The Liebster Returns

Thanks to Hema, for nominating me for the Liebster award 🙂

(http://jumbledhead.blogspot.in/2015/11/liebster-award-nomination-2015.html)

A long time had passed since my last blog award nomination, and longer time had passed since the last Liebster!

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  Rules related to LIEBSTER Award:

  1. As a token of acceptance of the award, do write a blog post regarding the award and post the link of the blogger who nominated you.
  2. Display the award on your blog.
  3. Answer the questions raised by the blogger who nominated you.
  4. Nominate other bloggers.
  5. Post questions to those bloggers.

Here are the answers to Hema’s  questions.

+Who/what inspires you in writing?
It is more of the need to do anything at a time when there is nothing to do.

+What’s the most difficult about blogging for you?
The feeling that this is going to be considered as a wastage of time by people.

+How are you managing time for your work life balance?
There is no work and there is no life for me. So it is very easy.

+What is the single activity which you love the most?
That should be drinking tea, and a lot more tea.

+What is the most special character in you which you adore in yourself?
I don’t really adore anything about me; it is not my plan.

+Which place you like to travel frequently?
To Indian Coffee House, for that tea and what comes with it.

+What 3 words describes you the best?
Thoughtful, Meaningless, Hopeless.

+List any 3 of your favorite bloggers at the moment?
Namrata, Maniparna, Raja.

+What is your favorite quote?
What comes to my mind right now: From the movie King Arthur (2004): “There is no worse death than the end of hope”.

+What are the tips/suggestions for the upcoming blogger?
Just don’t go for the prizes and glory; do what you love.

I am happy to nominate the following bloggers for this award:
Purba – http://www.purbablog.com
Vinitha – http://www.potpourriofmylife.wordpress.com
Roma – http://www.trulyyoursroma.blogspot.in
Bindu – http://www.moviereviewsbybinduc.blogspot.in
Swati – http://dreamerswati.blogspot.in

Here are the questions to my nominees:

*Which is your favourite movie of the 1990s?
*Where do you really want to go before you die?
*What will you choose between a Pista and a Chocolate Shake?
*Do you feel that life has a purpose? Why?
*If given a choice, will you choose arts or science?
*Which is your favourite post on this blog?
*What do you feel is the best thing about blogging?
*What do you think about Simona the Kitty?

TeNy

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What Do We Know?

There has been no shortage of newspapers in the vampire world which were smuggled through the portal to the other realm. One of them had the attention of Dracula who decided to teleport himself to the land of the humans, where the Vampire Bat awaited his arrival. “What is it about this India Today Woman Summit and what is this thing about women wanting to be treated specially or equally? What is wrong with these humans and what is it that these people require?” Dracula wondered. A certain understanding was reached with five situations at five different places.

They first stopped at a village where a woman was looking to keep her second child after losing the first one to female foeticide forced upon her by the relatives of her husband. She had her own doubts about this one too, and had left the house. Dracula refused to believe such incidents happening during this modern age and wondered if they had used the time machine instead of the teleportation device, but the Vampire Bat assured him that it is the right device, and to make sure about the same, pressed the button again to instantly teleport them to another location.

The device re-appeared at another location and it crashed into the garden of a house. They were quick to hide the machine and listened to the conversation going on inside home. While leaving, Dracula asked “Why should this girl stay with the idiot who is not worthy of marriage? Just because he is rich and has good looks, why should she tolerate this egoistic maniac? This is ridiculous”. “I would blame the parents in this case. They are always looking for the rich men from reputed families and not men with character. Some idiots think that a job with high salary and family reputation means everything” said the Vampire Bat.

The repaired device stopped at the top of an Airtel mobile tower. They looked around with their exaggerated visions to notice two separate incidents, one where a girl was stalked by three men, and another where four men were acquitted by the court nearby as the accusation on them for molestation was wrong. “This is rather confusing. Which one is real? One of them is an illusion, right?” asked Dracula. “Both are real. There are just good men and women and then there are the evil ones” replied the Vampire Bat. “It is just not that simple as it is in the vampire world. Humans are too unpredictable” he added.

