The Culture Blog

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The Indian Commentator—it’s been five years, now. Often I do an introspective article on writing or the purpose of blogging. Once, again, I am at a juncture, where I had to write introspectively, reading and reporting my inner self’s states. I feel that otherwise, I would not be able to survive the atrocious influences I live with. By atrocious influences, I mean, those ideas and people that believe success is to conform oneself to their way of looking at the world. These people ask me to be this or that, and entirely ignore my real self.

Yesterday, on 26 August 2013, I was thinking about page views on my blog. Whatever I was expecting, wasn’t shown at the counter. I felt depressed and lonely. It was a peculiar feeling that was close very much to the loneliness one suffers when left alone, bereft of all relatives and friend. Ah! I cannot explain. That very day, I had a busy class schedule and came back home tired and exhausted, much similar to this day, when I write this post. Yesterday I felt tired enough to quit publishing the article meant for the day. It felt unimaginably tiring. Today, after realizing what should have been done, instead of what should have been expected, I feel no pain and no exhaustion in writing this piece.

I made the previous post on Sunday, 25 August 2013, at 10.03 PM; forty-eight hours have been long enough for me to understand how important this blog is for me. I hope Google never stops providing me this opportunity, and kindly continue providing my blog to all the respective feeders and pages. Yesterday, I thought that I would not make regular posts from then onwards, as the page views hadn’t risen considerably as “I had expected”. It still was and is a very large chunk, which would have been thrilled me as a rookie five years back. Now, however, my preferences changed, apparently, and high expectations became a regular business. Right now, after forty-eight hours from the previous post, I feel, I am no longer alive, without the interaction with my regular readers.

Of course, after five years, it becomes a habit.

Yesterday, at my college, a student of mine came to me and said every one of her friends ignored her. She took serious issue, as she felt that others are avoiding her presence. As a teacher and their guide, I shared my advice with her. “Why is your friendship so mean?” I asked her. She looked at me flabbergasted, and said, “Sir, it is them…”

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“You didn’t get me,” I explained. “If you are expecting something in return for your friendship, such as care, concern, a biriyani, or money, then I would say that friendship is mean.” She shook her head in understanding and went back to class.   

It took me still a long time to understand the actual sense of my own words. I was expecting something (here page views) in return to the posts I share free with my readers. I had thought TIC was free for all. Never did I realize that it was not at all free for me. I was bound within the confines of the principle of expectations. Meanwhile, I was also gave myself up in front of the principles of success defined by others, for their benefits.    

This realization struck me once I moved closer to the edge of the urge to write. The inevitable had to happen. I must communicate with my readers, and share a part of my soul with them, no matter what. I decided. And so I am here, once again.

Post Postum: I published my book review of A Degree in Death, on Sunday. Normally, I take a day’s off from my blog on Sundays. So consider this; instead of a Sunday, I took it on Monday.