Its been long I have moved from this blog... Am on wordpress now.

SANJUKTA.WORDPRESS.COM

Most of my readers have migrated already, if you are wandering around...just follow the link above.

Thanks for being with me all these months.

A heartfelt

Blogging Outreach Project

Participants at the 1st Blogging outreach workshop

I believe its time I write about the Blogging Outreach Project I had designed and am now looking forward to take it further.

Outreach is a term which means to reach out to those sections of people with something which originally wasn't there domain to begin with. By that meaning this whole project is wrongly nomenclatured. I am trying to reach out to the less privilaged, socially, economically, culturally and so on, with the concept of 'blogging' an amazing tool of new media which although is being used by some handful people belonging to an elite class, is actually meant to be used by the most ordinary. So it would be wrong to say that blogging is a domain which originally doesnt not belong to all and therefore outreach is required.

This has been for long in my mind. Such an amazing thing blogging and people hardly know about it. NGOs try to reach out to a larger number of beneficiaries, funders, supporters etc by mostly putting up information and writeups on their website but somehow that hardly leaves an impact. They can achieve better networking by blogging and other social networking sites.

Then there are students, young professionals who have an easy access to internet, they spend a considerable amount of time on the internet emailing, orkuting but that's bout it. It occured to me that they sure would take up blogging once they know about it.

I want to tell all of them how by blogging they can reach out to the largest global commune, the internet, in real time by just a push of a button without requiring fancy equipements or technical expertise and incurring almost no cost. The information delivered is first hand and untainted. So, the life and time and voice of a prostitute or an HIV+ person or a farmer or a destitute child can reach to the whole world whenever they feel like reaching out, even if they themselves are not blogging, but if a bunch of enthusiastic bloggers having the time and resource to blog and therefore does blog on their behalf.

While the thought was always on mind the project was actually designed when I heard about the Global Voices Online Summit 2006. It was encouraging to see that they were also trying to answer the same questions that I had in my mind. Over the past couple of weeks I, another friend Swagat who is a film maker and a great champion of new media and one of his students Kamakhya, a budding documentary film maker, we all worked towards the first outreach workshop which was successfully conducted with a group of students on 10th December 2006.

That's Swagat talking to the participants

Blogging outreach can be done with anybody and everybody from students, to civil society members, young professionals, faculty members at the college and university level, retired personell and so on. However the first workshop being a pilot workshop we had focused on students and civil society members.

As a first step of this project an interview sheet was prepared to assess the Student's accesibility and understandibilty of internet and secondly, their desirability to pick up blogging and do it for a cause. The interview sheet was also supposed to work as a filter to form a focus group of students who would really want to know more about blogging. However the responses to the interview was quite encouraging and we pretty much called all who responded to the workshop.

There were 10 students from 3 different educational background and Broadcast Journalism, Mass communication and Social Work.

The workshop was conducted in a Reliance Web World where all the students had access to a pc with internet. The workshop content has 3 major parts.

1. Blogging: What is it all about? Why it is the most talked about new media in today's date. (Session taken by me)
   
2. How to Start a Blog of Your own (Session taken by me, Tutorial was given on Blogger.com being one of the most simples)
   
3. How can you integrate blogging with other social networking tools. (Session taken by Swagat)
   

At the end of the workshop the students were given the task of creating one collaborative blog where they promised they'd blog about their experience from various field activities. We intend to have one collaborative blog from each of these workshops which would help us follow up with the participants as to how are they utilising the learning and if they are disseminating or not.

The first workshop was just a pilot project. I intend to conduct a series of such workshop and want to make it a bigger project involving a considerable amount of funds. The expenses of this workshop was bore by all of us in our personal accounts.

I was charmed Yesterday

I wanted to cry today. Just cry. Not for any particular person or reason. I was charmed yesterday Damn I hate sequels. Anyways since my friend asked...what happened to the man who charmed me............

