Who do Blogs really belong to ?

shekhar

When I first started to blog, I saw it as a way to express myself. I enjoyed putting thoughts down first thing in the morning. And then as the blog caught on, it was like relating to a whole universe of people with diverse thoughts. I then discovered that people like to express themselves back through this medium, not only to themselves, but also with each other. And then as our community got larger, I was approached by many people to sponsor the blog with advertising. I resisted that, and continue to resist it. After all their is a difference between a Newspaper and a Blog. One is a forum of discussion of diverse points of view of which I am merely the convener. The other a commercial enterprise for the benefit of the owners.
Anyway, for the moment no advertising. I will consider it if I need to spend money on the blog eg if and when we need a search engine, or I need to begin to pay people to manage it. In the meantime I wanted to tell you all that Himanshu is now back in India and working with me. He has left his beloved city of NY and decided to plunge into the world of film making. I wish him luck and all of those of you that are looking to do the same. Including Kedar and Sanjay and other that have actually completed their films within the years that they have been members of our community.
Good luck to you all and the only advice I have is : It’s not a career, it a passion. and ‘kal kisne dekha ?”

43 thoughts on “Who do Blogs really belong to ?”

  2. Hi Shekhar,
    just a suggestion, would be highly appreciated if you accept it. when you are in town(meaning Bombay), why don’t all of us( you & your voracious readers) meet up sometime… that would be nice, putting names to faces & have some meaningful discussion….
    Thanks
    Pratima

  3. Shekhar, a blog is an amazing organism. It is like an abstract tool or building block. You can do anything out of it. It is like the twelve notes in a scale. You can create a symphony out of it or use to to produce cacophony :).
    You blog has shaped up beautifully. I think it works so wonderfully because you are so evolved as a human being yourself. Instead of using it to build a cult around yourself you have used this powerful medium to create a wonderful symphony of thoughts and ideas. You use it to probe the larger issues of life and living. I think for a celebrity it takes a whole lot of courage to focus attention away from themselves,a fact that becomes glaringly obvious if you glance at celebrity blogs over the place. Most of them are used to build a cult around the star persona. Your blog on the other hand is a journey. A journey of the intellect and of the soul to conquer new horizons. It stimulates debate and nurtures it. Truly a wonderful effort. I for one have learnt and evolved a lot just reading the stuff people post on this blog.
    And for all the disagreements we have on this community I think at some level we are kindred souls, which is why keep hanging on :).
    Himanshu many congratulations for having the courage to follow your dreams. Given your evolved EQ I am sure you’ll make wonderful films. All the best! (Shekhar is that why Himanshu has disappeared from your blog? You are slave-driving him? :))
    Sanjay and Kedar, please do tell us a little bit about your work as well.
    Best to all!
    Ritu

  4. I hope Shekhar that you don’t come to a point where other people start managing **our** blog. It’s nice to keep it simple and personal. 🙂
    Also a blog-meet sounds like a wonderful idea. Maybe once a year or something. I would love to put faces to names. Infact it would be great to have some of our debates face to face. Brahmastra, I look forward to meeeting you :).
    I will be returning to NYC this week after finishing my sabbatical in India so wouldn’t be able to attend any Bombay meet(if it happens), but I do hope that you people would consider doing something in NYC as well. Or better still maybe we can have a webcast or something. We can hook up using webcams.
    Shekhar do think in that direction when you get a chance.
    Cheers
    Ritu

  5. If I could make a living out of advertising revenues for a blog some day, I think I would be a very happy man!
    As long as the advertisers have no say in the determination of the contents of your blog and you are the only one whose decision prevails, I see no harm in advertisements appearing here. If you do not wish to keep all of the money earned in this manner for yourself, you could always donate it to charitable causes. 🙂

  6. Hi Shekhar Bhai,
    How long you been away, missing your blog and your thoughts…
    Congrats to Himanshu, Kedar, Sanjay and others…
    Yes its passion…and I remember you a year back when you told that if need be a film maker has to sell his shirt if he or she wants to make a film…how true…hope someday we get to have your assistants reaching their film dreams…
    have a great day

  7. Shekhar – I view your blog as ‘my’ impermanent mind.There are a zillion voices and noises that come and go about within it. I objectively see them come and go by.The ones that do stick and linger seem like homecoming.With time they too become inconsequential.Like the peeling of an onion. You take away one layer to find another. What do you have left when you get rid of the last one? Nothing and Everything.
    Shekhar, blogs/writing as I discover with yours are an effective personal medium to sift the grit from the matter. If one is honest in expression it becomes a vehicle for inner clarity.Between all the voices that you agree and disagree with, you learn to sharpen the understanding of what your inner being is really focussed on.In a ‘Brahmastra’ I recognise the pride for the ultimate knowledge.In an ‘antibramhastra’ the child like nature to rebel.In ‘Ritu’ I see the spright for life.In a ‘Kavitha’ I see the ever so sensitive poet. In ‘Horst’ the calm understanding of life.In a ‘Rudra’ I recognise blind anger.In ‘Harb’ I see the wisdom beyond learning.In you a passion to be above all-honest to that inner voice.
    All of these are expressions of my being. I hear them, I root for some and discard others.Ultimately with the understanding that they all are but transient expressions of my restless mind.I feed them with interest and they take life.I let them be, and they settle down.

