message in a bottle (02.2003 - 09.2008)

My LJ turned five last week!

Around 18 months back, on a boring weekday afternoon, I came across a fun blog – a blog written under a pseudo name. After reading some three-four posts, I decided it was a perky read on boring days and bookmarked it. (Yes, I still live in Stone Age and book mark my favorite pages!)

Anecdotes about drunk parties, embarrassed meetings with ex-boyfriends, confessions about addiction to booze and smokes, some bitchiness, some sweetness – I was hooked to the blog after a week or so. The author was an avid blogger, never letting me down with infrequent updates, a good writer, and very honest in her description of feelings. The fact that she lived in Delhi just did me more good because I personally knew the places she would talk about. She never took names of other people, used pseudo names for them too. Slowly I realized that her writing was more than just bold and candid, it was also wild. Yes, for a person from my social background, discussing a personal sexual experience (names or no names) or a blowjob is wild. Nonetheless, being only human, I continued to read her.
 
She got a lot of anonymous comments (no surprises here!), some rude and derogatory, but most complementary and the number of comments just kept growing with every passing post. Most chicks seemed to like her. I think that is because she talked about stuff that they could/did not. Interestingly, most men seemed jealous. Intriguing! The girl moved to Mumbai after a while and the writing got even wilder. No, I am not insinuating anything here, just describing a pattern I observed on the blog.
 
This Monday, I found a new post on the blog announcing that the author who had made so many efforts of remaining anonymous until now could be seen on that night’s “We The People” on NDTV. Curiosity got better of me and I streamed the video to catch a glimpse of this wild-wild woman.

The topic of discussion on the show was “Should Blogs be Regulated,” and to my horror, Barkha Dutt introduced the author in question by quoting the following from one of her recent posts:

More and more of my male friends tell me, “You know, sex isn’t that important.” And I’m wondering when they reached that conclusion, for me, sex isn’t that important unless I have to go without it, in which case I turn into a mixture of Cruella De Ville and Bambi, alternating between long drags of my cigarette and fluttering eyelashes at whatever’s closest.
 
Now, first thing first, this is a wonderful piece of writing, is it not? Second, would one like this to be read out on National television when your folks are glued to the screens going “my little baby is on the television!” to the neighbors?

The girl in question looked like any of us, a normal happy chick, not a wild Goth or a link-whore as the Interweb likes to call her. This quote was followed by a direct question from Dutt, “So, you have quit smoking! Does that mean you are getting a lot of sex these days?”

You cannot blame Dutt. But can you blame the author?

Barkha Dutt was talking about something which was already there in a public forum for everyone’s consumption. But this girl had been writing everything under the comfortable protection of a pseudo name until now. Yes, it was her decision to change that and come in front of millions of viewers and hundreds of her readers, but still!

My point is that from the looks of it, the girl did not feel comfortable when all this happened. Although, she regained her composure in a jiffy, but there was a definite odd moment.

Having found out her real name, I could not help but google her this morning and the results shocked me. Tons of people are out there on the Interweb bashing her. People even claim that she is not original as her writing is too much of “Sex and the City” in it! They think she should be writing about erotic experiences over a vadapao instead of cheesecake, you get the drift? This, ladies and gentlemen, amuses me. And if you have been patient enough to stay with me till now, I should finally come to the point.

We all write with the knowledge that anyone can read our posts but do we want absolutely everyone to read them? If a curious boy of 22 in New Zealand reads my personal post, I do not care. But if my best friend’s mother reads it, will I be comfortable? Will you be comfortable? I do not know.

I have kept my journal fairly non-personal but I am sure there are lapses. Nonetheless, the fact remains that none of my family members (barring the husband) reads my journal and I like it that way. Why? I am not sure, yet.

or LJ has become boring but I am going to write here now.

I cannot give up this place simply because I have had it for five long years now. The numerous memories associated with it make it impossible for me to give it up. Weirdness is that I have a paid account on LJ and that still does not stop me from writing elsewhere. Maybe I will import all my LJ posts to the new place. Sounds like an idea, that.

is eljay, or at least my circle of friends on eljay, really dying?

As they won't let me access LJ from work, I am tempted to try out
options I never bothered about earlier. So first ever post via e-mail.

Oh and I saw Naya Daur in a very old theater in Old Delhi: Delite
Diamond. It was a fun experience and my friends and I have been talking
in the '50s style ever since. Plus the melodious tanga song is
stuck in my head now. For the past three days.

The fear has been lurking in some hidden corner of my mind for the past two-and-a-half years. It raised its ugly head every couple of months and nagged me for a few days before fading away, to return again.

They have finally gone ahead and blocked LJ at work.

I know many of you are going to say that it is alright. One is not supposed to blog at work anyways etc. If you want to lecture me on this, please refrain from commenting. Thank you very much.

I do not see the harm of blogging at work. And if you see my archives you will know that I do not make seven posts a day or something. I write seldom; averaging at four times in a month. Nevertheless, it is a Web site that allows me to relax after a particularly nasty meeting or a boring training or on a lazy day. Not once in the five years of blogging have I found myself writing a post while some important work sat waiting in my inbox. Sigh.

80% of Web sites, including wikipedia, cannot be viewed now. Great! Oh and did I tell you that one of my major job responsibility is research?

This is a very special day for me and my LJ, as it marks four years of togetherness. I take this chance to thank you all who have made this possible.

# First of all, my family who does not know about the existence of this journal, neither does it care as long as I keep their dark secrets out of it.
# My neighbor's dog, Rusty, as I do not have one of my own.
# My colleagues who do not understand the concept of blogging but constantly supply useless material for the posts.
# My boyfriend who never picks up the phone and therefore, leaves me with no choice but to sit at home and make posts.
# My camera-friendly friends who get an ego boost on seeing their shots on my journal and happily return the favor by leaving multiple frivolous comments on my posts.
# My not-so-camera friendly friends who are equally bored with life and read my posts just so I will read their's in return.
# My out-of-town friends who have helped my social life die a very quick death.
# Movie makers and novelists who provide the source material for 90% of my posts. Also, Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes who help me form a POV that I can pass off as my own.
# The indispensable Google and WordWeb.
# Also my boss, my cab driver, my cube mates, the pervert at the bus stop, my school teachers, the cranky teenager who lives across the road, my gardener, my hairstylist, and her two year old son.

Without you, I would have never reached this milestone.

Sincerely,
Sunshine Girl

PS: Special thanks to Miss pinkoliphaunt for the insane speech idea.

That would be me.

Initially, I thought this obsessive need would fade with time. I’ve been blogging for over three years now and I don’t think the fading is going to happen any time soon. If anything, the more I blog, more often I see the ugly side of me.

As soon as I hit the post button on my LJ, the unrecognizably competitive monster in me awakes and takes up the job of counting the number of comments. My greed for comments in insatiable; it is almost as if the comments were currency and I needed more and more to be rich. I am in a crazed state when I hit F5 over and over again checking for the first comment. When it comes, a toxic mix of relief and joy engulfs me. However, this feeling does not last long. I am out of this blissful state shortly and am back to crazy button hitting. Really, I don’t even care what they say…as long as they leave a comment.

I confess that I have had vicious thoughts about my fellow LJ-ers on occasions when their not-so-fun post got more comments than my super cool one! I have spent long hours analyzing what kind of posts get more comments. Should I post more pictures? Should I make shorter, aptly-formatted posts? Should I invent a tragic childhood? Should I discuss the provocative hot topic?

I know I should detoxify myself by turning off comments. I will do that sometime. But right now, I want some more. It is such a cool feeling!