Contest – murder mystery

‘A Mystery is History!!’

Catchy lines from my son’s favourite ‘Tigger and Pooh’ 🙂

I love Mysterys. Always enjoyed reading them. Watching TV serials like Byomkesh Bakshi (olden days), and more recently, Special Squad (especially Aryan Khanna 😉 ) and D.O.N (Remember, Mr.Archana Puran Singh? Er… Detective Omkar Nath)

So when Blogadda wanted to make the community more exciting, I suggested this concept of a WHO-DUNNIT mystery. For the last year or so, I’ve been a huge fan of Ajay‘s stories. When I asked him if he would be interested in writing the mystery for this contest, he very kindly agreed. And what a little gem he produced! On Blogadda’s request (and Ajay’s permission ofcourse), I peppered the story with some clues and distractions 🙄 😛 and it was nice to see the concept coming to life 🙂

To confess, I was really nervous about how the blogworld would respond to this contest. Then, WOW! What a bunch of interesting entries poured in!! What was equally fascinating was the ‘comments section’ with Suranga and the others exuding their sparkling wit in the form of poems, limericks and two-liners 🙂

I am sure Sidin had a really tough time doing his job!! Its a pity though, that ‘only 2 of the entries were pronounced winners’! However, like Ajay rightly said, its the umpire’s decision that is final.

Tiku had asked me/Ajay to comment on the results. Ajay has already commented on the Blogadda website. And I would like to take the liberty to name a few of the entries that I found interesting.

Imho, this was a contest of judging not only the correct answer but also the quality of writing. I whole-heartedly agree with blogger Asheesh who said this is about the inner Ekta Kapoor 😉 😉

Strictly, in my opinion: Lila had killed herself. That’s part I. Part II – the way it was carried out/motive/etc. of course is very subjective.

Bloggers had very seriously donned the detective’s hat and came up with extremely imaginative and creative suggestions of the killer/motive/weapon. Some spoke of poisoned beads, some of liquid HCN (wonder what that means 🙄 ), some others of poisoned roses It was real fun 🙂 entries by Gyanban – (who also cheekily tried to mislead people into guessing 😉 ) – Gosh! This guy must work with Scotland Yard!!! and Chatterbox‘s who was quite convincing.

I liked the entries by bloggers like Niveditha, Anu and Sudhakar who took tremendous effort to ‘understand’ Lila’s character, and then come up with a solution. They were all, for a moment, or several moments, Lila herself. I loved Urmi’s line ‘She was Lila, she couldn’t bow down even before the wishes of the Almighty’

Avada Kedavra nailed it with these lines: ‘Nobody in this house was capable of killing her. Moreover, nobody had any reason or motive what-so-ever to kill her, after these many years’

Shankha’s entry was very interesting and Soumya’s was straight-forward and convincing.

I also enjoyed reading the very sleuthy (is there such a word even?!!) solutions by bloggers like the Paranormal Guy, Chandana.

This particular wannabe writer was extremely creative in her presentation of the answer. Her entry was a class apart!!

Ashwini again got the answer simple and straight, but a little explanation would have done the trick.

Enjoyed the way Brindha has given a logical explanation for all those supposed clues, which really were meant to be distractions.

Blogger Archangel very cleverly took an alternate stance, that ‘No smart lady would kill herself’.

Unfortunately, I could not find this particular entry in her blog… hmm.. is this the beginning of the NEXT MYSTERY???!!!

The more I think of it, the more I wish we could have had atleast 3 winners 😉 and even that would be a challenge!!

And now, a totally uninvited vote of thanks:

Thanks to Blogadda for accepting my ideas/suggestions. It has really made me think!! So my blog friends, be ready for more such events!!!!!

Thanks to Ajay for so readily accepting to write a story, when he hardly knew me 🙂 except through Ryze! I am sure we will see your work in print some day. And I will hound you for an autographed copy 🙂

Thanks to Tiku (and the rest of my blog-buddies) for being such a darling friend. If I have got anything out of this entire contest, it is friendship 🙂

Thanks to ALL MY BLOGGER FRIENDS. You make me feel good about myself 🙂 Thank you 🙂 So much 🙂

Cheers..

Pal