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It's time to blog
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Blogging is turning out to be a wonderful way of keeping in touch with friends and family
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VIRTUALLY REALISTIC: A blogger at work
IT'S BEEN more than five years since Arpan, a software engineer, left for the U.S. to pursue a career in the Big Apple.
He still remembers his first homecoming. His gang of friends had turned up in strength to welcome him. After the first few minutes of camaraderie, there was absolute silence in the room.
Whatever happened to the bunch of noisy brats I knew, wondered Arpan's mother.
The reason, you see, was not very difficult to decipher.
Though the entire gang kept in regular touch through e-mail initially, the frequency soon petered down when all of them got into demanding jobs.
Finally, when news came that Arpan was to fly down home, the pals knew they had to be there to receive him, but did not know what to talk. They had all grown in different ways and had come a long way from the gangly, not-so-confident college boys they were when Arpan left.
Cut to two years later and their meeting is as noisy as it used to be when they were in college.
"That's more like my children," felt Arpan's mom. And, she's thankful to the concept of blogging for getting the friends back together.
For Sudhar, who migrated to the U.S. recently, his blog provides the perfect outlet for his feelings.
"See, blogs mean different things to different people. And, the advantage is that you can write about `anything'. There are no rules and no boundaries. I can write a blog about how painful it is to wait for 10 minutes with three others for the office elevator and land on the wrong floor (It sucks!). This might not mean anything to you, but probably, someday in the distant future, someone who has had a similar experience might relate to it."
Another advantage, he says, is that you friends and family get to know what is happening in your daily life and can read it at leisure.
(A recent blog of Sudhar's speaks about the battle of wits he waged with his wife to dip into the tuck box holding the cheedais made for Krishnashtami, before it was offered to the deity.)
Timeless nature
Since every blog and comment is stored in a sequence, it can be read by anyone, anytime, and still make sense.
"Blogging actually helps, you know," says Anant, an insurance officer in Coimbatore.
He blogs almost every day and goes through his friends blogs too. Ask him if blogging actually helps break the ice between friends, and he says: "Not for me, for I can strike a conversation even with someone I've just met. But, many of my friends say that blogs, by themselves, have helped initiate conversations."
Gauge individual
"Since blogs are posted in a series, you can gauge the state of mind of the writer and how he/she has grown or changed over the years," he adds.
Most blogs link to other blogs. And, the freshness and naivety in the writing makes them all the more attractive. To check out some blog sites, just go to google.com and type `blogs' in the search string. You can then enter the virtual world of realistic blogs.
Blogging is also an extremely user-friendly concept. And, it does not take too much time and costs absolutely nothing. So, what drives bloggers? "The very feel that we've written down something that will remain forever for whoever wants to use it for whatever," chuckles Sudhar.
SUBHA J RAO
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