The Magic Number of 100000

 "The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." This is an old Chinese saying and so apt. When one commences any task or embarks on a new unexplored vista, one doesn't know how far and how long will it go on. Today as I celebrate the 100000 (one lakh) hits on my blog, I am reminded of this very adage. I have always enjoyed putting pen to paper and realised that even this ‘nonsense’ of mine did make some sense after all. 

I was probably in my class 3 when I wrote my first Hindi story, it was about a blade of grass, which was  in sorrow and pain as all other plants had beautiful flowers and she was not so blessed, till finally she also saw little buds sprouting as it too flowered. My parents were very proud and showed it to all the guests and they too patted me for this original idea and for my little baby steps in creativity. I did indulge in writing and publishing articles in RIMC Chronicle later, but the language continued to be Hindi. While in NDA, I was still writing in Hindi but was more into poetry but did not offer it for publication in the magazine. I did share it with a couple of my friends and also my parents while on vacation. Somewhere in the intervening period I switched from Hindi to English and have stuck to it. The first break came my way when my article, "Uxorious" was published in Deccan Herald and it won me a microwave in 2001. The same year I also won the second prize in USI Gold Medal Essay Competition. But then the demands of a very hectic professional career took precedence and I bided my time till after my command when I got posted to the salubrious environs of Wellington as Directing Staff.

All the drudgery of corrections of students officers submissions would make anybody look at some other forays, an occasional game of squash did provide some respite, as I had not taken to Golf till then. But it was the keyboard of the laptop  which came to my rescue and became my  best friend and that is where I contributed two three articles for The Hoot, the DSSC monthly newsletter. The first one was on Sixth Pay Commission and that was also my first blog, which I published on 2nd Apr 2009. It should ideally have been launched on 1st Apr, as the title that I had chosen was, "Sense in the Nonsense"!  First couple of them barely had any responses, but the pleasure and feeling of writing was exhilarating and so I just carried on. In Sanskrit they say "स्वांतः सुखाय (swantah sukhay)", which literally means, "for my own pleasure”, this was precisely that pleasure.  Initially the frequency was also less, but  gradually as I started to hit the keyboard more frequently as the viewership, i.e. hits on the blog kept multiplying. It was celebration time, when the blog hit 1000, and then a time came when, some of my blogs registered an all-time high hit of  3500. The topics were not chosen in any particular pattern, just what came to my mind. I realised that life in NDA and our training period made interesting reading, so very many of my blogs focussed on those aspects. Our politicians have the foot in the mouth syndrome and picking on them was quite funny and interesting. Topics as diverse as Capsicum to Donald Trump, Ripped Jeans to Tool Kit, UN tenure to Moustaches, Doctors to Rail Travails, Ants in the Pants of air travellers to Covid, Mosquito Menace to Delhi Belly or on a sombre note the tribute to my mother and two brave-hearts of Indian Army have been traversed in these years of blogging. A total of more than 200 odd blogs have been published over the years.The blogs provided me with an outlet to let my creative juices flow, it also resulted in publication of three books.

I was asked by my friends as to why didn't I monetise my blog, well frankly I am not very keen, as technically I am still in uniform. May be someday when I am a senior citizen and a settled veteran, I may consider it. As of now I am happy that these blogs bring a smile on the faces of  my readers and followers of the blog, their comments are very encouraging and spur me on to bash on regardless!