Of Blogging and Sanjay Bhatgaonkar

Like I’ve said many a time and oft, I had to understand Orkut because of the amount of time my daughter spent on it.
I understood gaming because my son spent so much time on it.
I understood blogging because my brother spent so little time on it.
And he gave me something to think about. He also gave me something to read.
And I started reading blogs. In February this year, when JP launched http://www.confusedofcalcutta.com/.
Starting with JP’s blog I’ve been on many journeys, visiting blogs of people who comment on c-o-c, visiting links that c-o-c recommends, and so on.
And every day is a different journey, depending on what JP blogs about, and depending on who comments.
And I become the richer for it.
The blogosphere becomes my library.
I walk in, and I stroll around, and, depending on my mood, I pick up a blog. It could be zigzackly, it could be indiauncut, it could be desipundit, it could be confusedofcalcutta, it could be some random site that I recall, it could be some site that’s linked to mine.
And from there, it could be one of zillions of sites that any of these bloggists sees fit to write about or link to.
And from that blog, the whole journey starts all over again.
And I have no idea where I would start my next journey, nor an idea of where I might end up.
I might start with politics, then read about the English language, then something about sport, and then Godknowswhat.
Imagine a library stocking only authors that you never knew existed.
And imagine picking up a random book and experiencing the pleasure of having discovered a great read.
To me, that’s the blogosphere.
And when I’m in a hurry, I go to desipundit. Visiting desipundit is like asking someone for advice on where you should start. And I thought, what a terrific idea, an agglomeration of the very best that the blogosphere had to offer.
And I read some stuff I loved, some I liked, some I disliked and some I hated.
And that’s the joy of reading: the experimentation, the discovery.
And I thought of how little I knew of this blog world, and how much I’ve missed by the ignorance.
And I thought of a former colleague, Sanjay Bhatgaonkar, from TBWA Pune, who once made a small killing on the strength of an idea: he registered a URL called sitenavigation.com, and then proceeded to populate it with content. All it had were links to various sites and articles on site navigation.
And he was ahead of desipundit by eons.
And I don’t think he cares about the money that he made. All he cares about is that his idea found recognition in a large, competitive and harsh world.
That is the power of the Internet. The ability to make a Sanjay Bhatgaonkar recognized.
And the power of the blogosphere? The ability to introduce me to desipundit, and from there, the ability to make me remember Sanjay Bhatgaonkar.