I had resisted it for the longest possible time. Instead of having a blog like this, I mailed posts to people I wanted to for almost 13 years. Whoa, 13 years is a long time.
I gave excuses. I am shy, I said. I love my privacy. I love choosing who I share my thoughts with.
Well, not all of them were excuses. I am shy and I love my bubble. But there was also the vanity that I was different from countless bloggers. Unlike them, I personally mailed people. My posts were collective letters, really. I didn't wait for people to come to my blog, my blog reached those I wanted. Personal. Sweet. Different.
But the snug bubble burst when a phone call came from Delhi. And the voice on the other end said people were forwarding my blog posts — basically mails — without giving me credit. Ouch, said my cherished privacy. Not funny, growled my vanity. And I've dived in here at a time writing blogs, with an account and all, is something definitely dated, something you did earnestly in the Noughties as a precocious teenager or a young opinionated adult and hoped to yourself that you'd be discovered by some literary agent for a princely sum and knock the socks off Jhumpa Lahiri.
(This was a peculiarly Bengali girlhood thing. I don't know why others blogged so much in the early years of this century. Or maybe I do. Let me think.)
I guess the Internet wasn't as standardised or humongous then as it is now. So, when people wanted to express their views or personality or find an audience for their badly written poems or boast their culinary skills, they opened a blog. They chatted about everything, from their travel plans to sleeping disorders, from politics to Renaissance paintings, from abusive partners to rare and exclusive grandmom's recipes.
But, each blog was (and remains) a silo. A blogger has to ensure traffic, meaning has to force people to visit the blog, read what's written and hopefully comment.
But why would anyone do that anymore? It's not so easy to be a silo in the era of convergence and short attention spans. People write on Facebook and Twitter and Quora as a part of a bigger network where they can all become minor celebrities at the expense of each other. Or they podcast. Or they go to Youtube or Instagram or...
Trust me to start a formal blog when the bloggers are all grown up and gone :)
Where's my clickbait? I don't have one. But, I really love writing letters and I am not on social media. So, if I don't want to be a sitting duck for plagiarism and if I don't want to be part of a grand network of smart shiny people and if I don't want to give up writing letters on what I please, this is the only option I can think of. Traffic, if it happens, will. Let me first settle in, feel comfy here.
I gave excuses. I am shy, I said. I love my privacy. I love choosing who I share my thoughts with.
Well, not all of them were excuses. I am shy and I love my bubble. But there was also the vanity that I was different from countless bloggers. Unlike them, I personally mailed people. My posts were collective letters, really. I didn't wait for people to come to my blog, my blog reached those I wanted. Personal. Sweet. Different.
But the snug bubble burst when a phone call came from Delhi. And the voice on the other end said people were forwarding my blog posts — basically mails — without giving me credit. Ouch, said my cherished privacy. Not funny, growled my vanity. And I've dived in here at a time writing blogs, with an account and all, is something definitely dated, something you did earnestly in the Noughties as a precocious teenager or a young opinionated adult and hoped to yourself that you'd be discovered by some literary agent for a princely sum and knock the socks off Jhumpa Lahiri.
(This was a peculiarly Bengali girlhood thing. I don't know why others blogged so much in the early years of this century. Or maybe I do. Let me think.)
I guess the Internet wasn't as standardised or humongous then as it is now. So, when people wanted to express their views or personality or find an audience for their badly written poems or boast their culinary skills, they opened a blog. They chatted about everything, from their travel plans to sleeping disorders, from politics to Renaissance paintings, from abusive partners to rare and exclusive grandmom's recipes.
But, each blog was (and remains) a silo. A blogger has to ensure traffic, meaning has to force people to visit the blog, read what's written and hopefully comment.
But why would anyone do that anymore? It's not so easy to be a silo in the era of convergence and short attention spans. People write on Facebook and Twitter and Quora as a part of a bigger network where they can all become minor celebrities at the expense of each other. Or they podcast. Or they go to Youtube or Instagram or...
Trust me to start a formal blog when the bloggers are all grown up and gone :)
Where's my clickbait? I don't have one. But, I really love writing letters and I am not on social media. So, if I don't want to be a sitting duck for plagiarism and if I don't want to be part of a grand network of smart shiny people and if I don't want to give up writing letters on what I please, this is the only option I can think of. Traffic, if it happens, will. Let me first settle in, feel comfy here.
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