It is wonderful to see blogging come of age in India. I have always believed that blogs are the new way that people will express themselves, and bloggers will create communities that will become more powerful and more connected than newspapers and tv channels. Soon we will have blogtv – where the combined reach of the individual communities will far exceed those of the current (rather poor) tv channels. And because blogging is an interactive and democratic process through which no one person is allowed to become so powerful that he/she becomes the ‘gatekeeper’ of public opinion and even news, bloggers carry the responsibility to nourish and nurture this new medium. For like freedom, it is by the people, of the people and for the people. And so, while I love that both Amir and Amitabh are attracting so much attention from bloggers, I sincerely hope that ultimately their blogs will mature into creating communities that will become focal points for community discussions. For a Blog to be sustainable, it must go beyond being about an individual personality. Both Amir and Amitabh have the ‘pull power’ to create large blogging communities. I sincerely hope they do.
hi shekhar,
i would’nt know about those blogs coz i have not checked them out. i may not have known about yours aswell if i had not read the papers the day your ex mentioned all about the preity zinta episode and the piece she had posted ( in connection with that ) on your blog. so it was out of curiousity that i landed here and today im glad i did coz the topics touched upon are so varied………some touch the heart, others jog the mind and then yet others stir the soul :)…………………..
Very well said !
I have been following their blogs too and there are distinct differences in their sites and yours. While here we get to explore issues, concerns, communities , spiritualism etc, there its more about them sharing their thoughts and minds and bloggers commenting on those individuals. In my recent visit to Aamir Khan chat site, there were 5 youngsters ( i assume this since grownups would be more responsible) constantly talking total nonsense even using abusive contents and language. I dont know what constructive purpose could this site achieve . Well, surely has lost my attention to that blog.
Its very true that people with that kind of power over the mass should aim towards chanelling the power of words and mind towards building a better community ….our nation needs a revolution in many contexts — the focus has to shift beyond their individual personalities .
….and thats how this brings me to compliment you Shekhar on what you are doing. I sincerely have become a greater fan of yours within this one week. I look forward to your topics of dicussion and comments on current happenings.
My best wishes to you for making this effort to creating a nation full of thoughtful and more compassionately aware individuals.
Anindita
Well no pun intended but the blogs you mentioned are these days used to create controversies or get back at journalists or film critics…and trust me I like your blog because you blog just like anyone will do…varied topics are a welcome difference which you have and their blogs dont.
So the day the commercialisation stops, I do agree their communities will have far bigger pull power than even they can imagine..
Having said that, their blogs are quite popular…hah! Mass janta!
Good Morning Shekhar…
Thank you for understanding, much appreciated!
This is what I say, when such folks have so much power, it could be utilsed in awakening and standing up or leading, for betterment of our future generations…whats the point of such power that only resonates around ones ownself!!!
Theres no dirth of power, alas! Confined!
Ah! Blogging for me has a very different meaning…thats why I come to yours to express thoughts which hold no place in my blogging…
Tis my private sanctity…under the open skies…
Have a lovely day…
Smiles~~~~
It is a Very Interesting thing to try to understand what a blog’s purpose could be..I mean some people use it to rant about their lives, some Like Our Friend DQ are exceptional artist and satisfy the artist in them by writing…some like me just write to make fun of everything in life…Some like you who want’s to know what people think of things that affect you intellectually…So its difficult..Aamir might be on the same side as your’s or may be that is his not so personal diary..Anyways like they say ” to each of their own” (or something like that)
This guy is an excellent writer, hence the winner of Bastiat award… check out his blog
http://indiauncut.com/
I understand Mehul….
.
.
Point Noted!
.
.
All kinds huh!!!
Just wishful thinking that such power could be turned into something more effective.
But then again all kinds huh!!!
Thank you for making me realise, individuality!!
Thank you for seeing me as an artist, i wait for aloos someday lol..the grammatical errors i make..
Can laugh on it too…
Cheers!!
***Anindita Sen***
.
.
the focus has to shift beyond their individual personalities .
.
.
Alas! Anindita, a sudden realisation…
.
.
One cant make a cook out of an artist and an artist out of a cook…
Though both are artists in their own ways…
.
.
It would come naturally, if it has to…
So Lets walk on with grace…
.
.
