Forever a Newbie

I’m embarrassed to admit, my blog’s anniversary date had completely slipped my mind. To add more lapses to my memory, I was convinced that I’d completed just three years of blogging. This was till I saw the chronology of my blog-posts and discovered that A-Musing is now 4 years old. Don’t blame me. To me, it still feels like yesterday, when I started writing to amuse strangers, many of whom became friends with passage of time. 

As someone who invests a chunk of her time on her blog and earns only a mixed basket of brickbats and accolades and no money for her efforts, it’s difficult having to explain what I do to people I meet for the first time. If I say I blog, they want to know what I do besides blogging. It becomes awkward having to explain that reading, stressing about what to write next, waiting for inspiration to strike and then writing and rewriting to get the confluence of thoughts and words right, keeps me busy for hours. To add to my misery, most of my real life friends have no interest in my blog and my little achievements, so I make sure I don’t utter a single word about it and make them uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel I lead a double life – my online life spectacularly different from my offline existence.  

My Mom gets very upset that she can’t brag about me to her friends because they have no idea what a blog is. For that matter, neither did I till I started blogging in 2010.

Neither can I introduce myself as a writer to the uninitiated especially after being privy to comments like, bloggers are not writers/ blogging is simply graffiti with punctuation. For most, you are not a writer till your book gets published. Since I write mostly for online sites like IBN Live, Times of India’s NRI Section and Unreal Times, on and off, I prefer describing myself as someone who works for love.

Most don’t get it. So be it.

So, when I won the BlogAddaward for the best Humour and Satire Blog, I preferred sharing my elation with my online friends. I felt only they could understand how great it feels to get a formal recognition for something that started off as a hobby and became a passion. 

A tentative foray into a world I had no idea about, expecting no one to read what I had to say. In fact, when I got the first comment on my blog-post, I was tempted to run up to the noble soul and crumple at his feet with gratitude. 

I feel doubly privileged to have won the Indiblogger and Blogadda awards but the thought that whatever I write now might prompt someone to think, don't tell me SHE won the best humour and satire blog award for this shit, terrifies me. 

My Guest Post for BlogwatiG

Courtesy - Google Images

We met exactly a year back. She had just ventured into the world of blogging and I was celebrating my blog's second anniversary. It was love at first sight for us. I fell in love with her writing and spread the word around and she has never let me forget that. She calls me her lucky charm, I call her the tigress. She roars, prowls confidently and pounces on what she perceives as unjust. She makes plagiarizers pee in their pants, has little patience for hypocrisy and is never afraid of raising her voice against wrongdoers.

It's requires a lot of will power not to fall in love with Blogwati G.

On the occasion of our blog anniversary (yes, A-Musing turned 3 yesterday) I ponder upon my relationship with him, in God and I.
 
Before the age of special effects, before innocence was dead, during my frilly frock days – God was my superhero. I believed it was He who could set things right that I had messed up so badly. He was my confidante, my sounding board, the one who listened to my whys and why nots patiently. He was my first strong and silent one before I graduated to Mills and Boons.

Now before you turn around and ask me, why He, why not a She – I’d like to admit that it was because I knew no better. He was meant to protect, while She was meant to nurture and I had accepted this logic without a murmur of protest.


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An A-musing story

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Today is A-Musings’s happy budday. Brace yourself for the terrible twos!

It’s tough to write the story behind your blog. How do I make it funny and interesting? What do I add that all of you do not know already? So I thought I’ll start with a candid confession. Till two years back, I had no idea what a blog was. Yes, that’s how ignorant I was. But then I left my job and started writing on a whim. A simple note on Facebook expressed my elation at being free from a clockwork precise life; a rambling that made its way to a news-forum, Drishtikone. The reaction I got for the write-up was overwhelming. I guess, as a woman trapped in a prison of her own making, I managed to strike a chord with many.

Change, is the most difficult thing to accept. Oh, how we refuse to look into its face. But once we accept it, there’s no looking back. Life is too short for us to regret what we could have done, where we could have been.

