RESULTS: I dream About Contest
"You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one,” said John Lennon in his famous song Imagine. This contest on Blogjunta has just proved it to be true. :)
In the ‘Author’s Note’ of my novel Dream’s Sake, I have confessed that I dream on a wholesale basis. Seems like, I really am ‘not the only one.’ And thank God for that! I do believe that the world would have stagnated long ago had it not been for dreams and dreamers. For dreams give rise to hopes, hopes push one to endeavour and it is endeavour that gets all things done in the world, right?
Long ago, people looked at the vast ocean and dreamed of one day crossing it and discovering distant lands. And the age of voyage and discovery was brought in. Then our dreams took a higher flight and envisioned reaching the stars and the moon. The age of space exploration was brought in. If you notice, almost every discovery and advancement in the world has its seed in a dream of some passionate soul.
But dreams don’t just lead to success and achievements. A passionate dreamer goes through a hell lot of misery and emotional stress till his or her dreams turn into reality. I know, because I have been through that hell too. Dreams give you hope, strength to your aspirations, flight to your ambitions, but also inescapable restlessness to your spirit and a constant battle between hope and despair to your heart. A broken dream is as painful, if not more, as a broken heart.
My novel, Dream’s Sake, too shows this battle between hopes and dreams and despair and heartache. It has two love stories running simultaneously together. And in the path of both the stories stand Dreams. Aashi, the main heroine of Dream’s Sake is a big time dreamer. She lives in her world of dreams and of reality she ‘knows little and cares even less.’ But destiny, you know, loves toying with dreams. And it sometimes makes your very dreams as your biggest obstacle to happiness. This destiny brings Aashi’s fondest dreams on the verge of breakdown. But love of Abhi is there to protect them. For Abhi, Aashi’s dreams are more valuable than even his life. And he is ready to go to any extent for her Dream’s Sake.
But I hope and sincerely pray that the dreams that were shared with me through the posts submitted to the ‘I Dream About’ contest won’t have to face any such antagonistic fate. There were some really beautiful dreams that were unfolded to me in the posts submitted.
So, first of all, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all the participants who so beautifully shared their dreams with us. In these posts, I came across some really inspired dreams, some excellent poetry, and a lot of brilliant writing.
There were several posts that I found excellent, but unfortunately, a bit unrelated to the topic. So, though I could not choose them winners, I would really like to mention them here and I hope many would visit these posts and enjoy them. LeoPaw's post titled Romantic Hypnosis is something I found to be really well written. Land of Lungis by Madri Prasad was really interesting too. The post 'I Dream About' was very inspiring. It was very relevant to the topic too, but just got bettered by others. Then there were several poems that I really liked and found intense and touching. These include ‘But Let Those Broken Dreams Be Mine,’ ‘Dream About A Fairy Tale Romance’ by Prasanna, ‘No One Around’ by Gaurav Khurana and ‘Dreams of Life’ by Ronita. These are all beautiful poems, but unfortunately, all are about broken dreams and lost hopes, whereas the contest asked for the dreams that are still thriving and throbbing with life.
Finally, let us come to the best 6 posts of which the top 3 will get the signed copies of my novel Dream’s Sake. I judged the entries on the basis of relevance to the theme, excellence of writing, and their ability to grasp the reader and maintain their interest. Well, here are the winners:
1. Balaji - I Dream of Tomorrow With Eternal Sunshine
2. Prosenjeet Paul - Dreams Galore
3. Rekha - I Dream About
4. Animesh - I Dream About: A Moment Lost in Time5. Autopubile - Dreams Are My Reality6. Deepak Karthik S - I have a dream in my eyes
Each of the first three winners will get a signed copy of Dream’s Sake. The top 6 Entries to be featured at Blogjunta.com and yes all 6 get the winner Badge.
I congratulate all the winners. And I would once again like to thank all the participants for taking part in the contest and giving me the opportunity to read such fabulous writing. I hope I have been wise and fair in my judgement. But if you find it otherwise, please excuse me thinking that joy of reading is a very subjective experience. And I could only judge by what I felt while reading the posts.
Thanks,
Sincere good wishes for all the participants.
Jyoti Arora