Skip to main content

The Fun of Blogging


It’s been a pretty long liaison with blogging now.  I started it way back in 2001 when I bought my first desktop.  It was with Times of India’s blogging space that I began.  Soon I switched to Sulekha which offered many incentives.  Apart from the gift vouchers that came from Sulekha, there were quite a few committed bloggers there whom I really liked.  I got a fairly good share of readers too there.  But the love affair with Sulekha ended when a team of Right wing bloggers dominated the whole platform and started posting unsavoury comments with malicious intent.

Wordpress hosted my blogs after that for a few years.  Then something went wrong.  Apparently someone hacked or tried to hack my site.  It stopped working properly.  Then I migrated to Blogspot where I have remained for all these years.  But many of my fellow bloggers whom I read without fail stopped blogging for various reasons.  Some are in the family way, some immersed themselves totally in their careers, and some just gave up.  Maybe serious writers and thinkers lose interest in blogging because there are very few serious readers in that sphere.  My personal observation is that frivolous writing gets more readers in blogosphere.  I may be wrong, however.  Maybe I have not sought far and wide enough to discover serious bloggers.

Apart from those readers, I miss also the Happy Hours that IndiBlogger used to provide a few years ago.  Happy Hours brought a lot of gift vouchers with which I bought countless books from Flipkart. I wonder why that concept of Happy Hours died.  Maybe, some bloggers didn’t make use of it with sincerity and authenticity.  Maybe, the business concerns which provided the gift vouchers didn’t find it worth.  Maybe, there are other reasons.

Blogging, anyway, is personal writing to a large extent.  It is a personal gratification, at least.  It still remains that for me.  That’s the fun I have discovered in blogging.


PS. Written for IndiSpire Edition 188: #Blogging

Comments

  1. Jyotirmoy SarkarSeptember 23, 2017 at 10:15 AM

    Good to know about your blogging journey.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ARSeptember 23, 2017 at 2:35 PM

    It has hardly happened that I followed any other blogs seriously except yours. I don't remember how I ended up on your blog about a year ago, but ever since I am hooked and I read every article you post. They are so insightful and thought provoking, sometimes funny and sometimes melancholic!!
    I always wanted to start a blog and share my thoughts which are kind of inline to your thoughts and the way you see this world. I have just started my blog, a long way to go. You are such an inspiration... One day I wish to see blog grow like yours.
    Thank you so much :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 23, 2017 at 7:35 PM

      I'm flattered. Never imagined me as an inspiring blogger. Thanks a ton.

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathSeptember 23, 2017 at 8:42 PM

    "Blogging, anyway, is personal writing to a large extent. It is a personal gratification"- Perhaps this is the reason you have lasted for so long!

    ReplyDelete
  4. SaketSeptember 24, 2017 at 4:48 PM

    I thought the left and right wing thing hadn't come to bloggosphere the way they had in social media, till I read about your Sulekha experience.

    And yes, I liked the happy hours and contests in Indiblogger. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 24, 2017 at 7:46 PM

      Sulekha was run by some insane right wingers, I think. That's how it appeared.

      Let's hope indiblogger will revive the Happy Hours.

      Delete
  5. Pranju chakrapaniSeptember 25, 2017 at 7:02 AM

    On certain occasions I have witnessed the rush of the bloggers to submit blog posts only to get goodies from that site. I hate being a part of that rush. Blogging for me has become more of a mood, a hobby which is strongly attached to the thoughts that linger in my mind for days. I hate being in the rush and write things just for the sake of vouchers .

    Having said that, I always wanted to know your blogging journey and glad to know now the starting point of that journey . you are really consistent with your passion. And I really find it worth praising.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 25, 2017 at 7:38 AM

      If bloggers were authentic those happy hours would have done much good...

      These days I'm becoming lazy. But I must persist and go on....

      Delete
  6. Sapna DhyaniSeptember 26, 2017 at 1:29 PM

    You are right Sir. I find blogging to be therapeutic as it helps one to articulate the million thoughts churning inside the mind. And yes, frivolous posts get the maximum likes..maybe because it's all about who is more active and "out there". Thank you for sharing your blogging journey here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 27, 2017 at 5:57 AM

      Blogging has also become just another social media where likes matter more than the content.

      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
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
12 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more