Flagging Off and all that kind of thing

So then, I began writing. This post was supposed to be up circa 2005, when I first thought of writing blogs. Every Ram, Shyam and Ghanshyam in my friend circle had started blogging and the teenager in me urged me to follow suit and be part of the cool crowd. So in the summer vacations of first year, I finally put aside my laziness and made a profile on blogger. But the important part was thinking of something to write. Well-begun is half done, so simply-begun must at least be a quarter done, I told myself. The quality of the writing will not matter that much, as long as I can exist as a blog-o-sapien, I thought.

But its always good to start on a high, me thought and thus began the search for a good opener for my blog. A few hours later, I was munching Lays and sipping Coke in front of the TV, leaving all the 'opening' contemplation behind.

That was that, effectively. Through some complex mechanism in the space-time continuum, I never got around to staging the 'opening' ceremony. Two primary reasons . Firstly, the short attention and focus span that I possessed weren't ideal, as writing requires you to first think (a little, at least) and then get your bum to plant itself in front of the damn computer and type coherently for a period of time. This, I reckoned would be too difficult, as my thoughts wandered every 42 seconds to topics utterly unrelated to my current activity. Secondly, it required some amount of effort, which was diametrically opposite to the Principle of Energy Conservation, something I swear by even now. All this while, the Adolescent in me (it refused to be referred to as a Teenager in due course) was banging loudly on the doors of my conscience, imploring me to get over my languid lifestyle, get a move on and start writing. The baster had its own motives behind this act of its. "All of your friends have blogs, and the Adolescents in them poke fun at me whenever we meet up. This has to end, I want to be acknowledged as well". So on and so forth. "Go away", I said. "I'm too busy relaxing my overtaxed body and mind". Since it wouldn't stop heckling, I came up with a new story. "Look, now blogger accounts have been integrated with your google accounts, so in order to blog, I'd have to go online and undertake the cumbersome process, that too in the overcrowded Bhawan CC". Wifi hadn't kicked in till then and the Adolescent in me, easily convinced as it is, fell for it. "Phew, that was close", I thought and carried on into the aforementioned relaxation routine.

Since then, Mr. Adolescent has tried numerous times to get me to blog, urging and pleading, but I've always had an excuse or four up my sleeve. Slowly, this matter stopped being raised at my periodic one-to-one with Mr. Adolescent and I afforded myself a sigh of relief as this constant mucking about with my conscience ended.

As fate would have it, I finished college in July and got an extended vacation until November before my job began. I accumulated every Sitcom to be found on campus on my 1 TB HDD, in anticipation of lack of activity during this spare time. Somehow, through another complex mechanism in the space-time continuum, I started reading blogs online at home. This was a relatively new phenomenon, and I surprised myself, sitting upright and reading words off a computer screen for a considerably long period of time. Such a thing wouldn't have been imaginable a few months ago; Energy Conservation dictated. The more I read, the more I felt tempted to give my long-lost blog a second wind. Plus this time, it wasn't Mr. Adolescent poking me. Thus began the process of remembering my blogger password, integrating the profile with my google account and the usual pre-processing.

This blog will mainly consist of my highly-biased and unpolished opinions on things that I consider important enough to write about. As I learnt sometime back, every blog doesn't need to be correct all the time. It is just supposed to express the opinion of the author, no more no less. I did, for want of anything better, argue senselessly on a few blogs that didn't write what I wanted to read. But thankfully, maturity set in before I started writing myself. This blog will not deliberate on burning issues of the day like Global Warming (and the subsequent 'Meltdown') or the Israel-Palestine tiff or the power struggle between the Ambani Brothers. Apologies to all who expected me to be more mature in my writing. Not happening any time soon, methinks.

However, I can point you to certain blogs according to your tastes. If you are the kind that likes to brood twice a day, you might find this interesting. If you feel that this country has gone to the dogs and that you'd rather have been born in El Salvador, sample this. If you like your Cricket with a spoonful of satire, you must see this. And if you think non-sense is some sense after all, you are welcome to pay this blog a visit. You've been warned, dear reader.

And as you might have guessed already, the display name is a very lame tribute to two legendary characters from the world of Sitcoms.