The cute WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog 
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Thank you WordPress I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – I wouldn’t be blogging if it weren’t for WordPress.
Loneliness once was a real feeling resulting from lack of real friends and real family. Now…they say that the feeling of loneliness still is quite real, but its drivers have changed. I grew up in a time when there was no Internet and in places where there was no television, no telephone, and at times no electricity. There were times when my family stayed in places where there were no other families around. Was I lonely? I don’t think I was. I had so much to do. I’d bind my own books, make my own dresses (and my doll’s dresses too,) study, draw, grow vegetables in my mom’s kitchen garden, and even cook. I don’t remember feeling lonely ever.
But now, I hear of loneliness ever so often. I hear of kids not knowing what to do if they didn’t have their smartphones with them, I hear of young girls and boys jumping off the high-rises because they were depressed, and I read about women in apparently happy relationships suffering from anxiety and depression. I am sure that the feeling is extremely real for them, but I can’t really get a handle on the causes…
I just wonder whether we were a stronger lot before Internet shrunk our world into a ragged ball of tangled connections.
Presenting…
Loneliness!
Loneliness is the state of feeling sad or deserted due to isolation.
If you are troubled by this cartoon, you should click the following links:
PS: If your virtual life appears empty and meaningless, walk out of the door into the street. The real world too has a lot to offer. Give it a chance
I didn’t feel like doing much today. It’s always the case after a tragedy. I begin thinking about serious matters and such matters, in the deteriorating world of today, seldom brighten up your outlook towards life.
So I pulled myself up by the collar (the proverbial one) and made a plan for this week.
I intend the make the following posts this week. If you are a regular visitor, you’d like to return when your favorite post comes up:)
These are all positive posts, and I hope that they’ll all help us brighten up our week.
Not many of my international readers would be aware of the three blasts that shook Mumbai yesterday, and left 21 dead and more than a hundred injured. I wonder whether we need to assert ourselves more – whether we need to go after those who are responsible for such dastardly acts that take human lives and tell us that the perpetrators are spineless terrorists who don’t have the courage to fight the way the brave and the righteous do – but who stealthily plant bombs and slink away, while innocent, unarmed people die!
Is this a war they are waging on us?
Or is this some sort of parasitic invasion?
Who are these terrorists? Who are these people who order such cowardly acts? Who are the ones who bring down the twin towers in New York, who repeatedly kill innocents in Mumbai, and who then hide either under the ground or in houses that they don’t even call their own.
They are the Osamas of the world. When Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US, a symbol of hatred and discord was destroyed. But actually evil goes deeper and spreads unseen by the eyes of the innocents and the saviors – because neither innocence nor heroism dwells in the dirty dark sewers of insanity. So the existence of that evil is discovered in different forms, in different places, at different times; perpetrated by different groups of people who are infected by the same evilness.
India, with its Gandhian Ideology and its secular policies has always been at a cross-roads. How much can we do without stepping out of the Gandhian guidelines of peace, harmony, and non-violence? How much can be achieved without destroying the secular fabric of this nation?
These terrorists, they don’t have love for anyone. They are the ones who’d kill their own spawn if the act could help them in their way ahead. Mahatma Gandhi‘s ideology worked well in ousting the British rulers from India, because they were educated, practical, and could talk rationally. How do you sit down for a talk with an ideology that only seeks to destroy?
With the recent blasts in Mumbai, I find myself withdrawing into a shell. I don’t want to watch the news, I don’t want to look at 4 or 6 or 8 panelists throwing inane paper-planes of ideas on one another, and I really don’t want to read a newspaper that moronically tells me that this evil act was to celebrate Ajmal Kasab’s 24th Birthday or which touts numerology as the reason behind so many people losing their lives.
I am done with all this. I know that I am not too secure either. One of these days, when I am out shopping for a new set of pencils, I might become a victim too. I won’t feel secure, until our Government takes some concrete steps to weed these sickos out of our system and isolate India from the threat of terrorism. Follow the lead of the US – do something. When and why did it become a crime to keep your own people safe?
