What? Don’t look at me like that with those accusatory, how-could-you-let-us-down eyes! It’s all your fault! Yes, you, you and especially you, hiding in the corner! You had a hundred new Gmail account invites available. Not one, not two. A hundred! But did you use them? Noooo. Who were you saving them for? Your grandmother? Even her dog has a Gmail account now. woofwoof@gmail.com. So there.

You could have hired some heavies to beat up innocent voters, no? No. Too much hard work, it seems. Did you at least try to surreptitiously hack into the poll and delete votes to tilt the result in my favor? Of course not. You had to go develop ethics and and a sense of propriety and wotnot. You big saint-with-halo-around-head, you. So then? I didn’t win. Are you proud of yourself now? Are ya? Are ya?

I had a good mind to classify you all into three flattering groups —

• Lazy bums. Cannot bring themselves to vote.
• Traitors. You know who you are and I don’t want to know who you are.
• Clueless. Cannot retrieve poll link from their spam folder in Gmail.

But my faith in you may be stirred, but is not shaken. You see, I came in second and third! Which, as any patriotic Indian watching the Olympics will tell you, counts. By golly, it does. My optimism (and not my denial, I’ll have you know) tells me, that the votes probably got split because people were overwhelmed by the blinding brilliance of the two designs but couldn’t pick both.

Plus, as I always say — true genius is often underappreciated, so my not being valued is simply an indication of my profound genius. And thus with a heavy heart I humbly accept the burden. Now I just need to find some bubbly to drown myself in.

Regular programming returns soon. Oh shuttup. Don’t snigger.

You know how it is when the doorbell rings on a Saturday morning, and the cute guy who moved in next door has stopped by to borrow the Yellow Pages, except that you are in your frumpiest nightgown and your face is covered in a mix of besan + haldi (like an unfried soggy pakora), precise proportions of which have been drilled into your head by a concerned mother over various international phone calls? This is exactly like that.

‘A walk in the clouds..’ got nominated for Best Design at the IndiBloggies this year. Yay! (Saying which she scurries off to fix all the nagging XHTML and CSS validation errors before people notice them.) It has now been established that this blog is the official bimbette of the desi blogosphere. People visit it for its looks, not for what it has to say. Tsk tsk.

Of course this nomination comes at a time when I am barely blogging, forget irregularly blogging. So perhaps there is some sense in the whole nominate-for-looks-and-not-for-content funda. Of course, they could have run this award thingamajig when I was at the peak of my blogging stardom (?), when I was signing autographs with one hand (!) and waving to the masses all diva-like with the other (?!). But noooo. They go do it *now*. Now, when I have very little to say, my readers have given up on me, and I have nothing to bribe them back with. Bah.

As a solace, a cool little thing has happened. blogchaat, another blog that I designed, also got nominated. (For design too! Bimbettes of the world unite!) So major cheap thrills at being up against myself! The multiple persona thingy seems to have finally paid off.

So please head over to the polling page, and stuff the ballots generously. I am supposed to do the gracious thing and ask you to vote for whoever you think is most deserving, but grace and I haven’t been on talking terms for years now. So vote for me. Me me me! Meghalomania. Did I mention me? (Polls close on the 20th of February.)

If I say that I’ll post more often in return for your vote, you’ll just laugh in my face. But honestly, you have my heartfelt gratitude for your continued faith. Whoever nominated me, I appreciate the thought and support very much. In the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it world of blogging, a gesture like that is a big deal. Thank you, in all seriousness. Now pliss vote.

The first time it came around, we did this. Then we tried this. But this time we’re keeping it simple. ‘A walk in the clouds..’ turns three today. Yay, whee and other assorted good stuff. No no. No gifts please. Well, if you absolutely insist, wonly cash donations, ancestral property and home-made mithaai, dankyouverrymuj.

Three years. Huh. Who’d have thunk?

Regular programming resumes next week.