“See that one on the left side!” the Vampire Bat screamed. Dracula turned around to see a man yelling about shortage of dowry. “That idiot! I don’t understand why the families get the women to marry these men who ask for money. There is no favour being done here, and marriage is not about saving the girl. They should say no to the men who ask dowry, no matter what he has to offer. This is not love, but an insult to women. It is a shame that they even give dowry for love marriages” said Dracula. “I have told you many times that these humans are strange. Even most of the good men don’t have the right to choose what to study and whom or when to marry” said the Vampire Bat.

They rested under a tree behind a stage on which a lady was speaking about why all men are evil and how they should leave the women alone to achieve what they have always wanted. They remembered that the same lady had asked for more reservations for women in various fields along with some special treatment at another venue. She had also asked for hatred against men. “Who is she?” Dracula asked. “It is a human thing. They don’t really know what they want, but they find ways to hate each other every day. She is just a very good contributor in one particular field. The religion and caste based hate fields are more popular” the Vampire Bat replied.

“Forget them. Nobody has any idea. At least do you actually know what you want?” Dracula asked. “I don’t know it either. But I have understood that there will never be true equality unless everyone tries to achieve it, stopping the discrimination on the basis of not just sex, but also social status, caste, religion, community, money, race, language and everything else which divides the world including the extremities of nationalism” said the Vampire Bat. “I am delighted to know that you are thinking exactly the same way as I have been directing my thoughts” said Dracula as he disappeared into the shadows.

I’m blogging for the India Today Woman Summit 2015 #WomenPower activity at BlogAdda.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of the movie, Hotel Transylvania.

TeNy

Sharing Some Statistics

On this Sunday on which I choose not to go to a theatre because all people having work on the other days will be there causing rush, I shall share some statistics with you. So, if you don’t want to hear about my Facebook Page, you may run away right now when the opportunity is still there. It is a Sunday, and there is no shortage of possibilities. It is completely about my Facebook Page, and I hope you have all liked it at [https://www.facebook.com/Movies-of-the-Soul-378583758873946]. Even if you forgot and are going to like the page right now, I will love that 😀

I initially thought about starting a separate page for this blog, but that was to be totally unnecessary, because about twenty percent of the posts in this blog is also related to movies, and two pages will be a little too much for me. I also share the posts from here on the page as far as they remain related to movies. I started the page for the first time supporting my other blog, Travel Diaries: Of this world and beyond with only close friends liking it, and then changed it into a combined page for my blogs and finally into the Movies of the Soul Facebook Page and has kept it that way.

If you look at the statistics, it is not even close to being the same for my blog and the Facebook Page. Those posts which have become successful on the blog have done less at the Facebook Page and vice versa, even though there are a few which have done good at both places. I haven’t been someone lookng at Facebook Statistics, but I did that last day, and this post comes as a result. Well, you can read a lot about what I found there, and here are the statistics for my Facebook Page.

The three cities outside Kerala which have the most likes for my page are Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai. The three top nations other than India are United States of America, Saudi Arabia and Canada. About half of the people who liked the page are between eighteen and twenty four years of age. I hope that some of you will contribute to change these statistics so that your age group, city or nation will be at a better spot in my list of likes. I would surely like that on a lovely Sunday 😀

The top city from outside India is Toronto. The top language is the United States English as expected. With the best reach, the highest are Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The reach for the nations has the highest in United States of America, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Other than United States of America, people engaged with the posts are very low, outside India. The most visits come from Piscataway as far as the visits from outside cities are concerned.

My most viewed, commented, liked and shared post on Facebook is the Premam review, which makes me wonder if I should have watched and reviewed that movie a lot earlier. It took me too much time to write on that one, and it meant that too many possible visitors had gone missing. Well, I did try, but the rush was too much for the movie. The second place goes to Drishyam which has claimed the Bollywood throne for the most viewed and engaged post from Bajrangi Bhaijan which overtook ABCD 2 which had temporarily been at the top of my Bollywood posts.

Papanasam comes next and has become the leader of the Tamil movies list on my blog taking over from I, and that makes three out of three reviews on the same movie’s different versions success for me. The earlier leader among Malayalam movies was Iyobinte Pusthakam, and Mission: Impossible 5 – Rogue Nation is on its way to take over from Terminator Genysis as the top Hollywood movie on the Facebook Page – it is already there with the post reach. The Hollywood movies have given me less views, likes, comments and shares so far compared to the Indian movies.

