A Blogger looks back: August 2012

Recently I started this practice of posting a blogger’s reflection post at regular intervals. The main purpose was twofold – to acknowledge awards from other blogger and to mention any blogging milestones. Recently I have received a couple of tags. While earlier I was just accepting awards without answering the tags, I have finally decided to answer tags as well. As they say, do in blog-o-sphere what bloggers do. No way I can turn up my nose when so many blogger more illustrious than me are taking these tags, eh? Talking of turned up noses, anyone seeing my marriage photos will think us an arrogant family. But the reason for me and my mom’s turned up noses was a bad cold. So we had to hold our nose high to keep it from running away.

As many of you might have noticed, I have put up a static façade for my blog instead of showing the latest post in the front page. Thought that will direct readers to the old posts under various categories instead of reading just the latest posts because my posts are generally a creative expression and not opinions on current issues. But so far it looks as if that is not working out. So I guess I need to reconsider that strategy. I am also thinking of buying a domain. I have been considering multiple approaches. I am thinking if instead of migrating en masse, I should start from scratch and move quality posts one at a time. Hopefully I will decide something in the next month or so.

Next thing is IBL, an interesting concept of a team competition for bloggers on the lines of IPL. It started off well and energy levels of bloggers were high. But off late it has been plagued by controversies with two teams walking out and other teams raising concerns about lack of transparency in the judging process. But still overall it is a commendable effort and I must appreciate Deepak Karthik, Akshay and Binoy for pioneering this concept. As far as the topics go, I personally have liked all the topics and feel they are well thought out and give good opportunity for creative expression. I have been part of the team Bangalore Bloggers Bistro and so far have been enjoying the contest. We are now second in the points table and look well set to enter the semi-finals. But more than winning and losing, it is the camaraderie that is the wonderful part. I got to make friends with so many wonderful bloggers through this event. We also had a meeting where 6 of us met – Harsha, Leo, Gyanban, Tina, Santosh and Sibi. We are hoping we will extend this beyond just IBL and develop a vibrant Bangalore blogger community.

Within a month of our IBL meet, we had the grand bloggers meet organized by IndiBlogger sponsored by Surf. This was my first open bloggers meet. It was good to meet the rest of the IBL team in Bangalore – Princess Poo, Thousif and Nabanitha. It was good meeting some of my other blogger friends as well – Farida, C.Suresh, Keerthi, Tavish and Asha. I also made friends with a few new bloggers – Ghanchakkar, Mahesh and Anthony. I thought I will make a full post on the meet. But I am not good at all these factual descriptive stuff. So thought I will just mention in the reflections post. Overall the event was well organized, people got lot of goodies, there was lot of fun activities and sponsors also did not try to hog the limelight. I was a bit overwhelmed meeting all the friends I did not participate too much in the rest of the activities nor interact with the meet organizers. I kind of botched up my introduction also. Hopefully I can remedy that in the next meet.

Having dealt with all that, now it is finally tag time. Two bloggers tagged me – Kirti and Umashankar Pandey. Kirti’s tag I answered on facebook as she passed on the tag to me on FB. So there remains only Umashankar’s tag to answer here. So here goes.

1. Which is your own favourite post(s)?

My favorite one was the singer series. But I have again taken it down disappointed with poor readership. Planning to re-work it, make it an e-book and sell it on kindle for 99 cents. Other than that I don’t have any special favorites. You can find a few that people have liked a lot in the past on my side bar.

2. Which are your favourite posts by others?

This is a tough one. I am unable to remember all the posts by so many bloggers that I have read. Maybe in future whenever I read if I really like a post, I will re-tweet, share on Facebook or have the link on a static page on my blog to indicate it is my favorite.

3. What would you do if you were barred from blogging?

I have spent 28 years of my life without blogging. So it does not sound very difficult. But the 28 years I always believed in a future where I will live the fantasies I read about in story books. At 28 only I reconciled with the realities of life which coincided with the creation of my blog. So I live all my fantasies in my writing. So if writing is stopped I am not sure how my fantasies will find outlet.

4. If you were to be limited to just 5 music albums for the rest of your life, which ones would they be?

This is the easy question. I don’t listen to music as such except some random stuff here and there. So I can easily live the rest of my life with no music albums.

5. If you were to be limited to just 5 authors for the rest of your life, which ones would they be?

This is a tough one. I think I would go by emotions rather than the quality of writing and chose 5 authors whose works made me the happiest – Enid Blyton, J K Rowling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert.

6. (Didn’t I say five?) Correct. You may frame one question of your own choice and answer that

‘Is there anything else you want to say’ is the question. And the answer is the first part of this post. Now I guess I am supposed to pass on the tag to people. Guess I will reserve it for the next time. I have evolved from ignoring tags to just acknowledging, to answering on Facebook to answering on my blog. Next time maybe I will also tag someone.