They say, all good things come to an end. And the time has come for the Indibloggies to bid adieu. Yes dear readers, Indibloggies is pulling its shutters down.
It amazes me that what started as a simple backyard fun clique in 2003 survived so long and hopefully brought some happiness in the Indiblogdom. Sadly, Indibloggies (and in fact my blogging and other online activities too) were not getting the required attention in my current scheme of things. Even the 2008 edition stretched way too far. Being the procrastinator that I am, took me a while to decide, but here now, its decided.
Many still find it hard to believe that Indibloggies has been a one-man driven effort, but I think I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without help from umpteen fellow bloggers, who extended help in running various phases of this online event. I would cherish their help, interest and encouragement. I also should thank you, dear reader, who kept a tab on this event, year after year. Your messages helped me keep the site going. Thanks you all! Cheers!
The Fake IPL Player (henceforth to be known as FIP) needs no introduction. Last year during the Indian Premier League, a blog suddenly appeared that was purportedly written by a fringe ‘anonymous’ player of one of the IPL’s most popular franchises. Giving a warts-and-all brutally irreverent fly’s eyes view of the inner workings of a doomed team and liberally peppered with salacious accounts of off-field superstars (whose actual identities were hidden behind easily-guessable monikers –a few of which like Kaan Molu and Appam Chutiya have since become part of our vocabulary) the FIP became a viral Internet phenomenon.
Who was FIP? Was he actually a player? Was it a publicity gimmick? More importantly, was this the truth? Or like everything else we are told, the ardha-satya?
The FIP became water-cooler talk in every office where cricket is discussed as people poured over screens dissecting the allusions to real players in posts. Certain players were suspected, a newspaper even broke the so-called identity of FIP and then retracted, the said franchise came up with an official statement on their blog, and as the FIP’s posts sounded realistically accurate, confusion became more confounded. The world waited eagerly till the end of the tournament, not just because it was overtly long but because FIP promised to reveal his identity only then.
He did. Well not really. In a video which showed his shadow, the FIP confessed to not being a player. Then who was he? Just a Indian cricket fan, but not an ordinary one. One who during “the faceless journey of life”, happened “to get intimately exposed to cricket. From the Kings of Bollywood to the pimps of cricket and vice-versa”, an experience that converted him into “an insider, the the fly on the wall, the ghost in the darkness.”
He left with a promise.
Well the FIP is back to make history. With his book ‘Gamechangers’ being brought out by Harper Collins. And to tell you more is the man himself in his first ever interview. In conversation with the winner of the “Indiblog of the Year” award winner Arnab Ray.
In case you are wondering, this interview is not due to the fact that both FIP & Arnab share the publisher (Arnab’s book ‘May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss‘, published by Harper Collins would be out in March 2010). It is normally the tradition that the winner of the top laurels, “Indiblog of the Year” award, is interviewed at Indibloggies. However we felt that since he had been interviewed after winning the same award before it would be better that we did an interview of someone else. And FIP, the winner for 2008 Indibloggies Sports Blog of the Year, was the obvious choice.
Enough talk. Silence. Here he is. The Fake IPL Player. For the first time since he stopped blogging.
Woh ghadii aa he gayii! The Indiblogosphere has given its verdict and has chosen a new set of winners from over 150 worthy contenders across 16 varied categories. The final phase of Voting at the Indibloggies 2008 event had total 4876 votes cast over a span of two weeks. The figures may be small, but being recognized as a blogger extraordinaire by your own community is no small an achievement.
“Random Thoughts Of A Demented Mind” authored by Arnab Ray has won the top laurels of the “Indiblog of the Year 2008″. His blog has won in this and the “Most Humorous Blog” category for the second consecutive time at the Indibloggies. Please join me in congratulating him and all the other winners on their triumph. With this win Arnab also makes it to the coveted “Indibloggies Hall of Fame“. Congratulations!
I thank all the participants, the Jurors and the Sponsors for their help and encouragement. Hearty congratulations to all the winners.
Following is the complete list of Winners:
Interested in statistics? The final tally for each category is available here.
Winners, please send an email to indibloggies at gmail dot com with subject PRIZE CLAIM 2008, stating your Indian postal address and contact details so that prizes could be sent to you in due time.
You nominated your favourite blogs, the Jury carefully selected and lined up the deserving contenders for the final rally. Now the ball is back in your court. We invite you to be part of the final phase, Phase-III of the Indibloggies 2008 edition, the public polls. Vote for your choicest blog/website from amongst the nominees in 16 categories, and help us decide the worthy winner.
The Voting would continue from 25 Nov 2009 to 10 Dec 2009. Remember, you would be required to provide a valid email address to be able to register your votes. Note that you can vote for as many categories as you wish to.
After an unmentionable wait we are here with the final list of nominated blogs for the 2008 Indibloggies. Thanks again to all of you for suggesting all these wonderful blogs and to the Indibloggies Jury for carefully going through thousands of blogs and rating them. Watch out for the announcement of the final polls.
Notes: 1. The “Best IndiBlog directory/service/clique/network” category was dropped due to insufficient number of nominations received. 2. IB-2008 edition is running late, note that the nominations happened in Feb 2009 and the Jury rating process happened in March/April 2009, since then some Blogs have either moved or are now defunct. However, since they existed at the mentioned URLs at the time of nomination/Juror rating phase we have listed the URLs we have on our records. We urge you to vote for such blogs based on your best judgment.
