For someone who has been blogging for nine years, the number
of posts I have written (not even 300 posts so far …) is hardly anything … I
don’t average even 50 posts a year … by my standards, at least, my first year
of blogging was prolific … I wrote 74 posts … I remember that I wanted to write
about anything and everything that piqued my interest … I wrote about a great
number of things … books, fountain pens, music, travel, my research, a couple
of poems, humour, films, personal musings … it was exciting and also in some
ways innocent … I thought of myself as a writer and all I wanted was my posts
to be read … Vinod’s blog inspired me to have one of my own and he encouraged
me with occasional comments … by this time, I had made friends with Hari
through FPN, and he too was generous with his comments on posts about fountain
pens … and some friends from FPN too used to visit and leave their comments … I
enjoyed writing and that year was a good period …
But then on, it has been a free fall … I have never been
able to match or even come near that figure of 74 in subsequent years … things
went from bad to worse … from 25 posts in 2009, I slipped to 12 in 2010, then
10 posts in 2011 … till 2014, I was still in the doldrums … but frankly
speaking, this was the only sensible thing I was doing … college life and
teaching had become mind numbing and routine … only reading and music sustained
me to some extent … I had one problem though … I wanted to write fully rounded
posts that covered all aspects of the matter on hand … and till I had all facts
or things (that need to be photographed), I didn’t start writing … sometimes,
everything would be there, but I would have no time (sometimes, no inclination)
to take photos or scan images … and this would stretch on and I would realise
that the entire month has gone by … sometimes,
I would wonder why I take all this trouble to keep this blog going … I would get angry at myself … all this would
happen, and then I would console myself … running away is easy … so, I would
dig my heels in … and at the beginning of 2015 I decided to be blunt with
myself … come what may, I am going to write at least 4 posts per month …
January went by as planned, but I slipped up in February and March, picked up
in April and May, again a dip in June … from then on till December, I was able
to hold on … I had written 47 posts … more than double the number of posts I wrote
the previous year … I felt really
pleased with myself at the end of the year …
And then the same old story in 2016 … this time I was really
pissed at the beginning of 2016 … it was as if I couldn’t cope with things any
more … at that time, the only things I could vent my anger was on my hair and
my blog … I cut my long locks, which I had nurtured till it had reached a good
ponytail level (a teenage dream fulfilled at the onset of old age … ha ha ha …
) … and decided to shelve my blog … I knew I was being foolish, but those were
the only things I could do without hurting anybody …
Then in March, I decided enough of all this stupidity, and
wrote my first post in 2016 … an honest account of my misery and despondency …
but I didn’t link it to my facebook page … and I knew that hardly anybody
visits my blog directly … so in a sense, it escaped attention, and needless
questions … but one can’t say … I decided to hang on … and just about managed
to keep my head above water … after 4 determined posts in March, April skipped
past without any posts … one in May, and then on I held on and finished 2016
with 32 posts … much less than 2015, but better than the years before that …
phew … I am happy that I managed to come out on top, in my own way, in spite of
an impetuous plan in the middle of the year that backfired spectacularly …
January was unexpectedly busy with lots of things on the
calendar … for me, it means lots of anxiety and tension … and these are not
conducive for thinking and writing, and so I willingly allowed January to pass,
though I had the matter in my head and images for two posts that I wanted to
start off with … the first part of February too was anxiety-ridden … there was
some scope for hope in January, but it ended in disappointment … despite all the
anxiety, tension, and disappointment, there is some clarity now … hopefully, I would
be able to put in place what I have in mind … I don’t want to come out on top or
anything (those hopes have vaporized permanently …), I just want to stay put … I
have survived these small battles in my head with my blog as my battlefield …
