Appraisal time

Mom and I went for a movie last week. The movie itself was disastrous to say the least and I have no intention of giving it any footage here. However, I can blame no one but myself, the “booker”, for the seats. Perched on the very last row, we got a clear glimpse of how well movie halls are utilized by romantically inclined couples. Not the best of things to be entertained by, especially when one is with Mom; or so you would think. But, that was just a minor inconvenience compared to the downright shocking one-liner I got from Mom later on:

“Don’t tell me you are going to blog about your observations in the theater or something”.

After explaining sufficiently convincingly how very sensitive I am to the world’s privacy in general and my brand name in particular, I sat back to reflect on why she would say something like this.

And, then I decided to break the one golden rule of blogging – never blog about blogging itself.

I remember I started this blog quite aimlessly back in 2006. Just so as to check, I went back to read my first ever post. Thankfully, it has not promised to “deliver any value”. Heaving a sigh of relief, I went to my second post. It is long, unwieldy, terribly terribly boring and juvenile. It does not help to remember that I was 20 big years old when I wrote that one. I read the third and the fourth (of which am even ashamed to provide links here). They seem to have been written by a very loquacious person who loves ending sentences with three exclamation marks, like this - !!!

While I was at it, I read the rest of the stuff too, chronologically. There has been senti, poetry, bullet pointed lists. There has been a lot of cribbing, a little bit of mindless fun and some free advice too strewn along the way. There have been random observations like this and then like this.

What I have been consistent with all through this half decade is my global loquaciousness (a tautological emphasis) and absolutely disconnected titles. I am not able to control the former and have no intentions of controlling the latter. So, you can expect succinct posts with matching titles from me in my next life.

What I have failed miserably at, as evident from here, is forced humor, and has always been identified and pointed out to me by ruthlessly critical friends. I really will try hard not to write anything that I do not exactly “want” to write.

What I have been hung up with, much to the chagrin of almost everyone who reads this blog, is the Queen’s language. Sorry. Oh wait, no sorry. Words gives me a high that not even Vodka can, so, I have no plans of shelving that topic. But, Mumbai gives me a high that even words cannot. So, no plans of shelving that topic either.

About five years and nearly a 100 posts later, I realize I have no niche specialization here, no sector I can pin-point as mine. Then again, I have never wanted to commit myself to topics that would need too much use of my ‘little grey cells’.

No wonder Mom thinks, given a chance, I will write a 500-word post on the pigs of Gurgaon. Fat chance that, Mom, not on my death bed!

I did not intend writing about all this when I started this post. In fact, as is my wont, I did not intend writing anything of substance when I started this post. That is why this is not some ceremonial post in the traditional blogging parlance. It neither marks Namesake’s fifth anniversary nor is it the 100th post.

But, while I was at it, I realized that I have an infinitely large amount of time on hand this weekend – to search for and plug in all those links ;) Well, I also realized that I owe you, my readers something.

So, here it is.

Thank you guys, for putting up with this blog and providing a lot of encouragement (hope the counter on the right is not deceiving me) to keep it going thus far.

Happy New Year!