My blog was born out of desperation. When a Bangalore based forum put the spotlight on me, I realized I had no space of my own. I started with a bang and created 11 blogs for my 11 posts. It’s only when a befuddled reader pointed it out, did I discover my faux-pas and sheepishly made a new one and titled it Musings. That was before I realized that 57302 blogs exist with the same name. A few months later when the husband suggested A-Musing, I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

I honestly didn’t expect anyone to read my outpourings. When I got my first comment, I almost melted with gratitude. My first ever fan (Harsh) and his group of friends will always be special to me. It seemed so surreal, a group of college kids in faraway Lucknow, sitting in their canteen, avidly discussing my write-ups. My Dad is from Lucknow and I have many happy memories attached to the city – of lazy summer afternoons, a bunch of kids furiously planning pranks, the fights we had, the joy of stealing Dusseris from the store-room, the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing every time I had to head back to Delhi. Lucknow became even more special to me.

When I joined Indiblogger, I finally saw what blogs can become. I saw bloggers with hundreds of followers and dozens of comments. I was star-struck. I wrote my first gushy, fan letter to Sharmila (she doesn’t blog anymore) and was heartbroken when she stopped corresponding after a couple of mails. I met so many wonderful people that I am willing to forget the few unpleasant episodes. I lost a friend, the same one who introduced me to blogging. He was a staunch Baba Ramdev supporter and didn’t take too kindly to my pranayam- doesn’t- mix-with- politics barb. We had a nasty showdown and haven’t spoken since.

To me, a blog is not just a platform for publishing your posts. We build a community of like-minded people who become like our family over a period of time. You share amusing anecdotes, fume at the issues they raise, cry with them, applaud their talent and reprimand them when they slip.

I discovered myself through my blog and my friends & family discovered me through my musings.
 

Yes, A-Musing gave me recognition, fulfilment and some heartbreak as well. I take criticism more seriously than praise and it broke my heart when my attempt at fiction did not go down well with quite a few of my readers.

I was approached by a well-known publishing house to write a book. I was ecstatic! This is what I had been waiting for, to be discovered! I got into a tizzy, wrote four chapters and realized it’s not turning out the way I wanted it to. Defeat is not an easy thing to accept and it made me feel miserable. From ecstasy to agony, in three months flat! But now I have made up my mind. I will write a book, if I am ready for it and not because I am expected to.

Two years down the line, writing has become a part of me. It is almost like an obsessive need now. The days I don’t get to scribble my stray thoughts in my diary, I feel lost. As if an important part of me is missing. I still get butterflies in my stomach when I hit the publish button – because I dread letting you down. I still labour over my posts to get the economy of expression, to get the punch lines right. What if I end up sounding funny for the wrong reasons! And I still make the husband read my posts and give his suggestions before I publish – even when he is dog-tired at the end of the day and is about to sink into deep slumber!

I have always avoided mentioning names in my few interviews as a blogger. People who have become dear friends, friends whose opinions I value and respect. What if I forget someone really important? The last thing I want is to hurt anyone’s sentiments.

Zephyr, Snow Leopard, Maitreyee, Samadrita, Alka, Bhavana, Priyanka, Kartikay, Chintan, Suruchi, you mean the world to me. And to those of you who write such beautiful mails to me appreciating my work, I feel honoured. If some of you are upset that I did not review your blog or a post a comment, I apologize. Time is a luxury for me.

There, I managed to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech. And I have yet to thank my dog, Jeejuz, the husband, my daughter (not necessarily in that order).

Let me end with a warning. You can love me, you can hate me – but you can’t stop reading A-Musing! If you do, I will come and haunt your dreams (*insert evil laugh*). Scared you into submission, didn’t I?

Mrs. Ray, I Am Banning You....

His online moniker is Snow leopard... At 23, he is just a cub but with a mind of his own. Nopes, he takes no garbage but composts it instead.  A budding environmentalist, passionate about photography, a comic freak and with many dreams. Presenting Prateek Varma to you.....

That was one of my earlier jokes with Purba and I was wearing my Ray-bans....

