Chez Moi

Breaking my thesis-induced blog silence to preen that I my blog has been awarded the ‘Brilliant Weblog’ award by the Mad Momma. Thank you, o kind mad person! The Brilliant Weblog Award’s a prize given to sites and blogs that are smart and brilliant both in their content and their design. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogsphere. Here are the rules to follow:

1. When you receive the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link back to them.
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing them that they have been awarded with the ‘Brilliant Weblog’ award.
4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional) to.
5. I pass the sunshine on to:

• 1. Amrita of Indiequill
• 2. Deepti Lamba’s Swinging Puss
• 3. Apu’s World
• 4. Krish Ashok’s Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa
• 5. Nandita’s Saffron Trail
• 6. Indira’s Mahanandi
• 7. Poppy’s Babies Anonymous

As is the case with most tags I take up, the point of origin is always roughly near the person behind Indiequill. She’d either tag me direct and I’d comply after much faux moans and groans (but hey, traffic!) or generously throw it to the wider audience and depending on the inspiration level, I’d take it up (hey, blog post!). I think it is safe to assume this instance can come under Category B. Sorry for not responding pronto, btw, Ams.

Before I begin listing my favourite blogs of the minute, I’d like to state for the record that I am not high maintenance. ‘Nuff said.

1. Bengalooru Biker Dude - I discovered Krish Ashok’s blog a few months back and BBD’s soon after, thanks to KA’s blogroll and have found myself laughing like a loon on a fairly regular basis ever sense. The pair of them have a similar, quirky sense of humour and apparently, a lifetime license to Photoshop and a creative urge to boot - all of which results in some hilarious posts, ably supplemented by superior drawings.
2. MetroDad - what can be cooler than a blogging dad? Nappies, 3 am feeds, daughter’s funky hair cut, playschool woes - nothing is taboo for this dad. Describing himself as a ‘cocky pop’, MD is truly rocking!
3. Diary of a Food Whore - I love this blog! The way she writes - mildly disparaging, describing customers / events in her brilliant way that cracks me up and her klutziness have all made her blog totally unmissable for me. In fact, I log on to her site to read her old entries from 2006!
4. Mr Smith Goes To Delhi - An Amru family lands up in Delhi and tries to cope with the insanity of living in India. One of my favourite posts is when Mrs Smith discovers the petticoat - you’re intrigued now, aren’t ya?
5. Karen Cheung - came across this one from a random post on the Metrodad’s blog and have been a regular ever since. I quite like how she doesn’t write about just one thing but a hotch-potch of varied topics and still has managed to string together a cohesive blog.
   
6. Waiterrant - ooh this guy is sooper! Sarky is not the word for his comments. He has even published his rants as a book - that’s how good he is.
7. Mid-Century Modern Mums - here is what gives courage to all us mommy bloggers; to see mums who have survived the baby and toddler years and are boldly facing the dreaded teenage head on.
8. Maami’s blog - Though a relative newcomer to the blogosphere, Maami appeals to the maami side of me and I find myself cracking up over her expressions and nodding sagely over her experiences. Entertaining!
9. Mommy has a headache - This witty mum, a Londoner transplanted to Amreeka, writes about life and such. Nobody does sarcasm like a Brit, which is why I love this one.
10. Ghanashyam Says - Came upon thissun thanks to KA. Simply put, life has never been the same since. I loved this post on the origins of the poonal. Genius stuff.

So there you go - my top 10 of the moment, apart from the regular ones that I visit every morning (noon and night!). Sorry I sat on it for ages, Ams.

Man! What a hunt and what a lovely surprise! What fun! And what an amazing bunch of people! I do not have words to say what your gesture has meant to me and am sure the other MTBs feel the same.

Tharini - what a lovely idea! Thank you for that and what followed!

