AN “OWED” TO SULEKHA

Yesterday was a Red Letter Day in my life.

I could’nt believe it. A  year. Twelve months. Forty Eight weeks. Three Hundred and sixty five days. Okay. Okay. Relax! No minutes or seconds.

I shall come to the point. April  2^nd, 2007, was the day I posted my first blog.

My foray into Sulekha started in the year 2001, when my niece who is in U S sent me a mail asking me to check out a short story she had written in Sulekha. I kept visiting Sulekha once in a while to check on her posts. Meanwhile, I got a mail from Sulekha asking for my resume and for contributions. I never got down to writing  them. I had stopped writing at that time and was going through a tough period, in no mood whatsoever to write.

For a while I lost touch with her mansion (the new friend Sulekha’s) , since my niece who was in U S , had  also stopped writing for Sulekha , as she was preoccupied with her own website.

February 2007 saw me entering the portals of Sulekha once again. This time it was  yet  another niece of mine whose blog had been featured. I entered this Enchanted Domain again to read a blog posted by my sister who too had been bitten by the Blog-Bug .The temptation was too much for me. I plunged headlong.

It changed my life.

My two nieces were regular bloggers and one of them dropped out to pursue her dream in Multi Media (relationships shall be kept hidden, we’ve promised ourselves). I was a bit worried too, since she told me once (as soon as I had started blogging), “Oh ! Chithi, this is getting pretty tense. Everyday I go to bed wondering and searching for the topic for my next blog!!”
 I wondered, how long I would last. 

Okay. My fears were short lived. Sulekha show-cased two of my blogs as Featured ones and that set my grey cells firing on all six cylinders and the creative juices started flooding my brain and here was I, imagining myself the female Michael Schumaker zooming through the Sulekhan F1 Track.

To the queries from my friends and relatives, “Are you not writing anything for magazines these days?”, I answer,  “No. I’m blogging.”  They could’nt care less !

Yes, with Sulekha, my writings  get published immediately. There is no anxious waiting period to see whether the Editor has approved or not. There are at least fifty viewers. Quite a  few comments. And I relate to all of them.

I visit a lot of bloggers and am in awe. Many of them write beautifully on all the topics on earth. You can get to read serious skits, poems, humour, recipes, travelogues…everything you relish. And you build  relationships with other bloggers , the comments acting as bridges. I can chat with my co-bloggers. Joke with them. Share with them my feelings. And the world of talent that comes to the fore…it is amazing. There were a few anxious moments, like, when my page refused to open. Each time I tried to open my blog, my husband’s would open. Out of sheer despair I sent an SOS to Team Sulekha saying, “Though we may be a single soul in two bodies, I’d like my blog spot to be my very  own.” ( Ayn Rand has said, “Selfishness is a virtue”). The wait was too much for me and I opened another handle - Suryagod.sulekha.com. But then this problem blew over and here I am, going on, of course retaining the other handle for sentimental reasons.

I feel very happy to have discovered a lot of bloggers with the same dreams. Same tastes in Music. Books.  Many other things. If I were to name the bloggers, I would need to post a sequel to this one !!  

 Sulekha has blown away the ashes that were covering  the embers and lit up  the child - nay, the  young woman in me ( Muthu, take note…not Mami )making me flow like a torrent (yes Shobs ,the placidity is illusive; the torrent is real ), halting at various exciting spots and rushing with a  sense of joy  to explore new terrains, never touched before.

I write like  I have never  written before. I decided, I’ll pick up the pencil and start sketching from where I left it years ago. And Wow! The feed back was great.

I get some lovely personal notes too.

What about meeting other bloggers ? Well…the only blogger I’ve met so far ,is the Bird Man ( Ranji has done a fine Job of doing a Namakarana for him, without any rituals or priests) though not his wife, the beautiful Rapunzel nor their lovely daughter Yamini who posts lovely encouraging comments. And we share a lovely relationship.

My series on Wodehouse brought me close to a lot of like minded PGW fans. Keshav, Sundar, Shobana, Melody  and Wiskyd and a lot of others helped me continue my PGW series by genuinely asking “Give Me More.” ( Oh ! Poor Usha ! How can you be conned into believing them like this?).

I should talk about the period when it was absolutely impossible for me to make any posts! Wheels within wheels…I told myself. But Sulekha was charitable enough to post three of my blogs and help me solve the problem after one visit to their office.Yes ,we had a real Royal welcome there. They were all very patient with us while we listed our problems and promised to do all they could. We appreciate their courtesy, warmth and guidance. Hey…..Neha, Deepesh and Arvind…please get up and accept this standing ovation (ahem…from ME. And are you all standing on a Shyam Ahuja Carpet ?).

And the friends I have made…like Indu3, Adithi, Ranji (the lil sprite),Kala, Soumya,the Damsel who eats curds and whey with the spider coming along (oh no, she said there was no spider !), Swayam, Naren Somu (where are you? Pl.say "Present Miss”)Meera Jay, Verbose Viju, Motto Gucci,  Supriyad, Usha M,Maria, Anjala, Nargis ( who became almost homicidal, wanting to go for my throat after I posted a blog on my virtual visit to the Refuge at Mugalur),S Uma and a lot others oozing with amazing talent. And all those Chivalrous Knights..like Keshav( who has been  my companion in my episodes with PGW characters, starting from where the Sundars left); Kamalji; Sampath…the illustrious G Son of the Illustrious Grand Father with his sweet- heart consort, Beena (whom I’d love to meet); Das-Wun…Phew( now don’t you  rush and send a comment addressing me “hey Sweetheart”…I am silver haired and twice your age);  MVBalaji,  the celebrity Presswala ( Hi Hi No hard feelings yar..I mean the Press Bureau) for whose blogs I do make some cheeky comments though, had I met him as a non-blogger in one of those spots in Delhi like the India  Habitat Centre or the corridors of Taj, I would have just smiled and become tongue-tied; Raja Ramachandra, Dimwit, Sekar,Santhosh, Edwin; Rajah Iyer with his Human Heroes of the century and Temple Travelogues; Sreenivasa Rao with his intellectual articles ( Dikshithar); Dev Vasudevan and his passion for Nature Conservation ; and a lot more. Oops! I am curtailing the list lest the blog takes on the look of Hanuman’s tail! Ah ! And my son who has just woken up to my blogs.

And wait. I re-discovered four of my cousins with whom I had lost contact for almost 40 years, after my wedding ! That was great ! Identities will remain a secret!

And so…Sulekha…I Am What I Am Today, Because of You.

THANK  YOU   SULEKHA…..

                  AND

THANK YOU SULEKHANS……