For someone like me who has been in this blogging world since 2009, it is strange that I haven’t had much success in terms of accolades or awards. It is sad, but not a tragic situation. The idea of blogging was always about reading good articles and interacting with like minded people on a platform in which it is more or less safe to do so. I know of many people who have started blogging under pseudonyms and then later changed into their actual names. I have seen people do the vice versa too.
There was this one particular young girl, who wrote very well articulated articles and that too with perfect language and lots of research. After a few months of following her, she left her blogging identity. She even wrote a post as to why she is leaving her real name and taking up a new fake identity. She said , with her real identity she was forced to be a “Politically Right” person. She was in college at that point in time and I was raising two young kids. But she was my first teacher in the blogging world. Her last post opened my eyes to the harsh truth of this blogging world.
I was not really sure why she did what she did at that point, because I hadn’t noticed any kind of harsh interactions on her blog to lead to such a decision. This lesson I later learnt the hard way. Then I was a new blogger on the block and I was busy reading housewives posts on their children and their interactions with their friends. Most of them funny. I was reading young employed women who were learning the ropes of living an independent life after college. Some discussed office bloopers and anecdotes. I read mothers of infants jotting down their toddler’s antics and glowing with motherly love. Some reviewed movies or books they had read. I read travelers talk about their travels and commented on beautiful pictures. This inspired me to take up photography again. I have always had a camera of my own while growing up and I have umpteen albums filled with family pictures that can easily make a slide show of anyone in my family from the time I know them till the time I got married.
I tried my hand at all kinds of posts. The only kind I stayed away from were blogs about current affairs. General mundane news articles that get discussed in detail. More than awareness, these, according to me created confusion. At least some of them did.
I did end up commenting on a few controversial issues and that let to many to and fro comment strings. Generally from friends of the blogger rather than the blogger themselves. That is when I realized, blogging is all about friendships. Blogging is a big playground with so many kids who either took nothing seriously or everything seriously!
I have blogged about my personal experiences, so till date not many brickbats flew my way. But I have had a few bitter experiences on other blogs. A few on a male bashing blog, that I seriously don’t remember much about. I didn’t learn anything constructive from those. One was about a topic that was close to my heart. A certain blogger made a snide remark about NRIs in Dubai. I know I should have kept quiet but that was a time when my parents were leaving Dubai for good and that remark struck a chord! A personal blog doesn’t mean you can bash a certain section of the community and justify it as “just my ramblings”. But I learnt a lesson from that experience, to stay away from such blogs!
Yet another one was about a religious belief that I strongly believed in. In the sense, just like we all believe that God is there , even though we haven’t met him, certain beliefs are best left alone. I learnt a very valuable lesson from that experience. Never tell a MAN that he might be wrong. Especially if you are “just a nice face” YOUNG(????) lady and nothing else.
Ironically , none of these are the reasons for deleting my old blog and starting a fresh stint. The reasons were purely personal. I was fighting a couple of personals battles back then. I had shifted base to India for a while, and wanted to start a brand new e life too. But then fate brought me back to being an NRI!
Many of you know the turmoil my life went through since I got back here. It’s only recently that my life has come on to some sort of a safe ground. And I have blogged through all of it. I continue to do so.
Very recently I came across a ranting about blogging blog post on a blog that is entirely new to me. She is in college I presume, and has been blogging for two years. She has classified all the blogs she has read so far and defamed all varieties. According to her, two types of blogs get noticed, personal ramblings and the really COOL ones. Mind you before this statement she had put down every kind of blog that I have ever read so far. So what exactly are COOL blogs? I was SOOOO tempted to comment and tell her to quit blogging if she was so frustrated with it and also to explain what a COOL blog is. But I refrained. Experience has taught me to stay away from Hate posts! It is SOOO not worth the energy and time.
I certainly don’t know what to blog about anymore! Nope, not a writers block. It’s more of a blogger’s block! A fellow blogger has just categorized all blogs as a waste of time! Do you think so?