Smiles~~~
DQ…
I love eating and a good cook is like an Artist to me…sometimes(Sadly) when My mum asks me about the kinda girl she should look for me, I say good cook…gooood Cook….lol ok Jokes apart..
I say… a Blog is for some a space where they can project their expression..with their identity or by hiding it…
For someone like Big B…it could be one of the ways of clearing his name..But man those comments there…
Anyways…A bit of an Update from jaipur…I saw some pictures online at a local newspapers website..it freaked me out..Mum tells me that things are better, the IPL match was very important..emotionally it balances a lot of things in the city which has jst gone throgh something like that..and I liked the gesture of the teams…and ‘course my team won.. “Rajasthan Royals”..what team are you guys supporting ?
Errm Mehul…
I dunno da difference between gulli danda and cricket, that is the only knowledge i have of cricket lol…
Pssst though in childhood i was the best spinner in cricket ImaOOoo!!
Was a tomboy, darn could play any game a boy could play, from spinning tops to flying kites to climbing trees and roof tops…marbles…name it!!
Moms always conditioned that a best way to a mans heart is his belly…food!! Psst I did learn how to make a good concoction of rat poison!! Thats all.
.
.
Lol i say u feed the belly, and leave other needs basking in aroma of food the man takes a walking ticket to pluto with a no return ticket lol!!
.
.
I personally feel…tis not anything at all…but love that binds the two!!
.
.
As for hiding an identity…did you miss the identity DQ?
.
.
Cheers!!!
In a way, I agree with the straight, prompt and instant medium of communication such as blog. It helps the NEWS to come to the public straight from the mouth of source without being spiced up from third party. And, especially from the public figure, where average public is hugely impacted, it plays a vital role. As long as it is limited to convey the message and share the thoughts, this is really great. However, as soon as it changes it form, it will loose its charm.
Kamana, Sigdel
In a way, I agree with the straight, prompt and instant medium of communication such as blog. It helps the NEWS to come to the public straight from the mouth of source without being spiced up from third party. And, especially from the public figure, where average public is hugely impacted, it plays a vital role. As long as it is limited to convey the message and share the thoughts, this is really great. However, as soon as it changes it form, it will loose its charm.
Kamana, Holland
Shekhar,
You’ve made a very good point here.
Aamir Khan’s blog/website has a tremendous potential of becoming a community. Of course, what aspects it would be focused on would be in the hands of Aamir Khan (if he choses to reshape the website that way).
Amitji’s blog is already on a community site (bigadda – Amitji’s blog was perhaps inserted there to grow that community). It is surprising though why they tried to give it a look of a separate blog. They will not entirely capitalize on Amitji’s crowd pulling ability by doing this.
Something that should also be remembered is that even Aamir Khan was pulled in to blog by MSN earlier for the same reason and that is how perhaps he got addicted to blogging.
Although they both are crowd puller, I guess only some focused and serious content could keep people coming back in all the time, not just out of the curiosity or to catch the stars.
Another important thing is that Language content on the Internet is growing. There are hundreds of websites these days completely in Hindi, Kannada and several Indian languages (ibnlive.com started its news service on web recently completely in Hindi). This is again something that these stars could kick off.
Communities in Hindi focused on aspects of film making or just films for instance, would improve the quality of interaction, has the potential to make significant difference to Hindi cinema in its own way.
DQ,
Thanx for the new perspective .. I wasnt thinking on those lines at all. U are relevant in the sense that we know actors as we see them , in the characters that they play on screen. We really dont know them as a human , unvieled or different from how the gossip magazines make them out to be ….maybe thats why when a prominent actor starts a blog, the first thing is to share pieces of himself so that people start seeing them as they really are in real life.
Probably it is too premature to be judgemental about them right away and criticize their blog until it matures into something more productive in the future.
Thanx again for showing me a different side to this whole thing
Anindita
Mr Bachchan is coming of age and showing all signs of being senile ….combat-mudslinging has become a hobby (to put it mildly ) for him. I dread to think what will be come of his blog site once his family joins in..Mutual admiration society…hypocritical and biased for sure…….
Now at the dusk of his career and life…i really wish he can make a difference to the society thru this medium and at least partially give back what he has so far collected over a period of decades from society and fans. phew…….
