When one has too many things to write about, one lands up in the kind of situ I am in. Not a writer’s block. Not a lack of time (I have written earlier even with scarcity of time). A mental state where ideas are aplenty but putting them down seems too arduous a task. Especially because of the mental backlog that has already accumulated. Going by past experience, it is best to post some and best to purge some. It has been a whole year today to the day I got back from Finland. I always intended to update Finntimes with travelogues about Paris, Switzerland, Copenhagen, the Arctic circle and best of all – the rest of my experiences in Finland which are definitely worth sharing. I still intend to do it, even though there’s been a substantial time gap. A chronicle is a chronicle is a chronicle. It gives one immense pleasure when read at a later date.

For starters, to break the discontinuity, I’ll finally oblige Atul Sabnis for he had tagged me, more than a month back. His tag says, “It has to be about your blogging experience, link us to what you believe are some of your best posts – tell us (at least now) why they are important to you – what you like about them. Keep it as free form as a possible – tell us a story. Tell us what blogging has meant to you, notwithstanding the opinion of the media (or anyone else).”

So here we go. Straight from the heart. I started blogging 3.5 years back mainly because it was a great way to share one’s creative writing endeavours. It’s a different thing, that today most bloggers would not even know what creative writing means. Though I had always maintained a physical personal diary for most of my formative years, I knew that the internet is definitely not a place for it, but creative writing and constructive feedback – yes. Blogging has been a very interesting journey so far. I never thought I would actually end up not only meeting a lot of people through this medium but also befriending some of them much more than friends met through the real world. I now know a lot of people outside what was my usual social circle – either engineers/ IT people or people from Army background. I have had the chance of seeing how blogging has evolved from a word which had to be spelt out and explained to everyone when I started, to the common word which has almost become a fashion statement now. Blogging has shown its power in terms of a lot of episodes which have rocked the blogworld or which have made the power of blogging have almost as much as an impact as main stream media. Being a part of the blogathon for the blank noise project was a big eye opener for many. The formation of a delhi bloggers group and continuous delhi blogger meets since 2.5 years ago has been a great outcome of this journey too. We have had fun meets and some serious meets like when BBC people have wanted to tap the capital for a feel of the blogger’s pulse here. We have had photography meets and book readings too. There are talks on to get into more serious business like spreading the word of blogging to those who dont know of it yet.

Personally, I have gone from the usual beginner’s point where every comment, every hit on my page seemed like an achievement TO not caring about it all anymore. I have seen ppl come to and go from the blogworld as often as the next bus, and I would be glad to say that so far so good – I am here to stay. I have consciously tried to never let blogging become an obsession. Priority has been over being rooted to the real world, having a life where blogging is not the only thing. It is yet another interesting hobby but not the only one. When I started I had grand plans – a personal (opinionated) blog, a travelogue, a blog only for music (had a beautiful instrumental piece on my main blog for a long time), a blog which would actually have audio/video (at that time podcasting was not even a concept), a blog for pictures (again things like flickr were not even a concept), an everchanging interesting template etc. But obviously doing so many things would need me to be only blogging fulltime. And consciously I had decided that I would never eat, drink, sleep – blogging. So all those ideas phased out in the germination stage. Having a readership, a faithful one at that, definitely gives a high. But then if one is that good, having one would not be an issue ever, whether in the blogworld or the real writers world. I tend to be very low on blog hopping. I barely visit some selected blogs of ppl who have now become my pals in the blogworld. Or people who come and comment here :). Blogging has been of a lot of help to me in the real world too. Though I have not been one of those to find love here (and haven’t even got my first cheque from google adsense), I have landed myself a place to stay in, during my stint in Finland when there was absolutely no other option left but to shift out of company paid accomodation. [Thanks Ankur]. I have also had the pleasure of having the option to show this ENT specialist whenever I have a problem :). [Thanks JW]. I have had a blogger’s kids coming up to me and saying “Oh! you are Twilight Fairy!!!!” :p. Never knew it was a family thing to visit certain blogs. :p.

In terms of selecting some of the best posts, that’s a toughie! Every time I go through archives, I go through yet another journey down memory lane. Reading a lot of posts, makes me feel astounded that *I* could have ever written those, they seem impeccable. Reading some of them also makes me wonder what I was thinking while writing them and how someone could have even appreciated them! When I do write, I try to make every piece worth the labour of reading it. A lot of thought goes into it. At times some research too. So I am not playing favourites here or let’s say I can’t afford to go through the “parental” task of choosing ones favourite child! The archives are all here. I have never deleted a single post till date. Never bothered to count how many they are, but am sure it can keep one occupied for days if one would like to bury one’s nose into this attic. Don’t we all just love going through those books with dogeared pages and dusty smells. :p. Here’s to many more such endeavours.