The question that I ask is – if Gandhi were alive today, and if he had to handle terrorism, would he not modify his own philosophy? I think that a man of his intellect would know that every ailment has to be treated differently.
Update: July 16, 2011
Read the Common Man’s Perspective here.
You may have read the SEO Humor Post that I made a while ago. While writing that post, I never thought that I’d be inspired to write another, so shortly after my first attempt at finding humor in the keywords that appear in this blog’s list.
But then what has to happen does. We can’t stop it, can we? Just like we can’t stop global warming, aging, corruption…or on the brighter side, just the way we can’t put a stop to gold-digging, cuckolding, pick-pocketing etc.; we can’t stop posts from rolling out of absurd ideas.
So here’s what I found in the treasure-chest this morning.
Search Term 1: world’s funniest drawings
My dear searcher, you reached the wrong place, didn’t you? I mean, my caricatures border on the funny – but they never go the whole way. They keep twiddling their thumbs as they stand nervously at the edge of the cliff, awash with fear – never gathering the courage to jump into the shrieking swirling waters of funny-ness. So for all the future searchers of world’s funniest drawings, I recommend that they click the “Cool Caricaturists” link on this blog, or resume their search elsewhere without wasting another minute.
Search Term 2: drawings of ugly women
What?!
Aren’t you searching for something that doesn’t exist? I mean, you could find God if you tried hard enough …but impossible to find a woman who’s ugly. If you don’t believe me, organize a random poll and ask women to rate themselves as ugly or beautiful – and check the results!
We caricaturists could make ugly caricatures of women, but women themselves are beautiful. It’s the men-folk who have a large sub-set called “ugly men”. So My Dear Sir (I don’t know why but I feel confident that this search term was born in a man’s mind,) please don’t go looking for ugly women. You are wasting your precious time on an impossible quest. Look for beautiful, pretty, lovely, wonderful, fantastic, fabulous, super, great, glamorous women instead…and you’ll be swamped!
Search Term 3: queen elizabeth’s mom princess elizabeth
I googled that information for you, dear searcher…and when I read the first line on this link, felt so optimistic that I wanted to thank you for stopping by my blog.
Why?
Well, here’s why. Queen Elizabeth II’s mom, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was born in 1900 and she lived to a ripe old age (and I mean really truly completely ripe) of 102 years! Wow! But believe it or not Princess Alice is going to beat Queen Elizabeth Bowes Lyon’s record!
If you haven’t seen Queen Elizabeth II’s caricature on this blog, click here.
Search Term 4: Salvador Dali’s Eyebrows
Salvador Dali’s Eyebrows?!
Are you sure that you want to look at his eyebrows and not his mustaches?!
I think you should be looking at his mustaches – they are quite a pair. Here’s Salvador Dali’s Caricature – it’ll help you appreciate why this search made me wonder whether the searcher really knew was good for him.
Search Term 5: i hate my job+cartoon
Oh…oh. I am so sorry. You really hate your job? Do you? And I agree, you do become a cartoon when you begin to hate your job. In fact, you have to be Dilbert to love your work…right? In this horrible horrible world of today, who doesn’t want to be stuck inside a cartoon strip, free from the worries of loan-repayments and medical insurance premiums.
Search Term 6: half old woman half princess cartoon
You make a good point there. I think what you should be looking for is a cartoon of an old woman OR of a princess. In her mind, every old woman is a princess that she couldn’t be in real life (except of course, those anachronisms who even in this modern world stick to being Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses) and, every princess – from the day she’s born becomes an old woman – because she can’t do those little things that make life so much fun…because they have to corset not just their bodies but their emotions as well.
Search Term 7: unhygienic practices cartoons
Eeeyuck!
You mean – nose-picking, @$$-scratching, ever-spitting, not-flushing…etc. etc. etc. kind of cartoons??!!
But why…and where’s the humor?
