Blogging is not a sadistic passion I began pursuing recently; my days go back to 2006. So in 2006, a hotel in Saudi Arabia collapsed killing 76 pilgrims; a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, Israel injured 20; more planes and buses crashed; Google bought Youtube; Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hanging; Sony PS 3 was released; Kannada actor Dr. Rajkumar dies; and RD Kornberg gets the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. That’s pretty much when I began blogging. Pretty eventful huh?

That’s like the official date – February 2006. Unofficially, I began much earlier in 2005 – but somehow ended up deleting my own blog by accident – that’s a long story into which I wouldn’t want to get into.

I had a humble beginning like most great people … there were a bunch of readers including myself … in fact, just to get the ball rolling I would leave comments on my posts hoping that would trigger off the others into doing the same. I used to be narcissistic, I would read my own blog again and again and again. Comments trickled in but were hardly worth mention. Most were restricted to – “Hey! I like your blog. Would you like to perform better in bed? Click this link”.

Reverse psychology always works … on me! But when I try it on others – it bombs! I came up with my first threat to STOP blogging sometime in 2007. I knew what would happen. The world would be aghast. Everyone would throw their hands up in the air in helplesness. There would be a storm kicking in front of my house. There would be tears. Someone would set themselves ablaze somewhere (I’m reeeealllly stretching this too far, ain’t I?). But basically, I expected to get a barrage of mails requesting me to continue, an innundation of “I love what you write!” messages, and an assault of “don’t you dare stop writing” threats.

I looked at my inbox.

It was silent as ever…

What the heck? So it doesn’t even matter to anyone. Perhaps, if someone sends a mail saying Suhas is dead, nobody would turn up for my funeral service too! This was exactly like that; the blog was officially dead, and people wouldn’t even bother to respond to the funeral service. It was mortification to the extreme! I was exasperated to even bother writing anymore.

I checked my mail again.

Still nothing.

Suddenly, the system beeped. I clicked. The mail read…

Order degree certificates. Its as easy as clicking

Order certificates? Why on earth did I slog it out for the 3 +2 years to attain my degrees!

Another beep. I casually looked.

I like the way you write. I’m gonna miss your blog a lot

WTF? Yeah, I know … the mail still did not talk anything about stopping me from stopping the blog. But it had all the ingredients in it to make my day! That was it! The fingers were back on the keyboard.

By and by, I tried nurturing a habit not to be too bothered with how many comments I receive. I started deeming it to be too trivial to break my head over. And it made sense too. The whole phenomenon of writing for myself and using blogger as a platform to vent my emotions seemed so logical. I grew up. I wrote for myself.

I don’t give a damn thought I. Should I care if people read what I write? Nope. Should I care if I get comments? Nope. Should I care if its too personal? Nope. Should I care if its helping me get things out of my system. Yep! That’s the only damn thing I’d care about. Pretty much, that was the time I even stopped sending out mails to people asking them to read my blog. It was my liberation movement; the moment of enlightenment; of totality!

This mode of mine went on for a pretty long time. I would say that there were times when I thought of quitting – maybe when I got a writer’s block, maybe when I did not find time at all, maybe when my posts were too monotonous and were following a strict pattern or maybe when there were not enough things inside my system to get them out.

Then began this new mode of mine – the new genre – I wrote for the mass! Inspite of all the gabble that I was so fond of writing, I at least gave it a proper package so that it could be presentable. And I slowly figured it out, when the package looks pretty, people don’t give a damn to what’s inside. There … I gave out a big secret to how I write what I write … make the package pretty!

On a more serious note, blogging did help me develop. It wasn’t discernible, but I started feeling that I had begun developing a broad-minded perceptive about everything in life. Things became more clearer in the head once it fell in the form of words on page. My opinions, principles and ideologies, my decisions, justifications for my decisions, my ambitions, my beliefs – I developed a large portion of these by writing. That’s the sole reason I always uphold reading and writing – 2 things I always endorse people to do. It builds personality.

Now back to my gibberish normal self. So where was I? Yeah, I wrote for the mass. Once the head is clear, the system is clean. Ergo, there is no scope for venting your emotions. At least, not so much. That’s when the gobbledygook intensified. I have read blogs that preach, that ask you to modify your behaviors, your perceptions about life; I have read blogs that write about issues; that write about sentiments – love stories, heart breaks, teary poetry; all these in terms of standard and quality are way above mine … but I figured its not really what people want to read. It makes sense if these people are writing these for themselves… the genre I was in around 2007. But otherwise, it made one really gloomy. Who wants that? I wanted to write things people would read, laugh, think I have gone whacky, and then forget about it. Somehow, I did just that.

When it comes to writing, I am somewhere around average. I’m being unpretentious here… I have read what others write and sometimes I’m appalled about my own ignorances about what’s happening around me. One feels I am totally lackadaisical about everything that needs importance. Maybe a little more solemnity, maybe a little more emotion, maybe a little more rationality might improve the standards of my writing. But somehow I haven’t been able to get myself into that mode at all. Its so easy for me to ramble on about senseless things, the thing I’m most comfortable doing, that I feel like just continuing this until someone burns out – the reader or me!

I have had a mixed journey. Strangers have walked up to me and introduced themselves saying that they have read my blog. My own good friends have swore at me and forced me to take their ids off my mailing list threatening me not to send a single blog update ever! Nevertheless, writing feels good.