Dear Friends….

One year back… when I came here… carrying the heavy bundle of my own trials & errors with me… :O) I had No idea… what kind of experiences are waiting here to embrace me starkly … & I met them… Experiences…. As well as people…  People Like me… Wandering… & Searching something ‘Un-searchable’… & yet… people… full of life… full of love… :O) The People… who loved me & empathized… accepted me with all my incompleteness… with all my Trials & Errors those my Art & Life are full of… :O) & I thus could find some True Soul-pals here I could see the reflection of my own soul in them… and found a reason solid to belong to this virtual place called Iland…

But… More Interestingly, I also met…. People Unlike me… who showed me the Mirror… showed me the path completely different, which I had never encountered or walked on before… They did a great help without making me feel obliged!!  :O) Aah… That is something which made me discover yet, another Me… May be a different dimension of me, of my mind & of my music too? A different me, which already rested deep down…!?! Oh… and how unaware me was... !! Yeah… Indeed… this ‘Unlikeness’ gave a lot… something unforgettable… My heart gets filled with joy & gratitude when I think of these pals… And my mind marvels at such tiny & yet worthy – much worthy wonders those are happened to me through this Virtual Bonding!

Certainly Blogging here has benefited my being immensely & I feel calmer, I feel happier!! Most importantly I feel blessed! No exaggeration indeed, I feel that though small, I have lived one whole life in one year here on Iland! And it has been an amazing experience to have found the glimpse of a me Real while being in this world Virtual…  :O)

Noone knows what happens tomorrow… So, me takes the opportunity to speak my mind & share my heart here & now…

With all my trials & errors,

Yours, Pra~! :O))))

PS – Here is an article written by a friend on Blogging, who introduced me to Blogging, who is a bilingual writer in contemporary Indian Literature and a serious blogger himself. 

January 16

On Blogging once again

Some days back, I chanced to see `We, The People' on NDTV, a programme anchored by Barkha Dutt. The issue of the day was whether blogs should be censored. What was more interesting however was the discussion on why people blog at all.  There was this obvious paen to Freedom of ex-pression. But what was curious was the way people express their private lives in a public domain. They would not talk about many things to their friends, but the things would appear  on their blogs. Blogs give a certain amount of anonymity and allow people to hide behind their confessional screen. This can take away the inhibitions.

 My own experience with the Net is lot similar, though not directly with blogs. My friends tell me that I open up a lot and I am a different person while I am chatting. I am less inhibited and flirt and say things which I would not have said during face to face meeting. You see I am very often shy.My friend says that this is a symptom of multiple personality  disorder. The Net and techology can indeed proliferate identities. Digital identities can act like a mask and liberate.

In the programme, there was also discussion about various types of blogs and bloggers. Blogosphere is a hetereogenous sphere where you have all sorts of blogs and bloggers. Like a library catalogue, you can locate and access the kind you are looking for.

As I have discovered lately as a writer, that blogs can be liberating even from suffocating literary culture. Pathare's diatribe against bloody blogging postmodern poets like us can be seen as an example of the bewilderment of the establishment to the liberating potential of the new media.

Blogging can even be a challenge to the traditional publishing business in future. Publishing houses worked as newer forms of patronage and constraints on the writer. Blogging will be a threat to the older forms of literary politics and probably give rise to newer forms of politics. What form? Lets wait and see for ourselves.

By Dr. Sachin Ketkar-

http://sachinketkar.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!1E131B2A89C666C9!433.entry|

(Painting by Rassouli)