Inspiration at 200 continues...

The dreaded years of English language in school began with short essays, compositions and paragraph writing in your own words. I had to adapt to the language through a series of mind conversions from the local tongue, before it actually took some time to think in English and write in English. When I wrote my first essay in my own words, there was a startling revelation of how hard it is to write something without by-hearting what the teacher enforced upon us. That was class fifth and the beginning of a whole series of problems with grammar and other small nuances. The English text books were fun to read, which gradually got complicated with Shakespeare entering the fray along with a whole lot of Russian writers. As you like it was a brilliant read, and short stories like God sees the truth but waits by Leo Tolstoy, The bet by Anton Chekov, Gateman's gift by RK Narayan, The last leaf by O' Henry just elevated me to an unexplainable trance by getting me introduced to the choiciest of words in the language. Innumerable phrases of admiration for these authors serves as a major source of inspiration to be on constant improvement.

Writing has always been fun and an integral part of my life from a certain point of time. I started with book, music and movie reviews, then went on to travelogues, finally hitting on general topics. There was a continuous stream of thought process running in my head as to what I could write about. I have always believed in simple themes to come out with easy to write topics that can make a difference in your everyday life. The language had to be simple, and that's because, I have never had it in me to come up with extravagant words resulting in hard to write sentences. As I have mentioned numerous times in my blog, my biggest inspiration in the literary world goes to RK Narayan. Reading his writings can induce a feeling of Writing is simple; anybody can write. Simple day to day activities rendered in heart warming style with a set of easily identifiable characters from day to day life sets an example for brilliant simple writing. Passion for the country, for anything that is Indian, touch of Indianness, how certain things have affected my life, fiction, poetry, politics, sports, personality, love, life, religion, philanthropy, Bangalore, Malleswaram, media, movies, books, travel and inspiration brought out the emotions in me and automatically got translated into words.

Inspiration need not come from a single source; for a person like me, inspiration is a cumulative process. They add up from different places, thanks to many different people who are good at so many things. I just have to go to the blog world and see a wonderful talented bunch of bloggers writing some fantastic stuff which has so much of appeal. Everyone has a style of his own; it is impossible to compare different sets of writing and lay a benchmark. Each sentence is rendered in different style, and that to me is one of the most wonderful things. It just gives you the opportunity to admire so many different people. I have been to many blogs, some of which leave me speechless, as the writing is just out of the world and more importantly simple. So, I thank the many different bloggers who I visit for this important source of inspiration. Thanks a lot!

Interface is another important factor for bloggers. Being a racy character, I just want to do things as fast as possible. Most of my friends would associate the word restless to me instead of racy. Waiting even for a split second more irks me to no end. As soon as I open a page, I just want to load it as soon as possible. So, I try my level best to keep the page as bland as possible. The white background, of course, has to come from the Google homepage. Google has just integrated my web life in such a way that I find browsing disconnected from my life if I do not find it associated with google. So, you just have to put up with this page, without any heavy gadgets in the background. So, Ninaivugal would remain the way it is; the page has to be loaded with the minimum of fuss.

OK! It all started two years back, when I used to write certain things and mail it only to a selected set of people. People, with whom I shared the best of rapport and even today, who make it a point to visit my blog regularly for updates. Comments and viewpoints were exchanged with agreements and in equal measure, disagreements. All these things were exchanged through mails. It was only after one of my ex-roommates Yadu asked me to transfer all my contents to a blog did I realise that blogging after all was fun. To be honest, initially it was an obsession. I used to write atleast two posts a week, ask some of my close friends to have a look at it and give their views. As with anything else, there are periods of crests and troughs, and slowly and steadily, I have reached a point where I write no more than one post a week. Comments are written now and then, from people whom I know, and from anonymous readers, who linger in now and then to post their views. It is all fun and at the end of the day, it gives me great pleasure to go back to the past and see how my views have changed over a period of time about certain things in life. Though the blog is personal, I have to tread carefully not to disrespect any section of the society, and that to me has always been the biggest challenge.

So, as the sojourn goes on, I think, I figure out and I write what I feel is most appropriate, that, which touches my emotional chord, reeling a bout of emotions, sensitive and effective, capturing the important and not so important moments of my life, taking me to a literary, fictitious, and non-fictitious world, encapsulating me in a warm embrace, as I cuddle up and realize that I have just written the 200th blog post in the two years of my blog career.