‘Let us be grateful to people who
make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom’ –
Marcel Proust.
One of
the main reasons I started blogging was because I needed some sense of
connection. I was living at a small distance from my parents and siblings, yet
I craved friends, you know, people you can just ‘hang’ with. All my old friends
were in other cities or countries, and I was a stay-at-home-Mom with little or
no social life.
And I got
exactly what I wanted. Blogging has helped me connect with talented people from
around the world, literally. And not just connect, I can even call some of them
my friends, and not just the Facebook variety that you wish Happy Birthday and
forget for the rest of the year. These are people with whom I can have
meaningful conversations, and who give a lot of encouragement and support when
needed.
One of my
closest online friends is Swarnali, who I first came across via Tripthi’s blog, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. Swarnali blogs at 'Dreams and Drama' and I like to
think that we hit it off instantly :). Like Swarnali says, we’ve never seen or
spoken to each other, but that doesn’t matter in today’s world, does it? We’ve
had numerous Facebook discussions on books (she’s a voracious reader), blogs,
trolls and much more!
Swarnali
is also the one who introduced me to the ‘Indiblogeshwari’ group on Facebook, a
group exclusively for female bloggers which was started by the I-don’t-know-how-to-describe-her-she’s-that-awesome Vinita Bahl, blogger at
Blogwati G :). As you can imagine, that makes it super fun!! See, that’s how
friends are, they have a pretty good idea what you’d like!!
The
extremely cool admins of the group introduced the Chain Mail activity, where a
group member tags another person in the group and sends her a gift and
handwritten note (hand written – compulsory!). The receiver then tags another
and the chain continues. The only condition was that you couldn’t tag a person
living in the same city as you. Three chains were to run simultaneously, and so
the fun began!!
I was
lucky to get tagged by Swarnali, and in a short while, I received a beautiful
gift and thoughtful letter, written in Swarnali’s hand. Can you believe that,
an actual hand written letter? I can’t remember the last time I got one! And
that’s not all, she even included a cute little gift for Cub, and boy, was he
delighted!! I grabbed the letter and started reading it, feeling a warm glow
all over, till the part where the bracelets were mentioned. And then I opened
the box to see these lovely bracelets, in a beautiful black box!
Aren’t
they both gorgeous!! Although I have to admit, this one is my favorite :)
And
here’s how it looks on me:
A look at
the whole package:
Here’s a
close up of Cub’s gift:
I had to
struggle to keep him from opening it till I took pictures :). Soon after, the
Angry Birds were all lined up like this:
I think
this was the day I was the most glad that I started blogging :). In addition to
the pleasure writing gives me, I have found friends whom I can connect
with, without having to travel miles or making arrangements for babysitting.
To you,
dear Swarnali, and the IB admins and others behind the Chain Mail idea, I have
just this to say:
