My entry into the blogosphere.

Many light years ago, I was sitting in office, jobless, when my inbox told me that I had got a mail from my uncle. I opened the mail to see a link. I clicked on it and followed it to an Indiatimes blog. A blog? What on earth was that? I employed the services of Google and was swamped with millions of results. I did some exploring, and a new term, a new concept found a place in my brain.

I promptly started a blog of my own in Indiatimes. Then the thought struck me. Why on earth would people want to read what I write? Coming to think of it, why would I want to put up my thoughts on the net for all to read? I immediately abandoned it, and my brand new blog languished, empty and wordless.

A few days later, I started getting a particular forward repeatedly. "Travails of Single South Indian Men...." it said, and it was a laughter riot. I must have received it at least 50 times, no exaggeration. As always I wanted to find out who wrote it. No clue in the forward. It went on for a few months. Each time I got the forward, I opened it to see if there was any clue as to the author of the piece. [A note to the reader: If you ever forward a piece of writing to people, or spread it around, always, please, acknowledge the author or the source, and include a link.] Finally one forward contained the words "By Sidin Vandukut" (sic). Aha, I had my clue! I turned to Google again, and got lost briefly, thanks to the mis-spelling. But I was back on track in no time, and landed at Sidin Vadukut's uproariously funny blog. Blog! Again! This thing must be catching up, I thought. I found some more blogs through his. I realised that I needed a Blogger account to comment on some of those, so I dutifully signed up and started a blog, and had a one line post in it too.

Shortly after that, I opened a copy of The Week to read Jon Stock's column "Last Word". He had an interesting piece on blogging and the internet. It was about how he thinks that thanks to the power of the internet, bloggers are accountable for what they write, despite their impression that they don't have too much of an audience. He narrated how he was googling for his new book, and found a "review" on a blog which belonged to Vivek. You can read the entire article here. I admit I was rather tickled at this. Visions arose, of me reviewing books by my favourite authors, and they googling me out and arriving at my site. The visions vanished when it struck me that most of my favourite authors are dead. Anyway, I left a comment on Vivek's blog using my brand new Blogger id. Vivek followed the link back to my blog, and was kind enough to leave the first comment on my one-line post. And yes, I still follow his writing. :)

Finally I decided it was time to test blogging waters, and resurrected my Indiatimes blog, and wrote some random nonsense under a pseudonym. To my surprise, I got positive feedback. But I was still not convinced. Before I started a proper blog under my own name, I wanted to know what people write about and why they do it. I desperately wanted some blogs to read, but did not know where to find them, and so I was just groping in the dark. Finally I chanced upon the IIPM-bloggers controversy, and discovered simultaneously, the power of the blogosphere, and some very read-worthy blogs. Then I found Desipundit. Just want I wanted. A guide to some good Indian writing on the net. Over the next couple of months, I read a lot of well-written stuff in the Indian blogosphere.

Finally I was ready to start blogging. But I still did not. Hesitation. Then one day, Ravi came to my blog via a comment, and left the second comment on my single-line post. I replied to him, and we struck up a friendship, with him urging me to start blogging. That was probably the trigger. I had some stuff that I had written, lying around, and I very bravely put it up as a post. That was it. There has been no stopping me ever since.

Now you know whom to blame.