A Time To Reflect

charukesi April 15th, 2008

Blogger appreciation day…. came and went. And I had no clue. That may have been because I have not been blogging or reading blogs with any regularity (does speed-reading through google reader once every few days count?) Anyway, as it happened, I missed blogger appreciation day, which was April 14th - and came across the idea just now, today being that day of the week when the google reader gets a clean-up. Thanks, Sailu at Indian Food for pointing this out to me. This whole appreciation idea 9informal, he stresses) comes from Darren Rowse (whose latest video post is on - How to Come Up with Topics to Write About On Your Blog - and if anyone needs tips on that right now, it’s me)

Says Rowse on his blog -

I’ve been chatting with a few bloggers of late who’ve been feeling a little down in the dumps about their blogging - so perhaps everyone could do with a little lift.

We’re in it together, blogging is about collaboration and together going further than we can by ourselves - so why not help another blogger today by shooting them a word of encouragement, a pep talk, a congratulations, an idea to help them improve or some other positive constructive message. Better still, do it publicly on your blog and tell the world about another blogger who you appreciate.

What a good idea! I know I have been feeling down in the dumps about my blogging - or lack of it. And just this morning was talking to my husband about getting on top of things and discipline and other key words that he normally associates with my resolution to diet and therefore ignored promptly.

Anyway. Here goes. My appreciation for bloggers, blogger friends, blog readers - people who have made my life so much more fun in the last four years. A big thank you. Especially those of you who write in to me after stumbling upon my blog. And those who write or call to ask when I have not been blogging for a while.

Here comes a longish list then, of blogs I love - the usual suspects - Newsmericks, Harini, Shoefi, Nano. Jalsa and Indiequill who were THE discoveries of 2007. And Arun, who writes down his travel experiences with the kind of discipline and passion I can only admire and envy from a distance. And Dina, whose blog who I used to be, and still am, in awe of.

And then those I wish blog more often. Or just get back to more regular, more frequent blogging - Uma, Dilip, Annie, Reshma, Smugbug, Blogpourri, entelechy, Sunil (why this sudden slack in blogging, people?)

A special nod to the most prolific of them all - Patrix (also because the two of us love to get together and talk about the “good old days” of blogging - when we used rediff and blogger respectively!)

And a huge thank you to Madhu Menon who keeps this site up and running. I only reach out to him when something has gone wrong here. Thanks, Madhu!

And a few not-so-usual people too I must mention here - photobloggers - Phil Douglis, friend and mentor at pbase - Phil has been teaching photography for some decades now. He travels with his wife for a few weeks (months?) every year - when he was in Bombay last week, I could not meet up with him as I was away in Thailand. It’s our anniversary, Phil, I wrote to him, Seven years. Phil wrote back congratulating us on the anniversary. And he added that his wife and he would be celebrating forty seven years together in July. Forty seven years! A special toast to you, Phil. And thanks for a wonderful year at pbase.

Julie too - I had written about Julie three years go when I had first discovered her photo stream at flickr. Julie was seventy when she discovered photography. I recently exchanged emails with Julie and she points me to her new English blog (she used to write in French), dedicated to her recent move to London. And she ends saying, I feel younger now that I did three years ago. Cheers, Julie!

So to end, discipline. Yes, that is what is going to drive this blog from now. Regular posting, if it means only links to interesting or just plain funny things. Go see then - The Hidden Half: A Photo Essay on Women in Afghanistan - click on the photographs, read the accompanying text and feel stunned. Just as I did.

Happy blogging! And do pay it forward.

• The World of Indsight