I don't know what love is? But I have always wanted to fall in love. Wanted to give my everything, from body to mind, all my pride, all my fears, all my weaknesses, all my anger, all my laughter, to this one person who would take care of all of them. All my dispositions are meant to find that one person. I didn't know who would he be, didn't know how he'd look or sound...just knew this much that he would be some one who stands out. So everytime I came accross one such person who looked different I would wonder...if he is the one.

In my early 20s I used to think when I find one such person I'll marry him. With time I got so cynical at the institution of marriage that everything about it started bothering me. Now am about to turn 30 and have lost all intentions of ever getting into a marriage. Some may say that this is because I could never find that man. May be. But the point is, by mid 20s my mind set was such that any man walking the tried and tested path which led to a home, wife, kids and car, ceased to be some one who stands out in my eyes. In effect, on today's date, men in general fail to impress me.

However there are always those original sins I am tempted to commit. A 'desire' to be a part of that man's life..whose life I find unusual. Men who didn't and wouldn't walk the tested path. When I come accross one such man I casually befriend him (keeping my exitement of having found him very secret), Keep a safe distance, lest he gets concious, but keep him in my mind nonetheless.

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Now what happens when one such man walks into my life on his own and knocks on my door? Hard to resist such temptations. Not that I don't try.

So I asked him,

"Who are you and what are you doing with me? What, a guy as dazzling as you are is doing with a girl like me. Still trying to figure out why is lady luck
suddenly so glad at me.....

And I wondered

may be you are trying to grab that last streak of freedom slipping out of
your hand.. may be you know u are in the last stage of your bachelorhood and
that's why trying to make the best of it.... by being with me for a while....

And I said

so am not sure if this conversation went grt from ur side coz u were trying
to find a sponge...or r u always good at conversation... if it's the former...
chances r we'd be talking for some more days.......till u come out of a
phase....and if it's the latter chances are we could be good friends...

So he gave very convincing answers to all my worst fears and why won't he... after all he is some one 'I' found outstanding. Of all the things he said one was mentionable...

u decide....wat u want to do ..sam.... if u dont want me near u...then am
gonna miss you..but i am gonna keep an eye out for u sam..like it or
not...

Finally I could negotiate (with my fears) at a time period of 3 months...maximum that he is gonna be around...interestingly we did not (rather he did not) keep in touch for more than 10 days. I was back at wondering what went wrong....why just 10 days. So I go back to our chat conversations, emails.....

I think I know what happened... I did the mistake of being honest with him, of telling him what was on my mind. I told him he was like my dream man walking straight out of my dreams. He got scared. Scared of me pinning hopes on him.

Said

i get the feeling that i might be doing you more harm than good by just
hanging around you...and it was never my intention to harm or hurt you
Sam...!!

I wanted to explain him that I am not your average girl next door waiting to catch a big fish (read suitable boy), tie a knot (read marriage) and rest in peace (open to interpreatation). Wanted to tell him meeting my dream man means nothing to me for I don't know what is to be done with these dream men. Are we supposed to marry them when we meet them? are we supposed to fall in love? what is love? what do we do after we fall in love? Marry? Wanted to explain him I was not going to cling on him or create trouble for him by gettomg into an emotional hysteria.

But I couldn't tell him these [and therefore I am blogging?]. We didn't really talk. He suddenly got this so called feeling and started distancing [compared to whatever closeness we had for a week] himself from me. He thought phasing out was the best idea.

The irony of the whole story is this......He did tell me he was into a five year old relationship which had turned bitter.... and the bitterness started when he got scared of marriage.....and that he was still scared....... But he never told me his marraige was just round the corner...... 10-12 days from now. If he would have told me I wouldn't have answered any of his knocks. Damn!

In today's world of connectivity its hard to wipe off someone's existence from your life. So I deleted his number from my cell, but the sms were there, deleted them and realised the number was saved in call records. Cell is clean now but I got him on orkut and Gtalk. Assuming I delete him from there also I can always bump into him in the Courts....like I did into Ronnie. Its a small world really.

