Reflections of AtoZChallenge 2016 : A month of Self-Awakening

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl in a small town with her grandparents, who found great solace in writing. Her writings were her best friends which never let her feel lonely. As she grew up into an Automobile Engineer, her passion to pen down her feelings took a backseat. But her passive heart always yearned for her diaries and eventually in the roller coaster of life, she lost everything but her pen.

To satiate her soul's call and give a profound voice to her heart, she started her blog which depicted true tales, musings and poetic compositions to touch and tinkle her readers' soul and stay in their hearts forever. That little girl was me, my dear friends, and I am talking about this very blog STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART which is truly a piece of my heart. Words really fail me to express what it means to me.It fulfills my wish of a lifetime to remain alive in my readers hearts even after my death. 

This was precisely my endeavor when I  gave birth to this blog, a little less than a couple of years ago and thanks to my generous readers,it got its due love.I won the Woman of the Year Award in 2015 for my Women Rights Oriented Writings, post which I got a lot of endorsements are lost my focus...But there was always a streak of hidden pain in my heart which said I am not doing full justice to the real purpose of my Blog as I often heard from women of different strata requesting me to speak up more against the menaces against woman in our society that has ruined their or a near and dear one's life.

I was holding their request for long within me as I wanted to give them a global platform and what could have been better than to narrate them in the coveted A to Z Challenge,thus,I thoughtfully chose my series as 26 TRUE TALES of Indian Women, their poignant rumblings evoking an ERA OF CHANGE.

If I reflect back today, once I embraced this challenge, it was like self awakening for me as my theme clearly mirrored my innate urge to do something for the betterment of the society, we live in. I am extremely grateful to each and every member of the esteemed A to Z Team for giving me such a grand international platform to be the Face of Change, though in my own small way.

It was a serious theme, very close to my heart too and the biggest challenge was to do justice to the 26 protagonists and to present their delicate sides with utmost sincerity. I also diligently made the true tales alternate between some heart-wrenching and some inspiring ones, to save my readers from monotony.And the response for these thought-provoking stories was humongous.

I must admit this series of 26 real life stories was by far one of my most successful ones.I began to enjoy all the love and adulation by the end of first week. My readership soared, and the number of shares, comments and personal messages were too motivating and pushed me to the edge to keep up my esteemed readers' expectations. This series gave me some lovely friends even outside the blogger fraternity whom I was introduced to when they responded in my inbox about how they related to my posts and they feel they know all of them. With some I am sure the acquaintance has culminated into long lasting friendship already. To put in numbers 11 out of the 26 poignant rumblings that I have published are true tales of my readers they have emailed or inboxed me. 

Having said this , it would not have been possible to pull through the challenge, had it not been the Blogchatter community(lead by a visionary lady Richa) on Twitter which has formed a lovely group for the A To Z Challengers. They truly deserve a huge round of applause to bring together so many diverse bloggers under one umbrella who became each other's motivation and never let the spirit of the challenge go down.In this group I found a lot of buddies and though I can't fit in all their names here,I request them to please accept this as a personal word of gratitude to each one of you for being there always. 

IN this reflection post, I would also like to admit that, although I was always on time for publishing my each post and didn't miss even one, what could have definitely been better were my reading skills. Though I read many national and international blogs every day, commented and shared generously , I could not discipline my approach to revisit the same blog everyday and build on a list of my favorites. Thus sometimes I visited them and vice versa. Well, I promise to fix a solution for this before I take on this challenge next year.  Some blogger buddies I loved to read were Kala, Vishal, Archana, Roshan, Stephen, Chandni, Shalini, Geetika, the two Ramyas, Stephen, Era, Dixita, Mithila,Lata, Karan, Simar,Reema, Richa Jindal and the list is endless and I owe a lot to each one of them for enriching me with their wisdom.

All in all, my first experience of taking A To Z Challenge was extremely gratifying and I feel so overwhelmed to have completed my series of‪ #‎26TrueTales‬ of Indian Women through it.  It has also aided me envision my future endeavors and head firmly to where my heart lies.Bidding you Adieu with the promise to leave no stone unturned to always bring to you candid tales that remain in your heart like a song.

Here are the links to the 26 real stories on Indian Women:

"A"trocities in The Disguise of Tradition : The Shut Doors

"B"attered....The Remorse of a Daughter

"C"ircumstances: What made Sona a thief

"D"are to Defy The Destiny

"E"nd of Roads sometimes marks a New Beginning

"F"ailed Marriages: Should they be given a Second Chance?

"G"o Girl Get The Sky

"H"ere and today lay the foundation right: To end rapes perennially

"I"nspiration Absolute: No Calamity could Humble her Spirits

"J"ustified? You're not a woman if you can't bear a Child...
Touch Me "K"not: Please Let me Marry When I am Ready for it
"L"ost Paradise : The Tale of an Indian Bride
"M"otivation Galore: Widowed at 2 years of age, she gave next 70 years to save little girls from it
"N"o You are not Guilty: An AirHostess Mom's Tryst With Destiny
"O"nly if everyone loved everyone else, this world would be such a beautiful Place
"P"riorities when given as a Reason for Extra Marital Affairs
"Q"uestioning the Conscience of the Male Colleagues of a Pregnant Woman
"R"ole Reversals : Behind every successful woman, their is a man too 😊
"S"alary Saga : What if a Wife Earns more than her Husband
"T"ime Imbroglio: Why does Age Always run out in everything, only for Girls ??
"U"gly Race to give birth to a Male Child
"V"ictory of Adoption Process: Is it genuine or to meet one's vested Interest?
"W"ither away in Despair or Weave a Worthy Life, What's your Choice?
"X"-ray Print of the desires of an Indian Woman: She deserves them
"Y"outh Power: The only way to mitigate Gender Disparity and related Crimes
"Z"eal to turn the tide of time: Nothing could Stop Her😊