When I came to know that A-musing will turn a year old by the end of February, I had to write something.  But then I was stuck. What do you write for a blogger who is so good and popular? You can be a damn good blogger and not be popular.....or sometimes you write shit but are quite popular.  But Mrs. Ray here...writes excellent stuff and is equally popular.  So what do you do? I couldn't rip her writing apart for the fear of being lynched by her fanatic fans (there must be a handful of them). And I couldn't write a humour post for her, since she is damn good in that department and I would have been ripped apart by the readers.

So, what do I write? I remember the first post I read at A-musing. It was about her driving lessons she was taking. And my first reaction was....ho hum....till I started reading. And then I came back. There was a strange force that compelled me to come back...again and again. A hypnotic effect, something ethereal.  I was having a hard time, trying to fathom the reason, but to no avail. And then I read a guest post by Miss Ray, which told us how her dear mother is actually a vampire.  And all the scattered pieces of the puzzle came together. 

Mad About Me.....

When Bryan Adams wrote “18 till I die” it was with him in mind.  A finance guru nurturing his myriad interests in amchi Mumbai – life is a celebration for him.  Today in honour of A-musing turning 1, he descends from his pedestal (or rather the golf course)  to take pot-shots at me.  Presenting what goes on in Madhusudhan(Mad) Menon’s mind........

Maxmayur is a lucky man. He beat me to the punch by interviewing the eastern sun before I woke up. And he being a recognized blogger got access to the award-winning celebrity blogger. I am sure he was assisted by the Blogger Gods. While licking my wounds, I decided not to feel sorry for this perceived blogger apartheid, and do my own interview. So what if she is not available for the interview? I have read all her posts, and feel I can answer all my questions, on her behalf without inconveniencing her and insisting on her presence. So the interview, with apologies to maxmayur, and the famous A-Musing blogger went like this:

Me: Madam, can I call you madam?
Purba : Of course not. That is what you call school teachers and the ones who run bordellos. I have also heard that that is what they call the fearless leader of the party that rules our country.

Me: Then, is it ok to call you Behenji?
Purba: Arre, are you insane? That is what they call Mayawatiji, the fearless leader of our downtrodden.

Me: Then maybe I can call you Purba ji?

Purba: I hate the Jee word. It makes me sound like a scam..2G, CWG and Blogger G

Now I already am at my wits end. I rule out Mataji, Rayji, Bloggerji etc. Now I have a brainwave.

Me: Why should I call you any names? Let me just ask my questions then. How do you select what you blog on?

Purba: That is a trade secret. It is like asking Coca cola for their secret recipe. But I will tell you this much. I have my eyes and ears in very high places. The last post for instance was inspired by a late night telephone caller from Lucknow. She was upset about the media furore over her simple desire to keep her footwear clean. And I felt that nobody should be deprived of his right to remove dhool from her Bata sandals.   

Me: How did you get started on blogging?
Purba: Arre, Menon...what kind of a blogger are you? If you are one, you should know how one starts. The problem is not how one starts, it is where you finish that is important. I always think of the end before the beginning. And if you know your Indian philosophy, the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning..
(Now I feel like calling her Guruji, but am afraid to start on that track again)

Me: Have you ever suffered from writers block?
Purba: What is that? No blocks. Only blogs.  Anyway if there is a block, one can always bypass it and I’m not suggesting surgery!

A-Musing turns One.............

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A-musing turns one today - a blog that had no intention of being born.  It was only after Desicritics – a forum for aspiring writers, decided to put the spotlight on me, I realized much to my alarm that I needed a blog.  Thankfully I had a collection of nearly a dozen articles that I had written in the past three months. And so precisely a year back, A-musing made its tentative entry.  I managed a scintillating debut and foolishly created 11 blogs, one for each article.  It was not until someone who had been following my write-ups regularly, wrote me an alarmed mail did I realize my mistake.  Bless you HarshVardhan, my first follower, the first someone who believed in me. And of course Desh Kapoor who got me to write in the first place.

It’s tough to write an anniversary special without sounding like an Oscar like speech. I want to thank him, her and it goes on.... Yes, there are many dear friends and my long suffering family I should be thanking but I decided to let others speak on my behalf.  Friends who know me through my blog. Some get gushy, some have fun at my expense, while some are still thinking.... 

This week I get a well deserved break as I sit back with my cup of coffee and let my friends take centre-stage. 

Come join in the fun.