All said and done the truth remains he charmed me......... with everything, his sensous voice, carefree attitude, sharp looks, intelligence, confidence...... Having met him just once..... I felt I was wrong when I said "love can never happen one sided", I could identify with the feelings of that friend to who I always adviced, "dump him he doenst loves you". To me, he came accross as someone who can be as jerky as he wants and yet the emotional fool in me would want to give him my every thing to him.....
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To you, if you reading this, this is my truth, my bitterness and compliments all packaged together for you, we might never meet again in this life, She must be some one really special and deserving. Take care. Good Bye. Could have mailed you. But no. You get to know me only when you make an over effort to know me i.e. read my blog.
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Updates on my life otherwise:

Oops I did it again. Have quit my job again. Don't feel good about it but have a strong feeling whatever happened is for good. I might shift base out of Delhi... wow seems like those hindi film situations......one of them getting married and the other is rushing towards airport to catch a plane....duur kahin ek nayi zindegi ke talaash mein.... Kahani puri filmy hai veeru.

The other charming man of 2006 my good friend is getting married on 29th of this month. I might not be attending. I am on a spree of not attending any wedding celebration. Had already missed one. Two more are lined up. A school friend 20 years of strong friendship. Then there is my closest cousin bro.

Been 4 days at a row have spent time only with myself. Didn't step out of home, folks gone to calcutta for cousin's wedding. Been at loneliness 100%. Feels good.

When the night comes

When the nights come
keep me away from you,
from everything that could lead me to you
casue I would hurt you.

When the nights come
all my worst fears
like victorious soldiers of the war
drag me to the dance floor.

When the night comes
I find an uncanny pleasure
in celebrating my fears
being scared of every nice thing around me.

When the night comes
I turn ugly to fight my fears
and so I hurt them
those who claim to be nice to me.

Life at the T point

I always stand at a particular place on my office terrace, to have my sutta. There is a T-point there accross the road. Off late I have picked up an interesting habit to stand there 'combusting the significant 5 mins of my life' while keeping an eye on that t-point and everything that happens there.

A t-point is a point on the road from where you can either take a left or a right, there's no going ahead. The first time I casually had a look at it, it struck me how in life I have had to stand in so many of these t-points. You can't keep walking from here on, you've got to think, take a decision and then take a new direction.

I see cars, scooters, tempos, cycle rikshaws, bycles and pedestrians coming along the straight path hitting the t-point and then taking a turn. Some how I can relate it to the journey of life.

All motor vehicles have to slow down at this point before they take a turn. The bigger the vehicle is the larger is the fall in speed. A car coming at the speed of 5o have to lower down to 25 to take the turn. While a two wheeler, a bike specially, coming at 50 would only slow till 35 and take the turn. In life when these turning points come you need to slow down. You need to think about the consequences of your decision...direction. If you are alone you would take the turn differently than you would if you have a family with you. If you are big in life, you have people who watches every move of yours, you have followers, you have people who depend on you... taking a decision is all the more difficult then. While if you are a small insignificant soul no one cares what you do you are more free to take your decision.

Most people already know which side they'd take, they have already changed their lane accordingly and when the point comes they smoothly take the turn. Few of them however seem to be lost when they reach the point. They look around, some of them take a look at a piece of paper which might be an address, some don't carry address, they follow their gut feeling or at the most they ask some one around. In life it helps to pre decide where you want to go, it's best if you carry the address of your destination. But if all of us did that no one would stop for a while. No one would connect to another soul at that point. No one would ask and eventually there would be no one left to answer.

I see most take a left turn. There is a market on the left side, on the right there are only houses. Market is the place where we all have to be. You have your bread and butter there and the money to buy them. You have the bricks to build your home, you have blood and sweat all there in the market. Home is where peace is. Yet we spent most of the time of our life in the market always longing to reach home.