***If you have any tips for my blogs after looking at these screenshots, do let me know 🙂

TeNy

Bloggers and Friends

I have written about a number of bloggers who have been very helpful and have managed to be a lot inspirational during my time in the blogging world. Actually, I have only shared three names with my previous three posts, and I have a lot more of them to talk about. So, I will share five other names and their blogs here, and then I will be left with one more post to write about the rest of my blogger friends. I am actually working on another big list, but now I am sharing something about five people who have inspired me.

#1. I managed to find Raja Reviews and its owner Raja Saravanan at a time when I was wandering around the blogging world aimlessly, or rather it was me and Movies of the Soul which was found. Among the first few friends from the blogging community, he has been a big technical help for my blogging situation, and continues to be so. Buying a domain for Movies of the Soul actually meant about an hour of talk on the phone. He has introduced me to his new place for movie lovers, Flixpack, which you might want to have a look at.

#2. Anoop is another person for whom I need to share some space here. Tranquil Yet Alive is another one of those blogs which go quite some way back in my blogging timeline. He is also my favourite Kerala traveler and I hope to accompany him on a trip. He is the second most frequent commenter on this blog as well as Movies of the Soul. He has been here, and also there, most of the time being the first one to comment on a post. His comments have been a frequent inspiration for me to write more, and the Vampire Bat and the Vampire Owl have acknowledged the same.

#3. A Few Handpicked Things in Life from Ranjini is the closest available blog to any of my blogs. That would be a total of 23.9km as the distance between the locations of the blogs, and those two towns of Kerala. I have taken some extra interest for Game of Thrones from her, and did manage to watch all the five episodes; that inspiration also worked very well and I have accepted her GoT guidance. I am particularly interested in her new 100 Happy Days writings, and she is also the one with the fifth most comments on this blog and the sixth on Movies of the Soul.

#4. Shweta and her blog Sunshine and Zephyr have been another strong source of inspiration for me. I have loved to read her posts about Iceland more than the rest, and there were a number of quote-related posts which have recently caught my attention, through which she has shared quotes from her upcoming novel – she has also been there at my blog with comments, the earliest going back to the time when I had just started writing here. She has also left me with the Sunshine Award just recently as you might have noticed earlier.

#5. Harsha might be the first Indian blogger to have visited and commented on my blog regularly. All Resource Updates might be the first Indian blog which I had followed, and it started at a time when I did nothing at any place which boosted my blogging and had almost no contact with other Indian bloggers. He let me know that I really need to get my blog accepted at these websites to make things work better. Even though he has been less active on his blog for some time, he has been more active as of now.

The list is incomplete as expected; there are many names which I would love to add, and more of them to come in the final post of this series. There are many bloggers from outside India too, but this activity is limited to Indian bloggers, and so I have kept this blog post in this way. I take this opportunity to appreciate the help and motivation which have been provided by these five bloggers. Thank you all for the support, and #YouMakeMeWIN!

I’m blogging for #YouMakeMeWIN to honour a blogger who has influenced me and deserves to be nominated at WIN15.

***The image used in this blog post is also taken from the WIN15 activity from BlogAdda. #YouMakeMeWIN

TeNy

Celebrating Inspiration V3.0

I have blogged much more this year, and about seventy percent of the posts on this blog were written and posted this year, that too with half an year still to go. In the 179 days which have passed so far, I have did more than 180 posts. I have only recently got to 250 posts, and a lot of it has come in the last six months or so. From December 10 last year, I had decided to speed up things, and I have made sure that there is no day without a blog post or two.

I was tired with all these by April. March had something special for me with winning the BlogAdda contest “The World Remade” for the India Today Conclave at Delhi. March twelfth, my birthday was spent in three cities, Cochin, Mumbai and Delhi, and the month was a great one. But it came back down in April, and things came down further with nothing happening with my life expect for eating and sleeping. The energy for blogging was slowly disappearing.