Search Terms 8a,b,c,d: indian necked men/handsome indian naked men/indian ugly man
I am curious. Who are you dear searcher…and what exactly are you looking for. It’s clear that you want to look at an Indian Man but an indian “necked” man? What’s an Indian neck? Are you looking for a Caucasian male who’s had a neck transplant so that his neck looked Indian…or an Indian who has retained his Indian neck or had got a new neck…in any of those great shades of Indian browns?
Oh…oh. it was a typo…right? I looked at the second term and it dawned upon me that you are looking for Indian men au-naturel – and handsome ones too. Now you really need to check out my first post on SEO-matters of importance here. You may not succeed in your search, my friend of either gender.
But what’s that third term? You needed to do a Google search for that? Really? I mean all you had to do was switch channels and watch some political news!
Search Term 9: art from ajit ninan
Thanks for the reminder. I shall make the promised post about the wonderful Ajit Ninan soon:)
Search Term 10: SHAFALI HITLER!!!
No. I am not. I will not take that insult, dear Sir or Ma’am or Bot! I am, and shall remain Shafali the Artist, Shafali the Caricaturist, Shafali the Egoist. Shafali Hitler is one title that I am not going to take lying down. Beware, or I’ll let Hitler the Satan loose!
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Breaking News!—Breaking New!—-Breaking News!
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New information of highly sensitive nature has been leaked by the Wikileaks. Experts are unanimously of the opinion that this information will cause turmoil among not only the politicos of the world; it will also raise the blood-pressure of other kinds of celebrities.
It’s being conjectured that the leaked document is part of the Caricaturist’s hit-list, and it contains famous names such as:
When the Caricaturist was contacted about this leak, she refused to talk to the media, saying that “media only worked to made bad things appear worse!”
Important Note: The Journo who called up the Caricaturist notes: “It appears that The Caricaturist is suffering from a bloated ego. It is amply clear that her success as a still-not-starving artist has gone to her head.”
We shall shortly discover whether or not this partial list really is a part of the Caricaturist’s hit-list. However, the visitors would do well to remember that the Caricaturist is known for changing her plans at the last-minute, so we really can’t be completely sure!
But we shall see.
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Remember that you first read this here.
—Shafali’s Caricatures News Service…Making News out of Nothing!–
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Before I begin, let me tell you that the long tail that I am talking about is a funky name for a simple concept.
Most of the people who land on your blog through searches reach there by typing in search terms that aren’t a direct match to your content.
Here are some inspirational long-tail search terms that brought some innocent, unsuspecting visitors to this blog. In this post, I attempt to assuage their hurt feelings by addressing them directly.
Search Term 1: Nobody answers my question, cartoons:
My dear visitor, nobody answers my questions either. I think that we need to start a group of people with unanswered questions and start answering questions for one another. In fact we could swap one question for one answer. What are your thoughts?
Search Term 2: shafali’s cartoon:
Check out the sidebar. That maniacal looking brush-wielding woman with hula hoops in her ears, is Shafali – and the image that you are seeing is an extremely realistic portrait that has an unbelievable likeness to the subject – one of the many Shafalis who burden this Earth with their presence.
Search Term 3: naked avatars:
What?
Naked Avatars?
Whose?
Not of the Gods or the Goddesses or their messengers, I hope, for your sake. If you don’t know what I mean, please read about the Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the British Writer Salman Rushdie, and the Indian Artist Maqbool Fida Hussain whose lives became miserable because they attempted to create the naked avatars related to such delicate matters – either realistically or metaphorically. You won’t find that kind of explosive stuff on this moderate caricaturist’s blog.
However, if you are keen on a Non-naked blue-colored, long-bodied avatar of a human-turned Na’vi called Jack Sully, click here.
Search Term 4: football rat cartoon drawings
I have a question.
You want a cartoon drawing of a football-like rat, or a rat playing football, or rat-like football. I like the mouse type of rats who are homey and who prefer to play chess, dine with family, and raise nice educated kid-mice. I am slightly wary of the sword-wielding gladiator mouse, or even the rifle brandishing terrorist mouse…yet they have managed to chew their way into this blog. However, I don’t yet have football playing mice or rat here. Never thought of inviting them over – but thanks for the idea:)
The only time I’ve touched base with football is with this caricature of Troy Polamalu the Pittsburgh Steeler who blocks with his locks (Oh God, please…please…please – let me be right about blocking…or everyone would know that I know nothing about Football!)
