Three years ago a few weeks after experiencing biological motherhood I happened to give birth to my blog – my other baby. My online experience till then was limited to mails and surfing to read relevant material for my research and job. I was fairly amateur and novice online had joined facebook a few months earlier and knew a few friends there who were already writing good blogs.
All I knew about blogging then was that it was like an online journal where I may write about my experiences, thoughts or just reflect on anything that strikes a chord. It had brought back memories of a beige coloured old fashioned diary which was my first journal ever and which I had destroyed in a fit of teenage rage. Now I wish I hadn’t, It would have let me know what was going on in my head back then, it must have had glimpses of my interactions with people who moved on to never come back into my life, many firsts I suppose were recorded there.
This one was comparatively savvier, grand and of course far more public then that one so yes the apprehensions were also bigger. Should I do this?, I asked myself often. I had read somewhere that ,“your blog is your unedited version of yourself,” that sounded quite intimidating. Nevertheless the need to say, just say something to even nobody overpowered all old fashioned common sense and I started.
Evidently the job of bringing up my first baby was hanging so heavy on me that I named this blog ‘Baby Diaries’. The first few posts were of course about the baby, the baby and I but gradually I regained my flair for looking around, observing every move of life as it unfolds and then reflecting on it with my strokes of art- my words.
The blog turned out to be my cave, from the obvious moments of despair of new motherhood and life in general. I started stealing moments from whatever little me time that I had then to come back to my blog. A lot of times only to return back frustrated simply because I was still getting a hang of technicalities of it all, pasting codes, templates, privacy settings. Yet every time I managed to pour my heart out to this friend I came back happier, having experienced the magic of a listener who is completely non-judgemental and other than checking my spellings doesn’t interfere much.
The blog evolved from just being baby diaries to a diary about life and it is then I thought for the raw and the ripened eclectic mix of picks from my stream of consciousness I should name it Second Thoughts first. My friends both online and real life were very supportive throughout and they regularly kept adding fuel to this fire. Some of the posts were appreciated immensely while some others I believe went unnoticed and rightfully so, it was not meant to garner response or shake beliefs it was just a room of my own as Virginia Woolf may call it. This is where I risked looking at myself and my decisions critically this is where I could speak what I really thought and this is where I could be my own muse.
Now when I look back I realise that February 24, 2009 is just a date after all when I put this online, the blog was being written all these years in my mind, through all my good and bad experiences, a collection of my vociferous and unspoken opinions, in my discussions with friends at the student centre Panjab University, in a debate at St.Bede’s college Shimla, on the back benches of Himachal university or the swank conference room of British Council, Delhi, in the openness of discussing lust as a teacher in a class of 120 college students and in the privacy of a cabin quietly editing a book. All its bits were everywhere in my life, some shining out there as laurels for the world to see, others scattered in corners lined with disappointment ,hurt, shame , pain or guilt.
Having worked in a publishing house I was aware of the sweat and the blood that goes into the making of a book, a good book. It is there I believe I seriously thought about penning down the constant noises of my restless mind in an attempt to get some solace, till I finally get to write my book, the one book I believe I carry like everyone else. I had travelled from the pristine Shimla of the 80s to the well-maintained Chandigarh, through the mall mile of Gurgaon and the unnerving chicken coop apartments of Delhi, but my epiphany came in the complex lanes of Daryaganj. That is where I realised my thoughts need a voice and hence I began to engage more actively with people and places and my life to conceive a blog.
Now the blog is three years old, fellow bloggers often told me that it is one hell of a ride. Today I can testify yes it is. The disappointments, the online stalkers, the writer’s blocks, the elation, the harsh critics and the like-minded people, it all happens in the course of a blog. The result is a patchwork quilt with swatches from your happiest moments and the deepest deluges of sorrow, of attempts to refresh some memories or create a few more.
As I saw my constantly bawling baby grow into an independent pre-schooler I have also witnessed my crawling blog now stand on its own young feet. It appears far more confident than its teething days, some friends tell me they love spending some time there and most importantly I don’t always go there to pour out now, I also go to listen to what friends say, to re-read so much and find new meanings and new perspectives.
The great thinker Euripedes said - “Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.” I am full of mixed emotions today- pride, nostalgia, fear, shame, gratitude an eclectic mix, and all of this seems to have added layers to my understanding of myself and life. I am no expert, never aspire to be one but all I can say today to my blog is “thanks!”
The joy of having a blog is special and hence I celebrate my blogoversary today, hoping there are many more to come and this fruitful relationship stands the rough terrains of time and life and finally when my human life span falls short of its cyber one, my friends can go back to it and feel a part of me alive forever. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG!!