The credit for bringing the inspiration back goes to Archana, who blogs at Drishti: The Gaze with her husband Desh, and has provided some of the most interesting ideas on a wide variety of topics. I haven’t seen a better blog with a husband and wife writing together, ever. There is a lot to learn from the blog, and the way in which it goes on with its ideas inspiring and spreading knowledge is worth the applause. She has been on my IB list of bloggers for more time, but we have been friends on Facebook from April.

A lot of people whom I know are not aware of how much I blog and there are people around me who think it is a waste of time. Well, sometimes I think that it is very clear for them that I am wasting my time not just in life, but also with the blogs, as someone has brought to my attention during my recent visit to my ancestral home. The advice is always to stop doing the blogging and do anything else. So, the need for inspiration only increases day by day. It is where Archana has been helpful in the last few months.

What Archana and Desh have been writing about at their blog has been very much thought-provoking, and when it is not doing that job, it is inspiring the other bloggers to write more and more. I have been going a little bit lazy about blogging for some time, especially because at one point, I had extra articles left in my computer to post for the next one week or two. Every time when I seem to go towards the end of my collection, I think about not writing, but Drishti and its frequency of posting has been a big inspiration.

Archana has been among the most frequently commenting bloggers on this blog, and in the last two months only, she has become the one with the third most highest comments on my posts. She is also the only person whose blog is not hosted on WordPress to comment with this high frequency. She has also been always there being among the first people to promote my blog in more than one platform. Now, it is some fine support which does motivate a lot to blog more.

She has also been there to clear those blogging doubts. She was also the one to introduce me to Blogmint, and she has told me that it will be very useful to me in my long blogging run. My favourite post from her is a Haiku, titled Beauty and the Beast, and her Haiku and Short Story Collection has been inspiring me to keep writing. The whole vampire team has acknowledged the same. I have also been inspired by the travel related posts from Desh on the Breath-taking Natural Wonders despite traveling so less these days – I rarely see such clarity on blogs 🙂

I’m blogging for #YouMakeMeWIN to honour a blogger who has influenced me and deserves to be nominated at WIN15.

***The image used in this blog post is also taken from the WIN15 activity from BlogAdda. #YouMakeMeWIN

TeNy

The Unsent Letter

Vampire Owl: My dear vampire apprentices, in this class, it is my honour and great privilege to read this letter which was written by the Vampire Bat to Uncle Dracula when he was a little fang-less one, but was never sent. This comes as a part of the second semester Part IV paper twenty four. There will be annotation questions coming from this one. So, please listen carefully.

Dear Dracula Uncle,

I have read and understood how badly the humans have written about you or have shown on the big screen and made your kind the monsters when they were the actual monsters. It is sad and depressing that you made the wrong decision to shift from Romania. The world has too many racists among them who can’t approve of someone who is classified as “the other” with them. You were too kindhearted and simple, and never knew about that.

The only thing that you ever wanted was to shift from your very old castle and at the same time, go to a place which was known to be civilized. But you were unaware of the ways of the modern humans as you remained dead for so long, and the dirt told you no stories. You were new to this world after your resurrection and even Igor was a confused man. You picked the wrong assistant and that was another mistake.

The Vampire Cat is the first witness to this letter, and even tried to eat it.

But when you reached the so called civilized, you understood that “being civilized” is not achieved by money and random education. It requires true knowledge and wisdom and a certain amount of empathy for the fellow creatures. But human beings never had that and couldn’t adjust to your basic sympathetic nature. You tried to help Lucy Westenra, but as she was an aristocrat and you were an outsider, they made up a story that she was ill due to your bite when the truth was that she was already ill.

The man behind her problem was Dr. John Seward, who was very depressed that Lucy turned him down and decided to marry Arthur. He was slowly but steadily making Lucy sick and was also looking to make his patient Renfield feel as if some big evil was coming – he knew that you could understand the major reason behind her illness with your special powers as he had known about you from some gypsies from Eastern Europe.

Then he called for this man called Abraham Van Helsing, a Dutch doctor who had taken fake degrees from different universities, and was trying to make a name for himself. He was known to murder poor people and brand them as vampires, collecting big bounty from the rich ones. He also treated many people for vampirism, when there was no presence of such disease in them. A wolf attack was also attributed to you, at a time when the group of werewolves were just going on biting people for no reason.