And then one day I thought when I write my autobiography I'll call it "Life at the t-point" Interestingly a T can also connote a woman figure, also a vagina.......well that makes sense, my biography would have a lot of sex talk, it would have my tryst with all the men in my life, it will speak scornfully about how relationships are all about sex, which is not so bad *wink* after all..... Yeah right, what, a soon to be 30 year old virgin, would write about sex I wonder. Well who cares how much of it is gonna be biographical so long as it sells…I will cook up something… *wink* and *Grin*

Holy shit (btw who coined this phrase of exclamation) too much of thinking, that too such scandalous thinking, over a silly t-point. If this kind of unethical literary torture continues on my blog next thing we'll hear is they have ordered to block my blog and remove all t-points from roads of Delhi.

And this is the final blow. A poem (or so I think) I wrote today. Next post.

"Met a great guy today...he was wow...simply wow.. am charmed."

When was the last time I said that...lemme go back in time... checking out the archives of my blog would suffice. Some where in the mid of Feb this year here is that post. Two in a year, not bad, its progress rather, given the fact that the february crush happened after almost 6 long years. For the records I am talking about this feeling of being charmed instantly, it's not like in 6 years I didn't go out with or see any body.

As always the twain shall never meet, they didn't meet, they won't meet, in fact they don't meet ever, not in flesh, blood and sweat and tell you what...they need not meet. The twain are both lucky to even have come accross each other and that's what matters. Really??
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If anything has influenced my life it is my own continuous thirst for adventure, variety and experimentation, and it’s this drive that has changed my whole life over the years. From being an ordinary middle class girl, as naïve as she can be, ready to fall in love, get married, I transformed myself into a rebellious feminist, a cynic, an atheist, a creative writer…non believer, non conformist, all being results of my own tryst with concepts like love, lust, sex, desire, beauty, morality, marriage etc.

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"We get married because we want a witness to our lives." - Susan Sarandon said in Dance with Me. I blog, or say write for the same reason.

Shall we censor?

I know the blogdom is full of people who vouch for freedom of speech and expression and talk passionately against censorship. I got one thing to say to them. *Bull Shit* Get real no body wants freedom... all of us so badly need censorship, you know why... Cause we are so fucking wild..we have no control on our's and no respect for other's freedom of speech and expression.

Seeing a sudden furore on the DBM mailing list, triggered by a mail (about a job opening) posted by one member today made me spend the whole day going back to all those mails on this list where I have been a victim of such censorship, of a few members thinking themselves to be so full of wisdom that they think its their moral responsibility to decide what's fit and what's not for this whole group. I went back reading and recalling how being vocal about a certain topic bother other members so much that they leave this forum forever, how initially this place was so full of ownership egos and it was so well defined who is an outsider and who insider. How there has been occassion when democracy has been completely repudiated on this list when moderators took policy decisions on behalf of 100s of us. I created a google note back copy pasting each of those mails there word by word making doodh ka doodh and pani ka pani. But I don't intend to share that note book coz then a lot of dead would be unearthed. Bitter memories would be refreshed not only in my mind but also in those with who I have patched up now.

But I would still make my point here. Umpteen numbers of time I have been told and have seen those wise men telling other rebels like me that there are certain kind of mails which are NOT to be posted on the mailing list (a public forum) and instead should only be restricted to personal blogs. The punchline of censorship. Shall we challenge it?

I would just quote the very latest in this regard. It was a post wrote by paavani on her blog. I expressed my opinion on that on the mailing list. Of all that followed, the most significant was this conclusion, that my biggest mistake was to have written what I wanted to write to the entire mailing list and not restricted myself to Paavani's blog ONLY. And such virtual attack followed inspite of me having given a proper disclaimer in these words

"Hi, This is my reaction to Paavani's post. First I started writing in her comments section, then I thought of mailing it here. Then I thought it would be safest to post it on my blog since it might have objectionable content. Seems like its bad luck day for me... blogger.com isn't working again...can't even publish so am mailing again."

