Wanna Whack! Winners announced!

When we thought of this contest, we wanted the bloggers to vent out their frustration. After reading all the wonderful entries that took part in the contest, we feel we were able to achieve what we wanted to. Our contests are just not about winning. It is lot more than that. It is now time to hand over the post to Vijayendra Mohanty who is here with the results. Vijayendra Mohanty is a Delhi-based writer/blogger. He is currently writing a series for Level 10 Comics and also working on a graphic novel called Ravanayan. He blogs at vmohanty.com. Vijayendra the post is all yours now.

Vijayendra writes:

I remember having a discussion online somewhere regarding the movie A WEDNESDAY. The issues the movie raised as well as the emotions it evoked in all of us were almost universal. But someone I know said that what Naseeruddin Shah’s character did should serve as a pointer for all of us. He was actually advocating doing what the character did.

I pointed out that Naseeruddin Shah did not take the government ransom to avenge the common man. What he did was play the role of someone who takes the government ransom and avenges the common man. There is a big difference between telling a story and living it. Telling the story is important because it helps people relate with each other, it says, “Hey! Me too.”

This is the reason competitions like this one draw interest. As people living in modern India, most of us share a lot many experiences on a daily basis. A fairly large percentage of these experiences piss us off. Sharing of these experiences brings us together. While an occasional actual whack may provide short-term gratification, telling stories about the whack-worthy people in our lives makes for a more constructive way of living.

I do not like to judge. It is a painful job and also an avoidable one. As someone once said, “competitions are for horses, not for artists.” Having said that, when BlogAdda asked me to choose 3 out of a total of 27 blog entries in this competition, I knew that the “winners” would be more a reflection of my own taste than their supposed merit. But that is the way of everything that is judged. Merit is subjective and balance is never struck.

The three posts that I did end up choosing as the best, I chose on the basis of three criteria. The first was plain old readability — or how well was the tale told (a well-told bad story is better than a good story badly told). The second criterion was seeing how much I related with the post (I have to care enough about your story to pay it attention). The third and final consideration was wit (funnier is mostly better).

• Want to Whack ? by Vani: Vani presents her set of whack-worthy people as characters in a humorous little personal essay. Her post exposes apathy and selfishness in others while at the same time making fun of her own little weakness towards civility. I liked it for its tone and its humour.
• Whack!! this Wednesday……”???? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???” by Punit Dubey: I asked myself if my primary reason behind choosing Punit’s post was the language it was in — it was not. Punit’s list of whack-worthy characters is witty and extremely well-written. It made me laugh AND it caused me to relate with it — two qualities of all good writing.
• Wanna Whack? by Bedlam: Manna’s list of domestic whackos is something most of us can relate with. I found her post both amusing and endearing. Mostly because they revolve around a small everyday circle of people. These are some of the things that define any urban person’s life.

Thank you Vijayendra for taking the time out and judging this contest. Friends, thanks a lot for participating. There is another contest for you to look forward to this weekend. 🙂 Dig up your flickr photostreams, your old family albums and any other source and post your best 5 travel photos to win. Do not forget to read the second part of the wonderful interview of Kanika Bahl.