Blog Blog Blog Away, Merrily Down Life's Stream...

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After reading a friend’s blog for months and checking out others, I too have decided to jump into this fray… And here I am in my own "realm". Hey after all, I too want to add my two cents into this world of literary endeavor.… I have to say that this experience has been very entertaining and revealing on a number of levels. Before I proceed further, I think I should provide some basic idea about this blogging business for the uninitiated - I have learned there are many.

Blog 101
A blog, short form for web log, simply speaking,is a personal website which can be used for recording anything and by that I mean anything that holds the blogger’s fancy from memoirs, to political-bashing, to weight loss gripes down to obsessing about how many potato chips you ate in a moment of weakness, to serious discussions of social issues, to prolific writings about the first tooth of your angelic kid, to ugly online dating mishaps, to brave and feel-good yet not true feminist attempts by women of certain cultures, to serious scientific and literary pontifications and on and on and on… It is essentially an online communication tool.


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Reactions to my blog that I have created essentially as a forum to give an Indian female’s perspective on the Western culture while capturing the family memoirs have run the gamut of emotions among family and friends. Examples follow.

My Indian Image is Tarnished
After reading about my failed marriage a co-worker, an older Indian male came charging into my office clucking like an agitated hen and scolding me for telling the world that I was divorced. Huh! I remembered looking at this educated settled-forever-in-the-US -Indian-fellow-immigrant with a bemused expression which said Duh and so??? After more than two decades in US and ten of them as single parent, protecting my pristine image as a married Indian woman is the last item on my list of worries, but it further confirmed in my mind that independence of a single divorced woman was still a novel concept in traditional Indian culture and that I could never ever go back to that setup even if I had to spend a solitary life with an American basset…

We Are a Global Family
My family is, of course, thrilled and actually encourages me to continue writing for different reasons, the brothers because they feel that if I won’t write a book, this is a good start and the extended family because it lets them know what has been happening to me, their always out of the India-box and wild by their traditional standards cousin, in all the years they had lost contact with me. That this is a global age due to the astonishing strides in technology is evident from the fact that I have reconnected with relatives in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, different cities in India and all over the US, to name a few.

It is a Wild World Out there!
An older Indian female friend also single who has seen her younger counterparts go through much pain and effort to turn their lives around chided me for putting my pictures on the blog worried that some unsavory character on the prowl for a beautiful woman could cause havoc in my newly-built life. While totally relishing the “beautiful” bit, I reassured her that yours truly ain’t no Cleopatra so her fears were unfounded and that I was a big girl now… Very reluctantly she was reassured. I hope so.


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I am a "Celebrity"!
But the most refreshing reaction was from my friend’s mother in Bombay, India. My friend here in US had mentioned to her that I was busy nowadays with my latest passion –the blog. Aunty as we respectfully address older women in our culture, now always asks her daughter as to how the “celebrity” is doing. Apparently, blogging is the latest fad in India’s Bollywood where the stars are true celebrities and have started their own blogs for initiating dialogues on social issues as a precursor for their political ambitions, or building a fan base to ensure that their upcoming movie is a hit or as an avenue for self-promotion for upcoming starlets wanting to be noticed by moviemakers…

Traffic Congestion is Not an Issue Here
Now let us talk about interactions in the bloggers’ own universe. It is human nature to want an audience for one’s ideas and thoughts. After all isn’t that the reason, books and articles are published! So we bloggers also want traffic –yes that IS the term- visiting our blogs. This is where the human ingenuity comes into play in inventing gazillion ways to attract readers. I hate to admit it, not having the patience for these gimmicks, I shamelessly bullied my friends and family bringing up past favors and even made dire threats to "persuade" them to put something in the comments until they started running in the opposite direction. No kidding here. Thankfully for all concerned, including my son who started putting smart alecky comments to get his crazy mama off his back, I am over it now. I had no choice.

Games Bloggers Play
Interesting partnerships and even social clubs are formed between different bloggers through linking each other’s blogs along with leaving comments in strange and new blogs with your website embedded so that the readers are tempted to click on your URL and come visit. You load software on your blog to track the number of hits. Now let me tell you it is a real kick to see the number of hits increasing daily. It is all truly addictive. Some bloggers are even making money because if their websites are popular then businesses want to post their ads there. Blogger tips are shared daily in terms of not just increasing the traffic but keeping an audience captive. One tip is to post short articles even if they are just about brushing your teeth and such stuff as long as you have something new for your daily clientele. The other is to even put pictures of your household items -yes even pots and pans – anything to grab the attention of the wandering blog surfers. Blogging is indeed a big industry now. It has all become a science and has given me an idea for my next book which I plan to title, “ An Idiot's Guide to Blogging.”