On winning a book

It was not the first time I was receiving a signed book. In school, in college, on birthdays, I have received books as prizes or gifts with my name inscribed on the first page.

Saturday, September 8, though, was different.

The occasion deserves a departure from my blog format, for it was an exciting and unusual achievement for me.

I began serious blogging for a lark (wink!) just a few months back, and never thought it would so soon bring me face to face with an impressive bunch of bloggers, some of them astoundingly prolific, others who post occasionally. Some have been at it for years! I have to thank young Shruti for it, a former colleague who pestered me into joining IndiBlogger. 

When Yashodhara Lal’s very inviting mail on the blogger contest landed in my inbox, I did not think I could make the grade. I copied and stowed it away in a file, only to revisit it two days before the contest closed. And look where it landed me!

At lunch with a mix of enthusiastic bloggers and authors, some less than half my age, and the lovely and hardworking HarperCollins Chief Editor and Publisher Karthika, at Mamagoto in GurgaonJ 

And pray why? I’d for the first time in my life entered a story-telling contest, and for my labours of two hours or less, was rewarded with a copy of Just Married, Please Excuse from the author Yashodhara herself, handed across a tightly packed luncheon table.

By the way, the food was mouth-watering, and my vegan friends need not quail at entering a Thai restaurant either.

Believe me, winning the book this way has made it much more invaluable than if I had bought it off a shelf. I’ve been too busy to read it at one go, but now I am settling down to read the rest of the oh-so-funny JMPE right after posting this!