A couple of days back, Akshay Kumar Das nominated me for the Blogger Recognition Award. Thank you, Akshay for thinking about me and honouring my blog.
Akshay lives in Bangalore and wears many hats. He is a Physics enthusiast, a music geek, a painter, a poet, a writer, and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He sees science in everything be it spirituality, playing the guitar, or writing poetry. His blog is aptly named ‘Melodies Physics’.
You must visit Akshay’s blog and check out his versatility for yourself.
How My Blog Started
There are two instances that resulted in starting my blog.
- Last year I had the opportunity to spend some time in the remote Osla Village. It was a fascinating experience, which changed my perspective in many ways. After coming back, I had posted pictures on Facebook along with a brief description of each, kind of a photo story. Someone I know, got in touch requesting me to write a story on the village for their online magazine – Blank Slates Chronicles. I happily obliged. Till then I had no clue that I could write and that I would enjoy it too. [Click HERE, if you want to read the story on Osla]
- When I first trekked the Himalayas in 2016, it was just a random thing I did quite spontaneously without putting much thought to it. However, I was back with a new found love and passion and I just could not stop talking about it. People would say that I exuded energy and my face lit up when I described the Himalayas and my experience of it. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Himalayas has changed me and in ways more than one. A friend once remarked, “You should write these down, as with time you will forget a lot.” It dawned upon me how right she was! I started writing in word docs and sharing with friends, colleagues, and family. [Click HERE, if you want to read my first trek to the Himalayas].
A few months later, I created a WordPress blog for a very talented friend, who writes fantastic stories and poems but in pen and paper. However, my friend didn’t go digital and never used the blog, she continues writing manually. Instead, I landed up creating a blog for myself.
The purpose was just to store my experiences as a journal, which I could read and relive during later years of life, when I may no longer be able to travel. Ignorant to the world of blogging, I never thought anybody would read what I write. Neither did I know that I would enjoy reading and interacting with other bloggers so much.
That’s the long and short of how I started blogging.
My Advice
I am no veteran blogger to provide any kind of advice. However, here’s two based on my limited experience in the past one year:
- Interact with other bloggers. If you are just writing, you are missing out a lot. There’s so much to learn and feel inspired by from many passionate and genuine people out there.
- Blogging is also about self-discovery. So, explore and go out of your writing comfort zone. You never what hidden talents you may find for yourself. For example, if you blog only poetry have you thought of expressing your thoughts through photographs? You never know what you might discover about yourself.
My Nominations
There are a number of blogs that I enjoy reading and bloggers that I love interacting with. So that I don’t break the chain, I am putting down just two of them.
Hariom Prabhakar Singh: I enjoy reading Hariom’s posts mainly because I share his passion for travel. Do check his blog ‘Travel – My Best Teacher’. Traveling has made Hariom not just a writer but a poet too. The particular story on how he started travelling is a very interesting read. You can find that story HERE.
Kalyan Parimi: I have started following and reading Kalyan’s blogs quite recently. Do check his blog ‘My Part of Life’. Kalyan writes meaningful posts on general topics about life. He writes fiction too. He has a series on letters that I have particularly enjoyed. One of those he has written to his Dad and you will find it HERE.
Hariom and Kalyan, please don’t feel any kind of compulsion to participate. It’s entirely your choice.
The Rules
- Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
- Write a post to show your award.
- Give a brief story of how your blog started.
- Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
- Select 2-3 other bloggers that you want to give this award to.
- Comment on each blog to let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.
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Recently, I got to know that there are nine blogs competing in the Travel Category and my blog has made to that list. Obviously, I am super thrilled! Being nominated itself is HUGE for me. I had no idea about the existence of such an award and got to know about it only when I was nominated. Moreover, ABBA is open to bloggers across the globe and I know my blog is nothing out of the ordinary. Needless to say all of these are ego boosters making me feel really good. Though I do want to cut off ego from my life but that’s a different story altogether.
Seasons of Life! 