The first reaction to the mail was outrage from so many of them in so many ways. I ask, to restrict myself to my blog and not use a public forum to express my angst over something, if *that* is the right thing to do then how can we argue against censorship of blogs or media on the whole by government. The logic on mailing list is that irrelavant off topic mails at times containing personal grudge gives rise to flame wars. Government have the same philosophy behind blocking blogs, movies, books, they contain material which outrages the sentiments of certain section of society. Internet is the most public of all forums. If we don't control what we publish on the net utter chaos might follow just as a simple mail regarding a job posting is followed by exchange of malicious mails. Or some one's opinion on a certain something may lead to 2-3 members leave the DBM list.

Message No. 2193 is a farewell message of a member where he clearly mentions he no longers wishes to remain a part of this group because he doesn't like some member expressing too much.

He says

I almost left the group when the whole alternative DBM issue happened bcos I didn't agree with a lot of vocal members who "protested" for whatever reasons against the new group.

Goes to show how difficult it is to express yourself on the list. Seems like people here are sitting with their sentiment in hands just waiting to be hurt. Just about 200 of us and so much of tention already. What we write in our blogs affects the entire nation. And we think that need not be controlled?

Coming to another side of this whole issue. What is Topic to begin with so as to decided what's off topic. Now this is where lies the philosophy of control. Those so called wise men, those flag bearers, those who think its important to keep certain things in certain order and therefore telling us DO NOT do anything which is Off topic, off tradition, off culture, off religion. They don't trust that every adult mature person have their own sense of right and wrong. On this list I am aware of instances (Msg no. 1065) when one member has requested the moderator to throw a certain non acceptable member away from the list and a third member taking stand against such a request (msg no. 1088). So who decides what's right and wrong.

Let's take the present example. The logic is that since each mail that is shot on the list reaches inboxes of 100s of members who then get annoyed by off topic mails. Ok agreed but then when they agreed to recieve mails in their inbox they should keep some space for some off topic mails also. No one is perfect. So assuming X has shot an off topic mail, the rest have only few options (1) ignore it. (2) Ignore it but at the same time inform this person nicely in private that you didn't like the off topic mail. But that's all one can do and if that doesn't work well just bear with it, he is a fellow member. Of course if things go way beyond tolerance, if such (so called) off topic mails become too frequent then one needs to think of a way to put full stop.

In today's case am sure this guy is well aware of the purpose of DBM List (personally I am doubtful if we even have any purpose or not but that's a different issue) and he knows where to draw the line. His mail so didn't deserve to be backlashed by around 15 more mails (all off topics coz they are about a off topic mail) within few hours of his having shot it. He thought of shooting one mail and stop there but the rest of the group so very wisely have ensured the off topic is continued even as I write this post.

My simplest of expression in this list (Msg No. 1484) of having made some new friends and a note of thanks to them have been objected by the then moderator and few other members (privately thankfully). I was softly told I should avoid posting such mails as then the other members feels left out.

I can go on and on but my eyes hurting now. I virtually spent my whole day doing this. I am not always politically correct. I take sides and have no fear saying Prashant's mail wasn't that off topic and Joydeep and Priyanka's mails were extremely uncalled for.

Diwali 06

This existence in the cyber world can at times take a toll on you. I don't mean my blog to be a digital diary, so I don't write about every day things on it. But then every time I meet someone online they ask me the same questions bout my life and I find myself typing the same damn lines over and over again. Fingers ache man. The latest being 'so how was diwali'...Uff why don't people understand. For them its a casual opening line to a chat conversation which should ideally be answered in a monosyllable... good, bad or ok. But people, I can't do that. That's my problem... if you ask me I would speak. So finally I thought I'd put it here for one and all to see..everytime they ask me I am gonna give this link. Or better still, I will put the link up as my status for few days..till the time they stop asking that question to me. I am seriously so sick and tired of repitative questions.

Here's what I did. I don't like crackers. I hate the noise it makes. My dog Jango, he hates them too. This diwali he was sitting quietly culred on the sofa, head hanging downwards looking at the carpet, lost in deep thoughts when the first cracker of our colony burst. In a flash of a light he jumped out of the sofa and in one giant leap reached the balcony and started expressing his angst at such sudden nuisance in one long waoooooooooooooooh followed by many small wao waos. He had hardly expressed his utter bewilderment on human being's weird of idea of fun when more happy kids blasted more funny crackers all around our house. Jango just couldn't take it. With multiple wao wao s he kept running from one corner of the house to the other, trying to put accross his point to the happy kids who are now joined by their proud parents in the fun. Round and round he went hardly stopping for a breathe or two.