Aamir is happy being the GENIUS who likes to have a stand -offish image . He undoubtedly is one of the finest actors we have but his idiosyncracies are fine only to the extent of boycotting award ceremonies, avoiding the media, his controversies related to being the father of author Jessica’s child, his doing a Mangal Pandey, his take on being exclusive whether in films or advertisements…his thirst for perfection and consequent needling & domination………but NOt when it comes to sharing his dog’s name with the public for sheer nuisance value. It may have been funny but the intention behind it certainly didnt seem light hearted ………Pls Aamir …dont go the amitabh way ..har har !!
These actors seem to be more jobless than any other normal person……..Too BAd 🙂 hehehe
Firstly, I do think it is a little in-appropriate to bash Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan’s blog here on Shekhar’s blog. That feedback can easily be directed to their blogs. Why not keep this forum positive?
Having said that, celebrity blogging, is certainly coming of age in India. As a lot of people here mention, it is a very powerful tool. It can be used to achieve a lot. You could build an ‘intellectual’ community(I feel a tad nervous though, categorizing any community I contribute to as intellectual :)), like Shekhar here is doing, or you could use it as a personal dairy like Aamir is doing or a forum to express your thoughts and grievances as Amitabh Bachchan is doing. Different strokes for different people.
But that’s the beauty of this medium.. it is so open to interpretation. For instance, blogging for me is a mixture of all the above elements. A combination of a drawing room conversation, a personal diary and a method of sharing my passions and concerns with like-minded people.
Eventually, what will sustain a blog over a period of time is the content. A blog after all de-enigmises a star and he becomes all so human. I mean how long will people get a kick visiting a sub-standard blog just because their favourite actor runs it? And I say this from the perspective of a person who is capable of extreme fandom. I was a fan of Dev Anand for years and years. Yet, the day I met him it all vanished into the thin air. I could not find the substance I imagined him to have.( I am glad SD Burman, my other idol is dead so I can continue to revere him as I do :)). So mere star-power cannot sustain a blog.
Personally, I enjoy Amitabh Bachchan’s writing style a lot. He writes very well and with depth and insight. One can easily ignore his diatribe against the media and relish the good stuff he dishes out.
I also agree with the school of thought here that people who are icons in a certain field can help use this medium to bring attention and awareness towards the finer points of their art/skill. Amitabh Bachchan has been doing that off and on. Shekhar does that too. I for one greatly enjoy those kind of articles.
Finally, as a cinema buff I would say artists like Shekhar and Mr Bachchan who are not only legends in their own right but have also been associated with equally legendary artists can do so much for the posterity of the medium they have excelled in. A lot of these artists are from the earlier era whose contribution and genius has unfortunately not been adequately documented. They as thinking and feeling people can paint a rich picture for us.
For instance, I would love to read Shekhar’s view on the craft and genius of his two Uncles Chetan and Vijay Anand. Similiarly the richness of insight Amitabh Bachchan can provide us into the mind and genius of Hrishikesh Mukherjee would be difficult to get from another source.
I do hope that some of the celebrity blogging we see covers that aspect.
And last but not the least. Shekhar I do enjoy your blog the most. Not only because of the content but also because of the fact that we have a sort of community here and can exchange ideas as a group.
All the best!
Cheers
Ritu
Hi Sekhar
I am a Management Consultant based in Mumbai. I have recently launched fiction book titled “Future of the Past”. the book has received reviews in dailies and magazines like ‘The Hindu’, ‘Deccan Herald’, ‘the Asian Age’, ‘The Dawn’ (Pakistan).
I wish to share a copy of the book with you as I want to evaluate the possibility of converting the book into a movie some time later. Please let me know where I could courier the book.
Details of my book are on
http://futureofpast.blogspot.com
Warm Regards
Alpesh Patel
sir
i want to say something actually sir i want bollywood pic win the oscar award but scince in bollywood history bollywood any pic not win this award only because of great story and best scripts
and i think A good diricton fast want a best script for pic and i think our bollywood dirictor creat the best pic whos pic win this award and we all are proud to bollywood sir so i have one script u just read that script and throw about it and i think after u make this pic .that pic win this award if u ricive the message u replay me sir
please am unknown person
alpesh, I could not get to ur blogsite, Could you please write to me at info@shekharkapur.com ? shekhar
Hai Shekhar u r doing good work man keep going. I have no comment at this time but i think now it is the right time for bollywood to think not about the movies but this is the time to think about cruption in indian politics and in goverment sector. plz raise this issue in front of all indian’s to crush its crrupt politicians. i thought that we have seen many goverments , now it is the time for marshal law in India. If we want to distroy terrorism and enemies than plz stand up for marshal law.
