Author: Ramana Rajgopaul

The joy of writitng

Since long, some of my well-wishers have been urging me to blog. I did blog on some social networks and even had my own blog on a free hosting service for a while. I just could not somehow enjoy doing that kind of blogging. I was finally persuaded, by some very persistent friends to blog seriously and this is the beginning of what I hope will be a long affair with blogging.

In my retirement, I have become quite a prolific writer in the sense that I correspond regularly on the email, offer comments on a number of blogs that I regularly visit and also indulge in a bit of professional writing. Having acquired that kind of experience over the last few years, I believe that the time has come to channel some of my free time into blogging.

George Bernard Shaw had this to say about why he wrote:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

I can well believe that he was quite sincere in this conclusion. The satisfaction of creating something for the sheer joy of creating itself is worth the effort. If in the process, one is able to share one’s thoughts with others via a medium, get feed back and generate some discussions on it can only add to the joy. I hope that my belief will stand vindicated in the days to come.

Pune’s Bloggers and their assistance.

My first blog was on the subject of “tension”. Why I chose to start with that theme was to let off some steam that had built up over the last few weeks in getting the blog ready and running.

To start with, I had to commit myself to blogging and I knew that the only way to do was to commit money to it. I therefore bought a dot com domain and paid for a hosting service. Having committed thus, the next step was to get the blog structured and this was when the tension started to build up.

I do not wish to go into all the steps that had to be taken before the blog could see the light of day. What made it finally happen is the wonderful world of bloggers. I simply contacted a blogger from Pune by searching for “bloggers from Pune” via google search. Despite living in Mumbai, one blogger Tarun, encouraged me and assured me that he will help me by guiding me step by step on the Instant Messenger or through emails. Luckily, he was able to invite me to a lunch meeting of the Pune bloggers held recently and I met some great people there. One happens to live quite close to where I live. This blogger, Amit gets my full gratitude and appreciation for holding my hands and easing the tension to see that the blog got off the ground.

This world of bloggers, so cheerful and helpful is a revelation to me. As readers will see from my profile, I am no spring chicken! Every single one of the bloggers that I met at the lunch was younger than my son, the eldest, possibly by at least seven years! That did not stop them from sharing their joy with me. What an amazing fraternity! I hope that there will be more opportunities to meet these wonderful young people and share my joy of blogging with them.

Now that I have started blogging, I hope to post at least one blog per day, every single day. I shall explain my motivation to blog in the next few posts.

Pune’s Bloggers and their assistance.

My first blog was on the subject of “tension”. Why I chose to start with that theme was to let off some steam that had built up over the last few weeks in getting the blog ready and running.

To start with, I had to commit myself to blogging and I knew that the only way to do was to commit money to it. I therefore bought a dot com domain and paid for a hosting service. Having committed thus, the next step was to get the blog structured and this was when the tension started to build up.

I do not wish to go into all the steps that had to be taken before the blog could see the light of day. What made it finally happen is the wonderful world of bloggers. I simply contacted a blogger from Pune by searching for “bloggers from Pune” via google search. Despite living in Mumbai, one blogger Tarun, encouraged me and assured me that he will help me by guiding me step by step on the Instant Messenger or through emails. Luckily, he was able to invite me to a lunch meeting of the Pune bloggers held recently and I met some great people there. One happens to live quite close to where I live. This blogger, Amit gets my full gratitude and appreciation for holding my hands and easing the tension to see that the blog got off the ground.

This world of bloggers, so cheerful and helpful is a revelation to me. As readers will see from my profile, I am no spring chicken! Every single one of the bloggers that I met at the lunch was younger than my son, the eldest, possibly by at least seven years! That did not stop them from sharing their joy with me. What an amazing fraternity! I hope that there will be more opportunities to meet these wonderful young people and share my joy of blogging with them.

Now that I have started blogging, I hope to post at least one blog per day, every single day. I shall explain my motivation to blog in the next few posts.

Tension Nahin Lenekka!

There are two delightful people in my life who insist on telling me "Tension nahin lenekka!" What this means, for those who are not familiar with Hindustani is – "Do not become tense!" although the exact meaning gets lost in translation.

One, a surrogate son, lives by that credo. In all the forty years that I have known him, I have never known him to lose his cool, even when he was in some major jams. Since he believes that he can solve whatever problems that I may have, he believes that I too should never get tense. He is very reassuring and I sleep soundly every night knowing that I can pass on any problem to him to solve.

The other is a vendor on a bicycle who hawks bakery products like Pav, Brun, Bread, Biscuits etc and announces his arrival by sounding a klaxon horn that works through a rubber bulb attached to one end. I place orders on him whenever I see him on his rounds and he inevitably leaves the merchandise in our verandah and disappears. I have to remind him to collect his money whenever I see him during my walks and he too will tell me not to get tense and he knows that his money is safe and he will collect it at his convenience. I have known him for the past seventeen years and have never seen him ever lose his cool.

The first is a very wealthy businessman of Mumbai and the latter is an entrepreneur who has to work every day to make his daily bread!

I have never known either to ever miss a working day. When asked, both will cheerfully respond that they do not fall sick because they never get tense. "Tension nahin lenekka!"

Is there a moral there somewhere?