The summer term can get pretty boring if all you do is keep to yourself and your routine. So after a boring day with lecture videos, books and nothing-to-do times, I decided its time to take a look at news back home. Logging on to Times of India website, the very first thing that caught my eye was a headline "Panchvi Fail".
Extremely curious since I do like Bollywood masala once in a while, I followed the link to Amitji's Blog. Its nice to know that our Bollywood biggies are turning tech-savvy. As a small-time representative of the blogging community, I was all set to read up his blogs and give a comment or two on some. But perhaps it was just my perception of blogging or perhaps I had much too different expectations from one of Bollywood's legendary icon's blog, I just didn't like it!
Blogging as I know it is NOT a place on the web to get your 15-minutes of fame. Its not even a place to add 15 more minutes to an already filled-to-brim fame. Its a place to talk about things that you otherwise don't get a chance to talk because there is no time or place relevant enough to talk about them. I had a post sometime back about board games vs. e-games. There just wasn't any time or place appropriate enough to talk about this hence the blog. Blogging is about letting others know your opinions on issues you feel deeply about such as Reservations.
What blogging is not, according to me, is pulling others down or using blogs as a publicity tool. Perhaps the second is justified for someone of Amitji's stature. If he writes a blog its bound to attract its share of fans dying to write a comment and hoping for a personal e-mail as an answer. But browsing thru the posts on his blog, I am yet to come across one that is different from the numerous interviews he gives and the scores of speeches we have seen him deliver.
Commenting on others work and not-so-subtly implying your own greatness everywhere is however a big no-no for blogs I think. Blogging if after all a type of journalism and it must adhere to the tenets of good journalism. Generating controversy after controversy on your blog is not a very good way to keep yourself in public eye! To summarize, this was one blog visit when the only comment I'd have liked to leave was a link to my "Blogs I like" section.
On a smaller note, this encounter got me Googling for more celebrity blogs which in turn led me to Aamir Khan's blog. Now its perfectly alright to vent out your "truest" feelings on a blog like I'm doing on this post and have done on many before. But uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and it doesn't befit a person of Aamirji's fame to get into petty blog battles. I will stop at that and add no more to my thoughts on this latest hot news of Bollywood.
As a concluding remark, blogging is a "personal" thing! Its a way to express yourself with the keyboard instead of pen-and-paper. and if you think its gonna hurt someone make it private! Mandar's latest post expresses this view very succinctly! Perhaps the above was a pretty explicit and long post but I just couldn't resist striking out in defence of that one activity that gives me creative satisfaction and led me to nice things in life!!!