Ezhilampala where the Vampire Bat used to reside and he even learned its scientific name.

Then there were the Harkers – Jonathan Harker and Mina Harker, earlier Mina Murray. They were big liars and as this man had described about the Dracula Castle to this lady, she wanted it as a wedding gift. You were a Count by name only, and used to be basically just a farmer who led many socialist movements at your land, and the authorities never really liked you either. So they teamed up with the Harkers to create such a story which depicted you as pure evil.

I know that they tried to end you, but as we all know, a vampire can be defeated, but cannot be destroyed as long as we have our team. I shall find you with the help of my vampire friends and resurrect you again, as we know the secret of your eternal youth. We shall undo the wrong that has been done to you, and let the humans know who their real enemies are. They are corruption, misogyny, racism, casteism and religious intolerance. You shall be back and we will find a way for getting the humanity out of its inherent evil.

With bloody love,
The Vampire Bat.
Tree Branch No. 3, Ezhilampala (Alstonia scholaris), Somewhere near the Athirappilly Waterfalls, Kerala, India.

***All the photos used in this blog post were taken by me on my Sony Cybershot DSC-W310.

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TeNy

A Hat-trick in Inspiration

This is the time for The Very Inspiring Award, for the third time for The Tea Cerebrations, and we should be having a lot of tea on the hat-trick occasion in huge cups 😀

I was nominated by Rekha (http://rekhaaa.wordpress.com) this time, and the fact remains that it was me who was more inspired 😉 Thanks to her for making this three in a row, something that usually needs a penalty in the case of football 😀 (http://rekhaaa.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/1338/)

The rules:
1. Display the award logo
2.  Link back to the person who nominated you
3.  State 7 things about yourself
4.  Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.

The seven things about me:
1. I believe that I am living in the wrong time period and require a time machine.
2. I don’t feel that the end of the world is a bad thing, because there is equality in death.
3. I support Asterix for the President of Earth 😀
4. I affirm Honda’s superiority in engine 😀
5. I have bad teeth, and even had awesome root canal.
6. My favourite ice cream is of Blackcurrant flavour, followed by Orange and Pineapple.
7. I hope that one day, I will be the old gamer again 😉

The Fifteen nominated: 
1. Dan (http://dtmmr.com)
2. Pallavi (http://palulife.blogspot.sg)
3. Ananya (http://www.ananyatales.com)
4. Sakshi (http://www.sakshinanda.com)
5. Sandhya (https://indfused.wordpress.com)
6. Kokila (http://sunshineandblueclouds.blogspot.in)
7. Prathi (http://prathi-pat.blogspot.com)
8. Ritesh (http://riteshmokasana.wordpress.com)
9. Kamila (http://spicyroad.com)
10. Rohit (http://www.rohitthebest.blogspot.in)
11. Razia (http://noorsrecipes.com)
12. Mohan (http://advocatemmmohanaksharaalu.wordpress.com)
13. Gaurab (http://www.processingcreativity.com)
14. Saru (http://www.sarusinghal.com)
15. Svetlana (http://maverickbird.com)

Have a great year and drink more tea 😀

First of the Awards

I am glad to announce a first time for this blog: Jay Shah (http://thoughtburps.wordpress.com/) has nominated my blog for  Very Inspiring Blogger Award! Yes, there have been a long list of awards for my other blog Movies of the Soul (http://moviesofthesoul.wordpress.com/blog-awards/) and also a few for my Travel Diaries, but this is the first one for this blog.

Well, this is an award about inspiration, and I am glad that even if I rarely get inspired myself, I still ended up being an inspiring blogger 😀 That should make this award more significant than most of the other awards though 😉 Here is the post concerning the same: (http://thoughtburps.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/so-glad-to-receive-very-inspiring-blogger-award/)

There is also a first in everything, which is why I chose to publish this one as a post rather than as the page like I used to do with the awards for my other blogs. Thank you Jay, for the nomination; you have a very inspiring blog right there 🙂

Here, I have to mention seven things about myself:

• I have always believed more in death than in life, and I hope for a better world after death.
• I am now at a new level of tea addiction which you might not want to know about 😉
• I don’t usually trust people. It has never been my kind of thing; may be I can get a superpower for that.
• I hate crowds. I would prefer to be left alone or with just a few people, because it feels better.
• I don’t believe much in winning. I rarely give much value to it. Doing your part well is the better thing.
• I have become a cricket hater from cricket lover, and the credit for the same goes directly to BCCI as it is now, and I thank them for saving lot of my time.
• I am a jobless person with not much hope for getting to work in this birth or the next – not even in inferno or purgatario.