Search Term 5: cartoons to draw out difference between force and pressure
This one is easy.
Close your eyes. Now imagine that you are…well…sitting on the toilet seat (a golden one perhaps!). Here’s the difference that you seek to discover:
You got it, didn’t you? Now be a doll, draw that cartoon, and leave me a link
Search Term 6: joker caricature
You must be joking! A joker’s caricature?! How do you caricature a joker? Uh…oh! You meant Anthony Weiner’s Caricature! But he’s already done a fantastic job of caricaturing himself – trying to beat him at it would be like trying to improve upon perfection.
Search Term 7: definitions of art by known people
You’ve reached the right place, my friend. Click here to read a definition of art by a known person. I am known to my family, my dog, those pesky squirrels in my garden…I am a known person, believe me.
Search Term 8: pen and ink foxes
Pen-and-ink drawings fox me too…and with dogged determination. I mean how do you correct an error in a pen-and-ink? And how do you end up creating all those shades by using only one shade of black! If you find an answer to that question, please leave it here.
Search Term 9: how to draw lady gaga’s outfits
It’s simple. Create a figure drawing of Lady Gaga (or use a cutout from a magazine – it’d serve equally well.) Keep two large buckets of paint handy. One should contain black paint, and the other white paint. Close your eyes. Dip your brush into one of the buckets and splash paint on the drawing. Then do it again, and again, and again. Then open your eyes, and rush into the kitchen. Find that bottle of tomato ketchup, open it up, and from a distance of at least six feet, throw the ketchup on the drawing. Remember to use the ketchup only once.
Every time you repeat this process, you’ll design a new Gaga Outfit…and yes…when you are done, call the spiders to help you spruce up the Lady Gaga outfits you’ve designed.
Search Term 10: prince charles cartooning
Guys and gals, this is news! Prince Charles is one of us! He’s a cartoonist! Imagine how difficult it must have been to keep such a phenomenal skill hidden from the paparazzi for so long? On second thoughts – can we thank Camilla Parker for inspiring him? Or was it Prince William who asked his father to follow his un-princely passion?
Search Term 11: muammar gaddafi 40 outfits
If a god-man can amass so much, what is 40 outfits for a dictator? I think Muammar Gaddafi is a miser who doesn’t spend on himself, he really needs to look towards certain god-men for inspiration!
Search Term 12: animated photos of handsome indian men
I don’t know about the “animated” part, but the term “handsome Indian men” makes me think whether the searcher would have done better by using a more specific search, such as: Hritik Roshan, Amitabh Bacchhan, Dev Anand, Salman Khan…at best a dozen more perhaps? Frankly, I am yet to see a “handsome Indian man” on the streets, though “beautiful Indian women” are aplenty. (I know I know, your son is the handsomest, fairest, and tallest man you’ve ever laid eyes upon, and young women swoon when he rolls past, but anyone other than your son, ma’am?)
(Important Declaration and Clarification: I know that using these terms here would bring some vicarious pleasures-of-the-flesh seeking netizens here, and I’d like to apologize to them for devastating their hopes.)
So what search terms on your blog have made you giggle/guffaw?(girls giggle, guys guffaw – please select what applies – unless you are new-age boy or girl…then you have the right to mix and match!)
by Barbara G.Tarn – Author
I grew up with Franco-Belgian and Disney comics, and I always loved illustrated stories. If you really wanted to know the evolution of this specific artist here, you’d learn that her first comic (co-written and co-drawn with her classmate Sara) dates from 1976-1977 when she was about 10.
When I finished high school, I looked for an alternative to boring university courses (and trust me, Italian universities DO NOT prepare you for your future working life, it’s all theory and no practice, hence a waste of time AND money). I found an Illustration course which, on the program, mentioned also comics and thought “That’s it!”.