  9. I was a in 3rd standard when Mr India released and in our school summer holidays i watched it on VCR and was completely awed by it for two reasons in particular.One for Mr Mogambo, since i found him to be strange and some kind of devil and not a human being and the second reason for lot of kids in the movie with whom i could relate myself to.I particularly remember that scene where all the kids are hungry and Anil Kapoor and Calender dont have any money to buy them food and then sridevi comes and offers them cake and biscuits, initially noone eats, then that small girl who dies in bomb blast later on eats it after getting Anil’s consent and then the rest of kids follow her…..that scene was very very touching for me as a 8year old kid…and when that small girl dies in the hospitatl,i couldnt digest it and felt so bad….Gosh how could u kill her….Anyways i would always remember that movie for lot of right reasons….Cheers!

  10. Dear Himanshu,
    slightly over 8 months ago I had responded to your column on Shekhar’s blog and reading that you have now delved into the exciting art of film making I like to quote again some of the things I had said back then:
    “Dear Himanshu,
    there is something endearing about you. At times you display this great enthusiasm for the trappings of capitalism without allowing it to be an impediment to your love and compassion for planet earth and its people, their diversity, their joys and sadness, their lonely moments of contemplation, their elations and disappointments. I would rather sit with you and lose myself in a debate about the magnificence of being alive than spending a minute in the company of those who always seem to be on the right side of any issue.
    I have invariably enjoyed your writing, your often gaily approach to the myriad of problems we find ourselves embroiled in. There is always light at the end of your tunnel, you have answers when others still struggle with their positions. People of your calibre enrich our societies, they will not let the insincere stand without challenge. They are the ones who begin building bridges when others are still lost in studying blueprints. Your quotes of bright minds, as well as your own, always testify to a thorough understanding of the moment, of the willingness to search in your heart for the answer you truly think is the right one.”
    To this I can only add that I wish you nothing but success. You have a great mentor and I am sure you are gonna hit the ground running as I am certain it must have been a wrenching decision to leave this wonderful city of New York.
    With kind regards.
    Horst

  11. I’ve wondered the same enough times, especially in the context of commericialising my Indian Design blog. I started it because I had many friends rant that there’s nothing interesing being done by Indians in design. Now I love it when people drop by and are astonished to see the talent in India. I’m happy just reporting it, and thought there’ve been many suggestions of opening it to advertising, I wonder if a sacred space will be violated by doing so. Hmm…I understand your dilemma completely.

  13. I wonder how blogs are different from books. Earlier, if one read a book, there was no author to talk to, nobody you could write to and say what you liked about the book or what you didn’t. Even if there was an address to write to, as an anonymous reader, how often did you write to an author to say what you thought and how you had read their book so many times, sometimes read it years apart and how it had changed something within you.
    With blogs, all that changed. So much was possible now that had not been before.
    Lets imagine inserting a ‘Comment form’ into a book. It would have to be quite a dynamic comment box. As a reader inserts a comment, it travels into every book that has left the bookshop. Or, would one program the ‘Settings’ in such a way that the comment enters every printed copy of that book sitting in any part of the world, whether in bookshop, or home, or library or the copy of book that’s going into a Reprint OR the 4th edition whose Preface is being proofread and so on. And, all this only in our imagination!
    I guess blogs are not books, but they are quite incredible in what they can do for Readers, aren’t they?

  14. Congrats Himanshu and Best Wishes to the great team …
    We look forward for the “PAANI”
    Updates please …

  15. Thank you Horst, Ritu, AJ, Koizen, Austere and all of our blog friends for you kind comments. It is really great to be in Mumbai and one can see so many similarities to NY here. I have just been doing some things so didn’t write much on the blog but will keep writing more. A very happy Holi to everyone.
    Regards,
    Himanshu

  16. Well said! When I started blogging almost five years back, it was just a medium to pen down my thoughts. I still continues to be a medium where I pen down my thoughts. Over the years the viewership graph on my blog has been taking a sinusoidal path, but I still keep blogging, because I derive pleasure out of those posts. I still go back and read some of my older posts and laugh at them. It gives me a way to find out how I have changed / grown over the last five years!

  18. I’d left a note of Congratulations for Himanshu yesterday. Somewhere in cyberspace!
    This is terrific news, all the bestest and what about a guest post?