Here are the fifteen blogs I’d like to nominate:

1. Maniparna (http://maniparna5002.wordpress.com)
2. Namrata (http://namratakumari.blogspot.in)
3. Gowtham (http://snapometer.blogspot.in)
4. Kokila (http://sunshineandblueclouds.blogspot.in)
5. Anita (http://anitaexplorer.com)
6. Raja (http://rajareviews.com)
7. Najm (http://angellicfrenzy.blogspot.in)
8. Tara (http://crimsonapril.wordpress.com)
9. Shaun (http://beyondboredom.wordpress.com)
10. Sagarika (http://123sag.wordpress.com)
11. Vartika (http://vartikaforu.wordpress.com)
12. Shabab (http://vbothransh.wordpress.com)
13. Vandana (http://vanduchoudhary.blogspot.in)
14. Sucheta (http://suchetabiswas.wordpress.com)
15. Ranjini (http://rangelz.wordpress.com)

Do share the award, and also try to:

• Display the award on your blog.
• Link back to the person who nominated you.
• State seven things about yourself.
• Nominate 15 bloggers, linking to them.

Keep Blogging. May this New Year bring awesome results for you. Welcome 2015 🙂

The Loss of Power

You might have noticed that the last movie I watched in the theatre was on December eight, and I have only published two more reviews of two older movies which I had watched much earlier. I don’t think that this is closer to the end, as the Vampire Bat is running out of Vampire Owls, but this is as close to it as it gets. Nowadays an owl is available only on the phone.

I am not denying the fact that I have watched many movies alone, and going to the theatre all by myself has been part of my life. But the situation seems that nowadays I have to go to the theatre alone all the time. I don’t consider it that interesting, because I need opinions of the people who come to watch a movie with me, and it helps to make sure that my opinion is not completely personal.

Movies keep coming like the waterfalls on a rainy season (taken on my DSC W310)

Until the weekend before the last two, the Vampire Bat could find one person to accompany him to the theatre. But things have changed now, especially this year has seen too many of my friends going outside India for studies or work. There have been one friend leaving for Germany, another for Italy, one for the Middle East, one for the United Kingdom, one for Mauritius and seven for the United States of America.

The procedure was complete with last weekend as I was left with nobody to accompany me to the theatres. There are also a number of friends already at Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune, with no hope for a movie watching partner. The presence of the eternal NET exams and the never-ending question of a job also complicates things. Then there is the most awesome kitten, Simona the Lionhearted who asks for presence.

I had expectation that I might reach the one hundred with the number of movies I watched this year, but now it seems that I am certain to lag behind, with an improvement of the last year’s statistics nowhere near possible. May be I can get some of my cousins to accompany me, but I don’t have hopes on them, and all those friends and cousins who are married seem completely out of the equation.

The Vampire Bat becomes more of the lone tree (photo details as previous)

I am also having more and more thoughts about concentrating more on this blog, even as Movies of the Soul remain my most popular blog, and it was the one which helped me to go on with something consistently for the first time. But now it seems that it gets me tired and lonely. I feel the a similar emotion as I could sense with Travel Diaries which hasn’t had a post from me for quite a long time, or The Divine Epic which has me posting once in a month. No wonder I am posting on this blog a lot more.

There is still the joy that one gets out of reviewing a movie, which has been more than what I have had while watching one. May be the Vampire Bat is even older than he claims, dating back to more centuries. May be vampirism is slowly becoming extinct. There is no beginning or end to my stories of life, but the Vampire Bat is an entity who hasn’t been too proud of his immortality. May be he can stick to writing reviews about those movies which have left the theatres and may be bring in one flick here or there from the theatre during some lone visits. He actually wants to watch one movie right now. Who knows what the future brings.

TeNy