I could so relate to Jango. That's exactly what I feel like doing when at one unexpected moment a loud blast scares the shit out of me. Not just miniature bombs of all sorts even the charkhis make noise these days. Found out only this time. The charkhi glows, goes round round and also makes a noise similar to that of a missile launch...uff....

I like the lights though, like the fireworks in the sky. So I took along my sister and drove around Dwarka to see the lighting of the various societies. Dwarka has many empty sky lines looking at which you can see many fire works all at a time. We then to India Gate. Idea was to just drive around but not park, reaching near Maurya Sheraton I was reminded of a friend who lives nearby. Called him. Since he joined us we could park there at India Gate, he treated us with Ice cream...more nice fire works there in India Gate. At around 12 we pushed off to RK Puram to be with some of our old friends. That being our old neighbourhood, a place where we had lived for around 19 years before we moved to Dwarka.

Why catch up with old friends at 12 in the night. The day when diwali is celebrated we bengali perform Maa Kaali Puja. The worship of Goddes Kali, the goddess of Shakti (Power) Kaali a name associated with black and violence, this goddess is worshipped by dacoits, soldiers, tantirks etc. The puja is essentially performed on an amavasya night. The ceremony only ends at late night and is traditionally concluded by a goat being sacrificed at the goddess' feet. The devotees then have a major feast on that sacrificed Goat.

In today's times of course the sacrifice is no longer done at the puja pandal. But we still have the feast at around 3 in the night. All devotees stay awake throught the night to have the prasad. Pathar Mangsho (Mutton Curry), Cholar Daal (Pulses), Luchi (Puri in North India), Pulao, beguni (pieces of brinjal dipped in Besan and deep fried), chatni and rasho golla being a typical Kali pujor prasad.

Besides catching up with old friends in RK Puram I also got to have a glimpse at my longest lasting crush - 18 years.

Was back home at 2ish. Since then everytime I tell some one how did I spend this Diwali...its freaking them out..."You were driving around on a Diwali night!!! Ahem well I didn't realise it was such a risky thing to do...we are dare devils you see.

The Minutes of DBM XIV

Minutes of XIV Delhi Blogger's Meet

The meeting was held at the same time and place as announced. It was attended by 12 members with 5-6 of the old and regular ones and rest new faces. Compared to last couple of meetings this time the attendance was low but the discussion was much more constructive than before. Let's see where do we go from here.

The agenda was of course to discuss a blog camp or somthing of that sort event here in delhi. As we started our planning we were posed with few basic questions

(a) What kind of event are we looking at? Is it going to be a huge affair with lots of sponsors and propoganda or do we want to keep it simple like our meets are. I guess we all agreed to make it big (attendees correct me if I am wrong)

(b) What do we call it a seminar / blog camp / a workshop / a meet etc.? Most of us don't want to call it blog camp and its not just about the nomenclature we don't want to repeat the chennai thing....we've got to do something different and new. something that hasn't already been dealt with.

(c) what kind of audience/participation are we expecting? We can either try to reach out to people who are not into blogging by doing some thing very basic..what's a blog..its uses, handyness and effectiveness, or we can keep it amongst the circle of those who are already blogging but focus more on issues they still would want to know bout. We understand that the two groups are mutually exclusive and we can't expect a event to be atteded by both kinds..so we have to promote the event accordingly. We haven't really reached to a conclusion on this.

(d) What are we going to do in the event? After a lot of brainstorming we have more or less catagorised two kinds of activiities.. som sort of research papers on topics which are very very off track this will give new perspectives and round table discussions where we would debate some of the exisiting notions and trends on blogging.

Topics for Research, anybody can volunteer to take part of conduct these researches.

