Diwali in Kuwait

This was probably the first time when not celebrating Diwali at our parents place we performed so many rituals and met so many people. It never felt even for a minute that we were in Kuwait.. there were buildings decorated with, diyas, rangolis and you had cover your ears as there were crackers bursting all aorund you. More than we enjoyed the Diwali there were some serious questions that did make me think…

Here in this foreign land and that too a muslim country we were able to celebrate and enjoy our festival so freely (I understand that the local police provides protection to the Indian dominated areas so that the people can celebrate the festival) and we have incidents in our own country where people from one state are stopped to celebrate their local festivals in another state…

All the politicians including our PM and external affairs minister are making (better made everyone seems to silent now) a big hue and cry about the way Indians are being treated. Each TV channel is interviewing the Indians affected, calling the Australians racist, but what is happening in Australia is no different than what happened sometime back to people from few states in India (UP, Bihar) in another state (Maharashtra). It was probably worse as these were a known set of people who were doing this and still there was no open critism and action against these people..I would catergorize this too as racism..

Pathetic Reporting

I should have posted this a day or 2 earlier but since I get my newspaper (Times of India) a day late (sometimes even 2) hence this delay.

There was an article in the Bombay Times (Times of India magazine) dated 11th October 2009 on the sport person from disciplines other then cricket (the title read something like new kids on the block) and one of the sportspersons covered was Sushil Kumar. To set the contest for those who do not know who Sushil Kumar is, Sushil Kumar is the 2008 Beijing Olympics Men’s 66 kg freestyle wrestling bronze medallist. Sushil Kumar has been mentioned as a boxer in the article and too twice in the same article.

Now not sure how can such an article be published, there has to be some research and some verification before printing anything meant for public consumption. On reading the article I had to google on Sushil Kumar to be sure that that they had got it incorrect as couldn’t believe that a national newspaper could get something so basic wrong. This shows the seriousness of the writer to actually investigate and report whether alternate sports are getting their due in India, just because she / he had to write an article here it comes naming some sportspersons and that too incorrectly. Pity the sportsperson and pity the few good reporters.

This is not a one of instance – I have come across many incidents in the recent past when the reporters both print and TV have reported incorrectly.

God save us from this irresponsible reporting……..

Art of Blogging

The post title may confuse and may lead people to my blog to be disappointed on seeing the content. The post is not about how to write a good post (not sure if there is something called a good or a bad post). The art is to write a post that attracts people to visit your blog and read the post and comment on it. I have figured out there are 3 reasons why people visit a blog (this is not based on any extensive research that I have done)

1. Celebrity Blog: People want to know the celebrity has to say, whether it makes sense or not and in some cases am not even sure it the blog is written by the celebrity (no name taking please). I think there are the blogs that would be attracting the maximum hits though I have done no research on this too)

2. Expert Blog: Blogs written by subject matter experts on subjects of which they are masters and people visit these to know the views of the experts on a topic (these days most of these especially those in the field on media / politics are any not unbiased so not sure whether their views are based on the analysis or based on their affiliations)

3. Others: These are normal bloggers like me – no subject expertise, neither celebrity status just want to express their views, write about what they like or dislike or write just about anything. In this category too now I see 2 types ones whose blogs are frequently visited and commented and other whose blogs are never visited or commented.

The blogs in the Others category that are frequently visited and commented on are rarely high on content or quality but still attract a lot of people – this is something that I would want to learn though no inference to be derived that I would put low quality content. It could be more about the keywords that are used in the blog so that it comes in more searches, the subject you choose to write about or maybe your group (good friends visiting your blog and getting others too to visit it).

It is like the news channel – all have the same rubbish content, all news breaking news still some have higher TRPs then others.

Waiting for the first visitor on my blog and none of my friends know I’m blogging….. The blog status is mocking at me (14 when I’m posting this and all these 14 visits are by me)

Blogging: Still Learning

Still learning on how to write a blog… this is just a test. Hope to put some better stuff in the coming days, weeks, years or never…depends on the mood or incident / action that excites me to write..time is no problem.

Hope to be a good student of the blogging fraternity….