  20. Kedar, Sanjay, Himanshu wish you guys all the best. I just finished working with Shekhar a while ago, and didnt cross paths with any of you’ll- so I may not know you’ll in person but do sincerely sense Shekhars fondness and know that he must value you guys! All the best
    Shekhar, as regards advtg on the blog, why does one bring about a commercial footprint to anything? For commerce, presumably? While I do understand we all belong to the professional commercial world and our bread and butter comes from thr, why did we resort to blogging? As a route to self expression perhaps? Would you want to dilute it? keep its sanctity alive with the commerce? google would love earn on your strenghts and give you a part portion. Do you really need thst?:)
    Coming from the advtg world myself, I absolutely am clear I do not want no advtg on my blogs. Am in no dilemma at all:)

  22. Dear Himanshu,
    I want to congratulate not only you for coming back to India and working with Shekhar but also Shekhar for finding someone who will definitely complement him.
    It was very interesting to check this blog’s history and see that while shekhar felt himself to be a complete right-brainer,you on the other hand comes accross as a left one.
    Those gentle and beautiful arguments between Horst and you urge me to ask dear Himanshu whether you see the US as the same wealth creating rightful master of the world now.And whether extreme right-wing attitude is still your main-stay.
    Himanshu I loved some of your posts in the last one year and probably wanted to be like you at times.I think your ambition and American values which saw you thru getting scholarships earlier and now work with Shekhar will rightly provide Shekhar with the edge to succeed as a successful(at the box-office) global filmmaker.
    Your business acumen will complement his soul-engaging acumen.
    Will love to be with you guys one day.
    Regards,
    harijim

  23. Yes Shekhar,
    Passion..The passion what Meera had for Krishna and Kabeer had for poetry though his livelihood was weaving. A passion to learn a language of cinema, in what we speak to the world, about the world to make it a better place for all of us. Lets make that happen. God just lies in passion.
    Love!
    Sanjay

  24. Dear Harijim,
    I love America not just for it’s capitalistic fundamentals but more for being a provider of opportunities for anyone to prosper. And the system has evolved over so many years – go to any major city there and the result is a combination of creativity and capitalism, both jointly lead to progress and human satisfaction. Yes America still leads the world in innovation and inspite of the credit crisis (all capitalism is based on risk-reward fundamentals, where you take risks to gain. America has been doing that for years and it has worked and now the subprime risk/over valuation of real estate went wrong so we pay the price.) As the other markets follow the US market, they also fell. And the NYSE will again take the world out of this situation and dollar will again reach its position of power as there is no other option. It is a great time for redistribution of wealth and for young people like us to buy equities for the long run if we trust the fundamentals of the American market.
    America provides creative brains the opportunity to maximize their worth – to keep the rights of their creations/patents and continually derive wealth from that. And it is a highly creative country – the Ipod and complex Intel microprocessors are all designed there and great writers/artists from all over the world have made the US their home out of their free will for it must provide them something of value.
    India is following capitalistic principles lately and although the markets went too high in 2007 they will again gain strength, even more so as the quality of corporate governance becomes better after the Satyam issue. Slumdog has brought Indian themes to the forefront in the world of filmmaking which is a great positive step for entertainment. I have always loved both countries. I went to one of the best engineering schools (almost for free) in New Delhi and again got a full scholarship for my B-school in the US. Both places have treated me so well.
    The DOW has gone down significantly but no one ever said that capitalism was flawless or that it only ensures positive growth. It is a game and America plays it better than everybody else and I love it for that.
    Regards,
    Himanshu

  25. Hi Shekhar,
    Just wanted to tell you that this is precisely why I added your blog to my RSS reader. I’m not particularly fond of ‘celebrity blogs’ usually because they sound ‘fake’. Most I read so far, I can tell they were written by someone else 🙂
    Yours sound refreshingly original. It’s like taking a glimse at the ‘person’ you. It’s amazing.
    I hope you keep it up.
    Mauzzie

  27. Dear Himanshu,
    I agree with every bit you wrote but only that there should be more Gates and Buffets and Obamas than Maddofs and Enrons and Bushes.
    But then that should be the case with the whole world not just America.India has its own share of Satyams and Harshad Mehtas.
    My great regard for the western/capitaist ways comes from the fact that I could get my very own cool pearl-white Tata Safari-dicor EX last year by buying RNRL at Rs 26 and selling it at Rs 240 within 11 months.Although I had bought it for long term but serendepity helped me sell it at the pinnacle in January 2008.Now RNRL stands at Rs.34 as I write.
    Its a funny game.It was all legal and clean but wonder if that company really had its real value fluctuate in that way in a period of just 11 months.
    Regards,
    harijim

  28. Hi Shekhar,
    I hope you wont let others manage your blog.
    Congrats to Himanshu, Kedar, Sanjay and others…
    I agree with harijim-“God just lies in passion…”
    Warm regards,
    Madhav

  33. Dear shekhar,
    “It’s not a career, it a passion. and ‘kal kisne dekha ?”
    This one is so inspiring, most of the time we fail because we are not passionate about what we are doing, and finally when it comes to earning ones livelihood then it gets difficult to go just by passion. And we force ourselves to something else that is less interesting, i am not any exception here… i feel somewhere i would spoil my passion towards natural sceince once i look at it as career….or as future prospect… ‘kal kisne dekha’ this one from you is a real eye opener… thank you so much…..
    wish you love and peace 🙂

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  41. Rather cool blog you’ve got here. Thanks for it. I like such themes and everything connected to them. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.

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