“JAI HIND”
Hi Shekhar
Recently the Bachchan family were in Toronto. The little India – Gerrard St.was flooded with South Asians -Indians, Trinidadians and Guyanese. One guy described Abhishek and Aishwarya as the Indian Brad Pitt and Angelina Jollie. I don’t know if they are considered so in India. It kind of irked me. Why this comparison? Each individual has his or her own identity. I believe Bollywood is bigger than Hollywood. Even during the Oscar ceremony, one of the Indian actors was asked if he has seen such a spectacle like the oscar presentation in Bollywood (some such question) and he gave an honest answer that he has seen a bigger crowd and representation in Bollywood. This answer met with a sneer by the interviewer. Hollywood and its personnel are pretty ill-informed about our film industry, by the same token, our people suffer from identity crisis and hence this need to compare with Hollywood actors. I found it depressing.-Vanmala
Hi Shekhar:
Wow! Did not know till this minute that you blog! Hmmm…yes, indeed this blogging phenomenon is catching on!
Good question – why blog at all? Why not write a private diary? Does blogging involve a degree of exhibitionism?
Now, when I visit a blog like yours or Mr. Bachchan’s (I’ve not yet visited Aamir’s), to be honest, I am looking for a few things in particular – such as the following: what is your take on the art form that you work with? How do you do your work? What are the nuances that are involved in your work? What kind of background research do you do for your productions? How do you visualize and then bring to life such rich and thought-provoking ensembles? Similiarly, I expected to see Mr. Bachchan write about such things – and why not – after all he is a ‘phenomenon’ and I am sure there would be many like me who would be curious as to how he handles his craft. But alas, I have not yet found such discussions.
Some of my colleagues who are typically the ‘academic-types’ (if one must in a pinch qualitatively quantify people) blog extensively. They muse about not only their subjects of interest, they also try to draw connections with the wider world thereby engaging (or at least attempting to engage) visitors to their blogs in a dialogue. This enrichens not only the blogger but also the visitor.
The net effect is what I would call – the production of knowledge. Yes, of course there is much fun and games involved and sometimes the discussions do get rancorous. But this trend of ‘celeb-blogging’ is unlike this. Rather, it is – as far as I have read – like a soliloquy…a rather extended and rambling monologue.
Do I count you as a ‘celeb’? Frankly? Yes! But then again, look at the “Categories” on your blog! This is precisely what I am talking about! It is a pleasure to visit your blog and to read the discussions that ensure here.
I will be visiting often!
Cheers!
Hi Shekhar,
Since we are talking abt blogging soo much, I would really appreciate it and be very happy if you could find a few minutes to look into my blog. The address is http://www.speakurworld.blogspot.com
Kindly let me know if uv looked into it…I really need to know. Actually I have been following your blog for a really long time. So…wanted u to just check out my blog once. And specially an article called THE DREAM SECRET in it..Pleaseeeee!!!!Pls do rply here…It would b really nice of you:))) Thankssss.
Hi Shekhar..did u read my blog..the article I requested u to look into…???Kindly reply:)))waiting…
hi amir,
First time i write comments on blogs. my friends were think that you are not aware about your vote. so please go and cast ur voted ur one vote can change the ill system
thank u
tarun
Hi amit uncle
Why are doing stoupid things ur a example for us but why u not take ur own descision why u always take suggestion with amar singh. u know politicians are very diplomatic and he always use u for repoutation and take advantages from them. so keep distance from him
introducing myself i am a script writer of all india radio at aurangabad district of maharashtra
i can provide,lot of written material. request.for making film.if i may get interviwed personally.by your kind this will prove the fact of my writing skill,
i therefore request your kind,to let me know,that To whom I should corrospond who manages the personal appointments.
Hoping and awaiting for your reply i remain i very sincerly Desires for one opportonity
iam the writer of radio akshvani in aurangabad
I visited Aamir Khan n Amithji’s blogs a couple of times,
Its crazy… 5000+ posts…as response!!!
neither co-bloggers, nor the owner will be able to go through the posts. Its too huge a comunity to feel at home, This place is awesome. There are good number of sensible posts. Its the sensible/sensitive threads that bring us back to this place, not just the celebrity status.
There its more of fan following.
Love this blog…