Except I didn’t come from an artistic school and my talent is more in writing than drawing. My anatomy sucks, but I’m very good at tracing pictures! 
So I spent two years learning to use pencils first (which was OK), then brushes – I ain’t no painter at all. Watercolors? I’m hopeless. And I didn’t even get to oil paintings because I didn’t pass the second year (of three). So, waste of money, even if I learned a couple of techniques (pencils and ink with rapidographs – and I can use the name, as I was using Rotring products -, that was the 1980, computers were still for few elected artists). And no comics whatsoever, by the way.
By the mid 1990s, I started to go to Italian comicons, and doing my own zines. Photocopied, black&white comics, or graphic novels as they are now called, because they’re not infinite series with dozens of reboots like Marvel and DC comics.
So I kept drawing (in spite of failing my illustration course) and some 1500 pages later I guess I found my style. I learned (on my own) Photoshop coloring, so my latest works (available on Lulu) are in full color. My anatomy still sucks, but as long as I get my message through, well… we’re not all divine artists, are we?
I’m not Colleen Doran nor Terry Moore (my graphic novelists heroes), but I’m doing better than most, I think – maybe not commercially, but I do keep producing stuff. Perseverance and passion, they say.
When I finish my current graphic novel SKYBAND, I’ll start a new one which will be set in the same fantasy world but many centuries earlier, when the southern kingdoms are still powerful. I’ll have to learn to draw Indian clothes and Persian palaces, but I don’t mind – throw a blond gay barbarian in that midst, and I’m all set. I thought Shafali’s blog was the perfect place to give this sneak preview on my graphic novel projects because she’s Indian and she’s reading about those southern kingdoms in my novel Air right now!
I also wanted to say that after more than fifteen years I tend to use always the same faces in my graphic novels. Often the model is easily recognizable (my Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio and Keanu Reeves interpretations should be famous by now, under different names! ), sometimes it’s a mix (like Ylenia of SKYBAND who is a mix of Connie Nielsen and Blas Elias). I wish I were as cute as I draw myself (see either Lady Ice or Axelle of SKYBAND), but well… blame it on my not so great drawing skills! 
Anyway, I wanted to thank the Wonderful Caricaturist for having me here today and letting me ramble on art… Drawings, illustrations, caricatures – aren’t they all great?
Barbara G.Tarn is a writer, sometimes an artist, mostly a world-creator and story-teller. She’s been building her world of Silvery Earth for a number of years – stories comprise shorts, novels and graphic novels. An indie published author, she blogs at http://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com
The Caricaturist adds:
Remember happiness is many things…
Happiness also is…
"Happiness is..." is a Visual Series by Barb. Click the picture to visit Barb's blog for more Cartoons in this series.
Dear Visitors,
Your favorite caricature blog (ahem!) crossed the 100000 views milestone sometime last night. I am also happy to tell you that this post is my 200th post since this blog came into existence in December 2009.
I want to say that I enjoyed playing the blogging game, but I am also enjoying the score:) As Karma says, “Winning is as good as digging!”
100000 Views - Whats the big deal? Ask the Human.
I love the purity of numbers. If there were no numbers, we’d still be living without electricity, airplanes; we’d be living without the Internet! Can you imagine that?!
The 0s and the 1s – they are the fundamental building blocks of everything in this virtual world, and the number that’s my immediate favorite is made of 0s and 1s too
In my previous post “A Note of Thanks”, I thanked all those who made me smile during these 16 blogging months. In this post, I’d like to thank those who made it possible for me to blog. I’d like to thank the WordPress team for creating this fabulous blogging software and the Google Knol team for establishing the Knol platform, without which I couldn’t have written and published my book “How to Draw Caricatures – Evolution of a Caricaturist“, which has received about 40,000 views since I began writing it.
It’s customary to recount some interesting details of your journey, when such milestones are reached…so here’s the briefest of all summaries.
I’d like to say that though I was rather short of time this whole year, and I couldn’t really create as many caricatures as I’d have liked to, let alone visit other blogs; still there were some nice people who visited my blog. I also received a few nice emails and some heartening comments that kept me going. Thanks everyone (sniffle!)
