#WIN15 – A day to remember.

            Becoming a member of Blogadda would bring about a change in my life, is something that I had never imagined. It has its reasons. I was new to the world of blogging, had no idea what I would blog about and had not an inkling what prompts were! On top of that, I also had no idea that there are awards for blogging, an event which I would get to attend one day and meet my favourite bloggers! Yes, thanks to Blogadda, I did get to meet some amazing writers and read their blogs and learn so much from them. And, thanks to Blogadda, I also attended the most amazing awards ceremony ever!

        The awards function was, frankly, something I wasn’t keen on attending, thanks to the blues. But, one phone call from a Blogadda team member made me change my mind in a jiffy! I decided to attend the event, after all, and drive those nasty blues away. Was I glad I attended the event! I finally got to meet my favourite bloggers from my blogging group, The  BAR! People I had met online, read their work and learnt from them were there, standing with me, chatting like old friends. It sure was an exhilarating experience.

     Then, there was the venue. Well, I should have mentioned about it earlier in the  post, but I got carried away thinking about my  blogging idols! So, a venue as opulent as The JW Marriott Sahar had to be special. And pampering the bloggers seemed to be the plan for the day! Team Blogadda  had it all chalked out in collaboration with The Marriott. Lavish spread of a thousand varieties of breakfast and lunch and snacks; the most talented  guest speakers to give us some valuable lessons on blogging, and of course, an electric emcee of a guy, Siddharth Kannan,  to engage the audience with his wit and high spirits! What more could one ask for?

       The guest speaker I truly enjoyed listening to was, of course, Natasha Badhwar, who conducted an interactive session on creative writing. She spoke about how we could express our ideas fearlessly. And, also, Ajay Jain, the debonair travel blogger, who showed us how we could travel the world and earn from blogging about it! Fun, right?! There were others, who also enlightened us with their knowledge, passed on valuable information that could help us in honing our talent and gaining from it, too. There was Lakshmi Pratury, Rezwan Islam, Sruthijit KK from The Huffington Post, Ashok Lalla, and many more. Thanks to these greats, we came away with a lot of information we fail to find elsewhere.

      The very motivational talks left me impressed. It made me take a step back and give considerable thought to my blogging style, and come to a conclusion that I need to bring a fresh change to my writing. Who knows, one day I might end up on that stage to receive an award for my blog! Wishful thinking, eh? Well, I would call that positive thinking. But, that is what Blogadda has done for me. Change my perspective and give me the strength to make a wish for something I haven’t wished for.

      My writer friends Sid Balachandran, Vidya Sury and  Sakshi Nanda who won the prestigious awards that night made it all the more memorable, making it a happy moment. Happy and full of hope! Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I couldn’t wait for the release of the book, Game of blogs, by Suchitra Krishnamurthy. But, I did see the pictures and read about the finale on Dr. Roshan Radhakrishnan‘s blog, Godyears. It sure was a classic finale!

      So, first of all, cheers to Team Blogadda for arranging and managing such a fantabulous event – The #Win15 blogging awards (which was trending on twitter at no. 1)! Second of all, thank you to you all at Blogadda, for making my day special. And, thirdly, well, some pictures I managed to click at the venue. There are just a few pictures, as I really couldn’t take my eyes off of anything. Star-struck that I was that day!
                                                           

THE cake!

     

Before the show began…

Me and my BAR mates.

The emcee, SID K.