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The Blogger's Narrative

By Nirmaldasan
(nirmaldasan@hotmail.com)

The content of a blog, weblog to be precise, can be as trivial as an insignificant entry in a diary or as serious as an editorial in a mainstream daily. Likewise, the language of a blog can be colloquial or standard, incoherent or coherent, plain or sublime. You simply cannot tell bloggers what they must put in their blogs. You also cannot convince them of the importance of grammar and style. The only thing that you can do is refuse to be a reader.

But bloggers are a peculiar lot. They don't care whether you read their blogs or not. They just key in their thoughts and publish. And their first impressions download into the public domain. Instant publishing gives bloggers the power to say what they want, no matter if they lack the linguistic skills. It caters to the expressive instinct. But the silver lining is that good blogs eventually find their readers.

With that in mind, I became a blogger on February 5, 2004. My first blog simply announced that I had web-published a collection of poems titled 'Literary Trivia & Curiosities'. I have been posting blogs only occasionally. I will be recording my first impressions. In my blogs I will also offer a second opinion on topics that interest or provoke me. The blogs will be tethered to my various moods and will reveal my personality in all its glories and shortcomings. Here is a sample titled 'Reasonings Of A Mortal', posted on Friday, 13 February 2004:

***
"I am a christian by birth. A vedantin by choice. And a hypocrite by nature."

That is how 'Reasonings Of A Mortal', my jettisoned autobiography, begins. But I couldn't bring it to a fruitful end because somewhere down the line I lost faith in the infallibility of reason. However, I continue to put reason to good use.

That quote -- the cleverness of it -- thrilled me so much that I had the cheek to make it my e-mail signature, sometime in 1998. After reading it, my friend Auspin sent me this stunning response:

"Dear Nirmaldasan,
Of course! no doubt you are a hypocrite. But see, there is nothing big or great or chivalrous in being a vedantin hypocrite. When it is so glaring of how worse a hypocrite you are, why the hell you pretend to be very frank enough to air it out. Because we don't everyday call you a hypocrite, it doesn't mean we accept you anyway better than a hypocrite."

I promptly removed the signature.

***

That's about it. Do check my blogs to know what I am up to: nirmaldasan's bloggings.

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