The blogging scene

I wrote in my last post about how the online scene in India is bubbling with excitement and enthusiastic participation from one and all. Today, I will talk about the blogging scene, as I have experienced it in the past one year. Be it senior citizens, be it house-wives with a penchant for cooking, and be it care-free youth who roll their eyes and swear in each sentence- everyone seems to have a cause, and a consequent presence on the blog world.

Coming to think of it, it is indeed a breathing, throbbing entity in itself- this blog world. It's a world of different personalities, different lines of thoughts and attitudes, and different dilemmas which an individual faces- all boiled down to an amusing symphony of one due to the common attriubte of being a 'blogger'.

There are some bloggers who maintain a candid monologue- they describe their highs and lows taking the internet more as an e-diary of sorts. Then there are those who are able to maintain an enigmatic mystery even behind their frequented blog profiles. Who is the blogger? Where he/she works? Some bloggers transcend the limits of time, space and language and bind the sub-continent in a coccoon of warmth and familiarity like never before. Some blogs, especially the ones I came across thru some of the south-based friends, introduced me to a different lifestyle, a different community and a different lingo. It was an extremely beautiful experience of travelling down south just by the clicks on the keyboard.

Thru blogs, many of us might have found friends without faces and ideas without accusations. Thru blogs, many of us might have found the breather to pause, think and comtemplate an argument before cannoning it with a counter-argument in a split second, like you might have done in real life. Words offer an innate dignity and poise to the writer. The writers who wield the pen with sanctity automatically gift themselves a sense of respect. I have come to realise how, on many ocassions, I was forced to think, research and read up on issues on which I had a contrary stand, simply because a blogger whom I respected had posted something on those lines.

The Indian blogging scene, if you can sieve and churn and distingush the chaff from the grains, offers an immense potential for opening up your mind to different thoughts. Blogging should be considered a democracy's biggest success and test, all at once.

-Gauri Gharpure,

Kolkata, India.

January 3, 2007

The first post

A glace at the blogging communities of popular social-networking sites like facbook and orkut will tell you that the online writing scene in India is thriving. Online journalism, especially the suffix 'journalism' to the word online, however, is a term we need to deal with some reverence and it certainly deserves a bit more seriousness and respect.

Let me compartmentalise the online writing scene into three spheres which Paul also pointed out: 1) Local online newspaper sites 2) Broadcasters and 3) The Blogosphere. In all these three respects, the scene in India is thriving.

By thriving, I really mean each and every alphabet used from t to g in the word thriving. To re-iterate the point, let me cite the example of two seventy-plus interent enthusiasts who use the internet to propogate their own individual thought-process, and consequently, some good work by writing on the internet. Vasant Kalbag, a resident of Mumbai regularly sent e-zines called 'Kindness Unlimited' (http://groups.msn.com/KindnessUnlimited) to a community of internet users. And today morning, I was extremely surprised and even more so happy to see another senior citizen relative's blog in Marathi script (to read it, go here: swamimhane.blogspot.com) on which  he talks about the teachings of his spiritual guru. (Marathi is a language commonly used in Mahashtra, Western India)

These two examples show that the internet has worked not only as an effective tool of communication for the techno-savvy younger generation of India, but has also been welcomed with open arms by the senior citizens of this country. The potency of internet as a powerful communication tool, and consequently, the reach of online journalism is more evident today than ever before, in India, as also elsewhere in the world.

Gauri Gharpure

Kolkata, India.

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