That’s all for now…until I post the caricature of…the Hollywood Dracula:)
Wishing everyone the best of everything!
Regards,
Shafali
Dear Bloggers,
Welcome to the new edition of the Story-in-the-Caricature blog carnival. Call it a storytelling festival or a spark of inspiration for the writer within you – but write a story that wows your readers!
Here’s the caricature to inspire you
The rules haven’t changed – but I should repeat them for the new storytellers.
1. Write a story, small or big, about this caricature.
2. Publish the story on your blog, along with this caricature.
3. Leave the link to your post, as a comment to this post here.
4. The festival ends on April 30, 2011.
1. All the story links added for stories published along with the above caricature, until the last date, will be published on this blog in May 2011, along with your blog-address, and a link to the About Page of your blog.
2. The blog addresses of the participating bloggers will find way into my “The Storytellers” blog-roll.
3. We will also request all the story-writers to publish the links of other story-writers in a blog-post on their respective blogs. This will help the story writers find more readers – but of course, this would be voluntary.
4. The first blogger to do everything right (publish the story on his/her blog with the caricature, and then leave the link of the story against this post) will get the opportunity to name one international celeb that he or she would like to see caricatured.
Important Note:
Pornographic/Obscene Language won’t work:) so keep it clean.
Happy Writing:) I’ll wait…as I always do:)
NEW, IMPROVED?!
Dear Readers and Visitors,
I’ve been thinking about the “Tell-the-Story-in-the-Caricature” blog Carnival and though I tried very hard, I couldn’t let myself euthanize it. There’s a lot of life and promises left in the Carnival, but I guess I haven’t been able to do justice to it. So I took an off from the Carnival this month, and did something that artists are never given credit for doing. I chucked the pencil, sat down, and thought. Here’s what came of it.
1. The Carnival lives but it doesn’t stay confined to this blog. It moves. The writer who posts the first link gets to take the Carnival to her/his blog and then it remains there for that month. I’ll still do the caricature, but I send the caricature to the writer and she presents it on her blog. I’ll do a post promoting the carnival.
2. I’ll be able to bring the Carnival back by being the first to post a story for a caricature, and believe me, I have no qualms bringing it back:)
3. Oorvi won’t be writing any more stories for the Carnival. She tells me that she wants to write dog-stories, and I have told her that I don’t want to do dog-caricatures…so we are likes cats and dogs now – and we don’t see eye-to-eye.
My takeaway would be the happiness of seeing my caricature on your blog:) What do you think?
‘guess that’s about it. I’ll be posting the February 2011 Carnival soon and see if we can work with its New Improved Version.
Ideas for improvement would be appreciated, as long as they don’t include doing Free Caricatures because I don’t really have the bandwidth for it. I work about 14 hours a day, and the only reason I do caricatures is because I appreciate the freedom of doing what catches my fancy.
Will set the ball rolling if I get at least five votes in. More are appreciated:)
Another interesting idea (for the Artist Visitor of this blog) is brewing in my overworked mind…it’ll spillover shortly:)
Best Regards and Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Shafali the Caricaturist who wants to DRAW TO SMILE!
Update on Feb 02, 2011: The idea got just one vote in the last three days 
So…crish…crash…crush…idea balled up…and here it goes sailing into the waste-basket! More on this later. Ajay, thanks for your kind support:)
Well…well.
Finally my dog shook off her sloth, got out of her bed, and posted her story. You know how lazy she is…and so it shouldn’t surprise you that she’s posted her story as a .pdf. The good news is that the .pdf also includes the caricature, and so if you click the download button, you’d get something more than the WiseK9′s Twisty Tale “Walking in Circles”!
Do read the story to figure out why you can’t control everything, and why Sid keeps walking in circles.
