I can’t pinpoint any one moment when I felt I should start a blog. It was largely due to the need to get a platform where I can put out my thoughts and views without being answerable to any boss. The job I was in didn’t have enough opportunity to do the same [such was the structure of the publication, so that’s understandable].
At that time, movies was the only topic I was comfortable writing on. After a prolonged strike of the Hindi film industry, finally a big movie released in the form of Kabir Khan’s New York (2009). I wrote its review rather late on July 4, 2009. It was a co-incidence that I wrote on New York on American Independence Day.
I wanted to a put a name that suits me. Just a year ago Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday was released. Apart from becoming a worshipper of that film, I was also mesmerized by the lead character called Stupid Common Man played by Naseeruddin Shah. Hence, it was an easy decision. [Read more about it HERE]
It was just the excitement to see my work published that compelled me to write regularly from then on. Slowly I ventured into other topics like personal experience and current affairs. But soon I found a new motivation to write regularly because of a boost to the new age Marathi cinema, that started roughly in 2004 with Shwaas.
The first month of 2010 saw Harishchandrachi Factory and few other films released in quick succession. The film also played a major role in taking my interest in cinema to a much higher level. At the same time, writing about Marathi films became a major reason for the blog getting somewhat known.
Incidentally, the 2011 Cricket World Cup also took place the next year where India triumphed. This prompted me to write on cricket which I have somehow still continued.
As if like a film script, Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption [IAC] movement gained huge momentum the same year in August. After taking part in it regularly, the blog became a medium to cover first hand reports of the rallies. [Read more about it HERE].
Not surprisingly, I have been asked numerous times as to why I don’t monetize my blog. To tell you honestly, I did try doing that by signing up for Google adsense but they kept rejecting my request. Funnily enough, the most common reason given by them is that my blog has ‘adult’ content.
But I did manage to earn some money and a lot of vouchers through a lot of blogging activities and contests on few blogging platforms. I had a ball of a time meeting new bloggers and also earning by doing something that didn’t require much hard work.
But after a point of time, it dawned upon me that this is not the reason I had started my blog for. The aim was to get a platform where I could voice my thoughts. Hence, I decided to stick to the original motto. This doesn’t mean that there is a strict no-no for contests. If the contest is such that it naturally motivates me to write on something, I will have no problems taking part in it.
But co-incidentally, blogs have started becoming obsolete since few years with more and more penetration of social media and video content. This also meant that activities on these blogging platforms have reduced and have slowly become next to nothing.
Naturally the page views on my blog have also started declining considerably. Currently, the numbers I get is way lesser than what I used to get around four or five years ago. So, in such a scenario, I have been asked if there is any point in keeping my blog active if the number of readers have lessened to this extent.
My answer to these questions is a resounding yes without a stroke of hesitation. To answer it in simpler terms, a serious drug addict needs regular doses of drugs in order to be sane. That’s how it is for me. It’s an addiction without any side effects and, on the contrary, plenty of benefits which cannot be measured in monetary terms.
By: Keyur Seta