When I wrote my theme reveal post for the A to Z challenge, I was not sure what it would be! I knew it would be something to do with “love” but beyond that the idea was a blur! I toyed with various ideas before I decided I wanted to write about different “manifestations of love”. Being obsessed with the Mahabharata I wanted to write stories weaved out of little-known tales of love from the great epic.
There is a saying that whatever is present in the world, you will find a mention of it in the Mahabharata and if it is not mentioned in the epic then it is not present in the world!! I wanted to see if it holds true for different manifestations of love!! As I wrote the first one, it kind of opened up my mind and set the tone to what I wanted to write for the rest of the month.
I experimented with the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist in the stories, rather than retelling the story itself. This challenge drew its thoughts from my own experiences, relating my feelings and emotions with various people in my life and equating it with that of the protagonists in the story. As I wrote each post, I thought about the kind of love I shared with different people and my feelings for that person would flow out in the post through the main protagonist!
I loved the challenge because I wrote stories I didn’t think I was capable of writing. It made me think, it made me live the story, it made me get into the heads of the character. I enjoyed those glorious 26 days! I took a vacation in between, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to complete. But I did! I guess people do give priority to things they think is important!
My favorite posts in the challenge were Q for Quiescence, P for Platonic love and W for worship. Which one of my posts did you enjoy? Did any of my posts leave an impact on you? I would love to know.
There were other bloggers who shared my love of mythology; Suzy with her Ramayana, Sundari with characters of the Mahabharata, Fee with her Scottish mythology and Zalka Csenge Virág with the epics around the world! Cynthia, Vishal, Soumya, Shantala, Shilpa, Janaki, Rajalaksmi, Deepti, Aathira, Vinay, Susan, and Devika brought colour and variety to the challenge with their lovely tales, while Prassana and Swati entertained us with a 26 episode series and Chicky gave a wonderful tutorial in blogging! Ajay, Kavi, and Beloo, and many other friends kept my morale up with their comments even though they did not participate in the challenge.
It was fun to read the posts by the fellow challengers, and it was encouraging to see their comments on my stories. A writer’s greatest fulfillment comes from her readers and with so many friends not just commenting but also sharing my posts on Facebook, Google+ and twitter, it felt like I was part of a community. I wasn’t alone, and I felt really loved!
Thank you so much for making my journey all the more worthwhile and fulfilling!
See you again at the challenge next year. Until then, Ciao!