That’s all for now…
And yes, please let me know if you’d like the Blog Carnival to continue…because I am not sure
The Story-in-the-Caricature blog carnival – December 2010 Edition, inspired one story, but it was worth it:) I loved the story and so did the other readers of this fascinating blog “A Connection to my Heart“
Dear Readers, Read the story, “Little Mo and the Shooting Star,” here, and read about this extremely versatile author who has a unique blogging perspective, here.
And now…about the other story, which my dog wrote on December 29, 2010; but which she didn’t post until now – I will wait until the WiseK9 lady condescends to make that post and inform her forever assistant about it:)
Bobbing up and down on the icy cold surface of Arctic Ocean…now dragging myself out of the water, onto a piece of snow-covered ice floating on the ocean…now looking at the seals…and also at the penguins…and…oh no!
<<SPLASH>>
<<GURGLE>>
Now looking a gigantic polar bear who looks hungry!
I don’t know how I ended up here. I’ve no clue. All I remember is – leaving the New Year Party at 3 AM, driving to New Delhi railway station, taking a walk on the beach at Connaught Place, collecting some shells, and then getting up on a camel to ride home.
I have some faint memories of the last fifteen days, and in all those memories, I see myself as a frozen ice-statue. Now freezing has its advantages – for instance:
So, now you know why I couldn’t blog all these days. Now, my friends, though trapped on the Arctic, I am thawed, alive, and well; and I’ve also found this laptop with a working Internet connection in the belly of the bear that must’ve snacked on another unfortunate netizen and his laptop, before he feasted on me. All this, and the cozy warm room in the bear’s stomach should help me regain my strength and help me get back to the world of the living soon.
Thanks for all those “I Miss you” notes that you were just about to write…my dear loving, caring visitors…I know how horrible it must’ve been for you…and though you didn’t express your sorrow…I know! Sniff…sniff!
<<CHOMP>>
<<BURP>>
Oh…Wow! I’ve got company.
Oh No! The idiot ate an insurance agent! I am doomed!
Coming up – December Blog Carnival Entries…
Bobbing up and down on the icy cold surface of Arctic Ocean…now dragging myself out of the water, onto a floating piece of ice covered with snow…now looking at the seals…and also at the penguins…and…oh no!
<<SPLASH>>
<<GURGLE>>
Now looking a humungous polar bear who looks hungry!
I don’t know how I ended up here. I’ve no clue. All I remember is – leaving the New Year Party at 3 AM, driving to New Delhi railway station, and then taking a walk on the beach, collecting some shells, and then getting up on a camel to ride home.
I have some faint memories of the last fifteen days, and in all those memories, I see myself as a frozen ice-statue. Now freezing has its advantages – for instance:
- You stop aging
- You stop breathing
- You stop thinking
- You stop drawing
- You also stop blogging!
So, now you know why I couldn’t blog all these days. Now, my friends, though trapped on the Arctic, I am thawed, alive, and well; and I’ve also found this laptop with a working Internet connection in the belly of the bear that must’ve snacked on another unfortunate netizen and his laptop, before he feasted on me. All this, and the cozy warm room in the bear’s stomach should help me regain my strength and help me get back to the world of the living soon.
Thanks for all those “I Miss you” notes that you were just about to write…my dear loving, caring visitors…I know how horrible it must’ve been for you…and though you didn’t express your sorrow…I know! Sniff…sniff!
<<CHOMP>>
<<BURP>>
Oh…Wow! I’ve got company.
Oh No! The idiot ate an insurance agent! I am doomed!
This is the time when all smart people buy new diaries and write their New Year Resolutions in their best handwriting. This post is for the Resolution Drafters of the world. I wish you all a very Happy New Year in which you are able to keep all your resolutions (or at least most of those that matter.)
Here’s a list of possible resolutions that you could add to your Charter of Resolutions.
You could resolve to:
1. Give up smoking! (once again, and hope that you’ll be able to keep this resolution for more than two days.)
2. Make your current, ex! (And ensure that you do it just once in the New Year.)
3. Find a New Job! (Which you’d realize becomes an old job before the year ends.)
4. Love your spouse as much as you love your dog…or cat (and fail. Because you’d realize that this is an impossible-to-keep resolution.)