And what a gang - Tharini, Gauri, Altoid, Sujatha, MM, Reshma, Anupama, UTBT, Suki, Daisy, Chronic Worrier, Dipali, Kiran, MayG, Rita, Parul, Ceekay, Mona, Ams, Asha, DDMom, Sue, Sunita, Orchid, Broom, Yaadayaada, Shobana, Nisha, Choxbox, Trishna, Y, Priya (BEV), 2A’s Mommy, SilentOne, Ro, Eve’s Lungs (Mallika), Compulsive Dreamer, DotMom, Upsi, Anitha, K3, Mnamma, Aargee, Nat, Itchy, Sahithi’s Mom, Dee, Mummyjaan, Noon, SS, Aditi’s Mom, Big Zed, Premalatha, Sadhana, Raising T, Usha, ~nm, IBH, JLT, Swati, Timepass, Kowsalya, Squiggles Mom, ArtNavy and Neera!

How in God’s name did you lot, scattered as you are all around the world, cook up this fantastic idea and execute it so flawlessly? Girls, your talents are wasted being just bloggers! You should be running countries!

The biggest thing I felt when I was preggie with P six years back was loneliness - new to this country, far away from everyone I knew and no one to talk to, it was one of the worst time of my life. But this time around, things cannot be different. And the biggest difference is you lot - and of course, my fellow MTBs. That 3.00 AM feed will feel less lonely now, cos somewhere in the world, I know you lot are there, either going through it yourselves or cheering us on. You could not have given me a better present. Honest!

I have never felt so happy about being pregnant than during this exercise! Boy is it worth it for this feeling of happiness, this camaraderie alone!

I know that the rest of the blogosphere has been scratching its head coming across some of the riddles in these blogs. For them, and for anyone else who wants to know what these amazing girls have done, well, they have just gone and thrown us MTBs (or Mother-to-bes) - Boo, Maggie, Poppins Mom, Kodi’s Mom, Lavs, Planethalder, Random Vignettes, Rohini (and Priya and STS!) and moi, - a fabulous baby shower - online, of course! And they did it with all the stealth and guile of top Mossad agents.

We were sent on a massive treasure hunt! Yes! Tharini’s rhyming e-mail started us off, then it was off to UTBT, and on and on. They left amusing little ditties on their blogs and by solving each, we had to bloghop to where the clue pointed to next, only to collect an alphabet for our troubles. And the devious lot threw a few red herrings our way too, in the form of ‘blanks, just to spice things up a bit. Boo, we did say and yayy said they, def! On and on it went, over gazillions of blogs and unscrambling the letters got us the username and password and from Broom’s blog, to a special blog set up by these fantastic peeps, our very own Doula Gang, for us. Chock full of gyaan for the mums to be, recipes and a whole lot of love! Who’d've thunk it?

It all started yesterday when Boo came across one of these rhymes. Imagine her puzzlement when she found the “Riddle-me-ree” message on a few more blogs. She wrote a plaintive message, asking people what gives. What we got in response were gleeful cackles, even as we blundered through! As the day went on, rhyming ditties were springing up hither and thither and before long, we knew there was some sort of Treasure hunt on. It took a while to twig on the order to go. But one thing the Doula Gang had miscalculated was the determination of Boo, Maggie, Poppins mom, Kodi’s mom and Lavs to crack this or die trying. They made excel sheets and sat all night and Boo cracked it around 2.00 am! The Doulas had thought we would spend the weekend puzzling over this but Boo and the girls had the last laugh alright!

So that is what the Riddle-me-rees are all about. One of the most fantastic ideas, hatched and brought to fruition by some of the most devious and superior minds in the world! And what presents we have got - a massive loot of goodies in the form of the gyaan, of course, a beautiful collection of rhymes, fab memories, big barrel full of laughs and bestest of all, the key to one of the greatest communities, spanning language, cultures, countries and heck, whole continents.

One of a kind, laydees, that’s what you are. One of a kind. I think I can speak for the rest of the MTBs here when I say, we are bowled over by this massive love. I feel so privileged, that you included me in this special act. Mere words are not enough to express my gratitude. Long may your tribe increase!