put my arms around her. Guess what?
I am forever grateful that her mom is the stark opposite of my mom, or my hide would’ve been used for their lampshades!

11. A proud moment in your life?(Ramida)
I will experience it when I’ve completed this post successfully.

Questions for the Nominees:

And finally, my questions! I am deviating from the format, because all good questions have already been asked. My nominees for the Liebster Award are left with the following gems. The good news is that you have to answer only five questions.

For Non-Indian bloggers:
Who was Aryabhatt?
Who are the three Khans of Bollywood?
Who is the CEO of Microsoft?
Other than the Nazi connection, what else do you know about the history of Swastika?
What are the two other names of India?

For Indian (NRIs included) bloggers:
Was Einstein left-handed, right-handed, or both-handed?
Who was the first Indian to win a Nobel Prize?
The Cryptex figures in which Tom Hanks movie?
Why, if Enid Blyton was born in today’s world, she’d be behind bars?
Which was the first civilization to use plumb-line in construction?

Translation for the Non-Hindi Speakers: (Though the punch would be lost on those who haven’t watched Sholay – the Bollywood epic.)

Hindi!
Kitne Questions they?
55, Sarkar!
Aur kitne Answer dene wale they?
1, Sarkar!
Questions 55, aur Answer dene wala bas 1!
Bahut Nainsafi hai!

Translation!
How many questions were there?
55, My Lord.
And how many people were there to answer the questions?
1, My Lord.
There were 55 Questions and just one (tired) man to answer those 55 questions! That’s very unfair. (Outrageous!)

 

Oh…and “Syappa” is a typical Punjabi exclamation that nice Punjabi ladies use in place of almost all four-letter words. The exact translation of this powerful but melodious word is forever lost in the mists of time.