5. Not become depressed. (Not even trying to figure out ways to contain your depression.)
6. Give up drinking (Same as “Give up Smoking.”)
7. Lose weight (for a fortnight, and then gain double back.)
8. Make up with your Mother-in-Law (by sending her a card sprinkled with itching powder.)
9. Get your first book published (and not mope when you sell three copies – bought by your mom, your sister, and your dog.)
10. Make no more resolutions that you can’t keep!
The good news is that this List of Resolutions is re-usable! You can use it again in 2011, 2012…and so on. It’s got a forever shelf life
Wish you a Happy New Year 2011!
Dear visitors, bloggers made of matter as well as antimatter, and all other esteemed treasure-seekers,
The November 2010 Storytelling Blog Carnival was…well, to be honest…it had but one participating entry – so, you can’t even say that it was a carnival
But let’s not worry about the past; let us charge into the future!
Here’s the caricature for the December Carnival.
What's his story?
1. Write a story, small or big, about this caricature.
2. Publish the story on your blog, along with this caricature.
3. Leave the link to your post, as a comment to this post here.
4. The festival ends at the midnight of December 31, 2010.
1. All the story links added for stories published along with the above caricature, until the last date, will be published on this blog in January 2011, along with the blog-address, and a link to the About Page of your blog.
2. The blog addresses of the participating bloggers will find way into my “The Storytellers” blogroll, and of course in the Carnival posts that I make through out this month.
3. We will also request all the story-writers to publish the links of other story-writers in a blog-post on their respective blogs. This will help the story writers find more readers – but of course, this would be voluntary.
This blog has absolutely no tolerance for pornography and abusive language and so any comment/story containing such material will automatically disqualify from the Carnival.
Let your creative juices flow…tell us your story
I have been invited to speak at a seminar called “Psychological Matters” in a parallel world made of Antimatter. They have couriered an antimatter suit that I should get into at that exact point in time when I step over the threshold of the portal.
The problem is, the CERN scientists got a whiff of it (what with NSA breaking all humanitarian laws to go snooping and sniffing into the emails of innocent people like me) and they traded the information with CERN for their share of Antimatter when its isolated in a reasonable quantity. The grapevine says that as a down payment they are demanding half of the Million Antiprotons that have been isolated. So there’s this flock of CERN scientists running after me. They want me to lead them to the Antimatter, and because despite all their theories they haven’t been able to find out where all that antimatter of the matter-ial universe landed after the Big Bang!
I was to return in two days – but now I am scared. I expect those scientists to be lurking near the portal, hoping to get into the portal as I get out of it…and there’s going to be a stampede, I assume because when in a crowd, even the scientists don’t think – so they’d be climbing over one another to snatch the antimatter suit from me and get to the other side!
All this is too scary to be posted in your favorite Caricature blog – isn’t it? I’d even classify it as mature matter! So please stay away – expect explosions in a couple of days from now – when I return!
Dear Friends, Readers, Visitors – regular and random, Fellow Bloggers, and Everyone else who happens to chance upon this post,
I am making this special post to mark this once-in-a-blog’s-lifetime occasion:-) This dear blog of mine was born last December, it hasn’t yet celebrated its first Birthday…and so I am mighty proud of my virtual blog-child for having achieved 50,000 views!
Wowie!
When I started this blog I started it because I wanted to share with the world the happiness that I derived from the act of drawing. Despite being an artist and despite artists having a reputation of being critical of numbers – I respect numbers for their objectivity. I looked around for some data on blogging and realized that the 50K mark is considered an occasion to celebrate – and so I thought that I should celebrate too:)
Dear visitors, thank you for visiting – I hope that I will continue to draw new caricatures and that they’ll in turn, continue to draw you here:)
Dear WordPress Team, thank you for creating and managing such a wonderful, easy-to-use, and friendly blogging software. I would probably never have blogged if it weren’t for WordPress!
I am setting up the Blog Stats (Views Counter) in the sidebar for a few day:)
Thanks and Best Wishes,
Shafali the Caricaturist.
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