Skip to main content

Blogging and some thoughts


Blogging is just about twenty years old.  Though the word ‘blog’ was coined in 1997, there were just 23 blogs in 1999.  The figure leaped to 50 million by the middle of 2006.  That was a phenomenal growth, no doubt. The most popular ones among the early blogs dealt with politics.  Slowly every subject under the sun made its appearance in blogs.

I would become a Yogi Aditynath if I decide what bloggers should write about and what they should not.  I would be the last person to go around burning blogs or anything at all that does not suit my taste.  However, I would certainly expect at least one thing while visiting any blog: it should give me something, something worthwhile.

Once blogging became popular, just about anyone became a writer.  Even illustrious poets like Shelley could not find publishers initially. Shelley paid for the publication of his first book. Bernard Shaw who won the Nobel Prize for literature published many of his plays himself.  Many books which became best sellers eventually were initially rejected by publishers. 

Getting published was quite a tough job.  Blogging made it easy.  Too easy.  Hence everybody – well, almost – became a writer.  But writing is not everybody’s job.  A writer must give something to the reader to think about.  Writing is about ideas.  It’s not just putting words together.  The reader must gain something.  At least something to poke his imagination. 

A lot of blogs fail to do that.  But a lot more blogs do offer fantastic stuff.  Apart from writing, there are excellent photographs, paintings, informative pieces, and so on.  I love those blogs which make me think, which provoke me, which invigorate my imagination, which soothe my soul or at least tickle the funny bone. But, as I already said, I am no Yogi Adityanath.  I won’t ever decide what others should do with their blog.  If I don’t like a blog, I stop visiting it: that’s it.  I won’t go around shooting moral shit on others.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 162: #SeriousBlogging




Comments

  1. Great and valuable information. Thank you.
    You are a highly talented blogger!
    Keep up the good work...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your blogs are always forthright and that makes it worth reading

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice informative article. Regarding yogi aditynath, in spite of his past rhetoric, consdering the state of the state, a bitter medicine in the form of yogi may be the need of the time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice, great and valuable opinion! sir thanks for that

    ReplyDelete
  5. I totally and unconditionally agree with all the 4 comments posted above.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Commercial RO System - Business and Industrial Aquarium RO System. Shop latest and best quality premier aquarium Commercial RO System on reasonable prices in California, US.

    Shop 1000 Gallons per day at 100 psi at lower psi lower production. i.e. 70 psi 700 GDP, 1st stage Sediment filter 2.5 x 20 inch, 2nd stage Carbon Block filter 2.5 x 20", 3rd Stage KDF85/GAC 2.5 x 20", UV protected Commercial RO System in California, US.

    For more info you can check it out here : http://premier-water-systems.myshopify.com/collections/business-industrial-healthcare-lab-life-science-lab-equipment-other-lab-equipment

    ReplyDelete
  7. Editor of one literary magazine expressed his frustration to me -- These days, anyone who can read and write and has a computer can become a writer!

    Just to add to your post, quality and authenticity of the content are most important. These days, while exploring any concept people first log on to the internet instead of visiting the nearest library/bookstore. So many times I have come across incorrect information presented on several blogs. It has to be, as there is no editor.

    Most of the blogs are there for time pass or an escape. The priority is on expanding the readership instead of improving the content and quality. It falls on the reader to choose what to read and what to let go.

    Good that someone raised this issue.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quality and authenticity are at a premium. That's the problem with a lot of writing these days. There seems to be little thinking behind much of the writing. That's why I raised the issue. I'm glad you liked my raising it.

      Interestingly, a lot of bloggers went on to become authors too. Many of those books aren't much to talk about, unfortunately.

      Delete
  8. "If I don’t like a blog, I stop visiting it: that’s it." is the practical way to go about it for blogging has so many plusses.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Agree with you, your points are very much valid.
    But what Yogi Adityanath doing with this post,means perspective is good, synchronization is also good but still it can be expressed without taking his name....Just a thought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your view is most welcome, Jyotirmoy.

      I am of Bernard Shaw's view that writing must have certain purpose, clear practical purpose. Yogi Adityanath is part of mu purpose. We are living in a country in which we will have no escape from the Yogi and such people.

      In fact, my last few posts were about the yogi and the next one is going to be about Ayodhya. :)

      Delete
  10. Yes, the reader must gain something. Run-of-themill stuff is pretty common nowadays. Will try and write something about this, sort of a last minute exercise, because this remains close to my heart, on gaining something from blogging.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad my post moved you to write something on the topic.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...