BLOGS : Bharateeya Blog Mela #34

• Ann turns her thoughts from to a country awakening on Diwali morning with her Happy Diwali post.
• Nancy captures assorted glimpses of the country at Diwali.
• Soleil remembers how her large family made Diwali all the more special and C'est la vie encompasses, in flashes of memories, the warmth that family provides to us.
• Ravages wraps it all up with a hint of caution and regret as to why our prudence doesn't extend to other, more important quarters of society.

• The resident jester, Alpha, has created a category of her own, with her own version of the family sagas. While one post (Ek Prem Kahani - October 27th) covers how her parents settled their differentials and integrated, the other (Recalled - October 26th) deals with her own theories to her return to blogging.
• Aashish of Ashification, envisions a Microsoft-ian nightmare with disappearing e-mails being a stark reality.
• Kingsley, narrates his experiences and adventures in that little corner where he discovered new shades of red, much to his chagrin.
• 
  Gaurav of Vantage Point, is irked by his "mates" not letting him hum his own tune.
• Lastly,Lady Lilac at Lilac's Room, warns you about the five most eminently missable things on TV back home.

• Kay Kay discovers the turmoils of adolescent love and the oceans he has to swim.
• Speed ponders on how life would have been if she hadn't made that crucial decision to move to the US for her studies.
• Shuchita stands at the crossroads of her life - defiant, that she will take her decisions in her own sweet time.
• Patrix at Nerve Endings Firing Away, wonders at our ability to handle the truth, while Gorgeous Diva at Come to my window chalks down her Points to Ponder (October 28th), wondering how far lies can get us in life and how much is enough.
• Finally, Codelust at A Minimalist's Manifesto, wonders about the changes and contradictions we go through and the questions that come up in our coping with them.

• Melodrama kicks off this section, with a post on how Indians need to discover cultural sensitivity within our midsts, how we can stand against the "chalta hai" attitude which we all detest and how we need to be catalysts of change in the "system" we all abhor.
• Atanu at Life as a Random Draw, also queries how tolerant other religions are to intrusions, and if they indeed do have the right to censure their competitors.
• Sandeep ponders over the old question of "Quid custodit ipsos custodes?" (Who shall guard the guardians themselves?") by looking at the police raj in Bombay and UP.
• Charu at A time to reflect wonders over the senselessness churned out by magazines, using polls, surveys and dirty market research to cover the pages of the editorials, while Anti writes about the banality brought out of Bollywood and the media's representation of the same.
• Yazad, at AnarCapLib, wonders why Indians don't respect their past as he mulls over the concept of a holocaust museum. Surely, he says, we've had enough tragedy resembling the holocaust in our history.
• This section wraps up with one of my personal favourites, Journeywoman grappling with the dilemmas of taking up vegetarianism in Japan (Oct 23rd).

• Unganisha, recounts his travails in far-away Ethiopia in The "Chicken" bus to Tis Issat.
• Austereseeker writes about her journey to Bhandardara and the graphic pleasures she got there.
• Muthu makes the pilgrimage to Hrishikesh for a sight of the holy river and the sights he say there.

• To the delight of all those die-hard Bengalis here, Nancy starts a trip down memory land and ends up on the Hoogly.
• Cherry Tone at The desi Bridget Jones shifts her perspective on life a bit to reveal a whole new set of colors in her post, Kaleidoscope.

LIFE : Strangers in a strange land