1. Personality of the blogger v. the blogger [suggested by Lijo , Prashant, Sanjukta] a more flashy name for this is Indentity Management through Blog or the Psychology of the blog. A case study on this cannot be done unless a guineapig has volunteered for it.

2. Education, Abroad studies and blogging - A students perspective. [Mayank]

3. Shall we censor | Darker side of blogging [Sanjukta] I want to know how reliable is the information on the blog, given the fact that blog owner can control and tamper everything..date of publishing the post, comments on it etc. Should we then really have absolutely free flow of all kinds of contents. Shall we allow inflammatory blogs in the name of freedom of speech.

4. Blogging trends accross nations - interaction / comparison with Indian Blogsphere. [Twilight Fairy] country for case study Pakistan. We are similar so are we really similar. We can find that out though there is doubt as to how much a blog reflect the country and its people. I guess at least we can compare two similarly placed bloggers...say journalists or software engnrs or activiists etc. Fairy can explain this more.

Topics for Round table discussion.

1. Raveena Tandon - why are you not blogging? [Harneet, Yogesh] I think they are trying to say something about celebrity bloggers....or may be they were just kidding....guys pls explain

2. Blogs, a threat to certain Industries [Prashant] job of travel consultant being replaced by travel blogs, and somthing about banking also he said. Prashant can explain this more.

3. Horizontal Blog [Prashant] where one person is blogging about everything under the sun.

4. Frequency of Posting - effects on quality of blog [Prashant]

5. Blogging Syndication and their impact on freedom of expression [Nikhil] Its like this, a jaana maana blogger express is PoV on something and everybody else in his group tends to agree and only agree..let us ask ourselves are we really exercising our Freedom of Expression. I personally find it interesting though I think it goes for other media also. After all most of us are taught to conform to notions and ideology preached by our peers.

6. Sun V. Microsoft - The technical art of Blogsphere [Yogesh] He would have to explain this.

Topic on which guest speakers can speak and also discussion

1. Business Blogging [Lijo] this I think have been discussed quite a few times before. However one can speak on any breakthrough changes in it.

2. Blogging in Regional languages - Support and technology [Lijo] He knows farmers in Kerela who blog in regional language. It might be interesting to find out about all the available technical and other support for regional blogging.

3. Ways of improving aggregation of blogs to better reflect quality content. [Nikhil] He would have to explain this.

4. Usability issues with mobile blogging [Nikhil] as its gonna come up big time in the next couple of years this is the right time to start talking bout it.

Besides these topics there's general expectation from the event, common between me, Harneet, Fairy Mayank, Lijo (pls add ur name if am leaving u out), to reach out to those sections of people who are part of the same frame and yet unaware of blogs.

- Media that reports on blogs
- Govt. agencies, they have access to internet, power to regulate but don't understand blogs.
- Students
- Creative minds at home..the home makers, retired persons etc. got access to net but not utilising
- social activists, i know so many of them who have faintly heard bout it and wanna know more about it.
- Basically Anybody and everybody...as Chota Amit said anybody can blog.

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So we really had a fruitful discussion yesterday. Now the next step. As of now we have all promised to blog exhaustively about the topics we have suggested. Let's first have a reality check, how easy it is to conduct these research. I suggest we set up a community blog (on blogspot Beta) for this purpose and have a Wiki also.

Time now for the group to speak.

List of Attendees

Lijo Isac - http://lijoz.blogspot.com
Amit Gupta2 - www.amitgupta. in
Prashant - http://www.knowprashant.blogspot.com/
Rohit Malik - www.delhievents.com/
Roopak - http://03.indiatimes.com/wallflowers
yogesh - ?
Nikhil - http://mixedbag.blogspot.com/
Harneet - http://harneet.blogspot.com/
Twilight Fairy - http://twilightfairy.rediffblogs.com/
AmitKen - http://amitken.wordpress.com/
Sanjukta - http://sanjukta.wordpress.com/ (I have shifted to Wordpress..actually am at both the places..i keep cross posting)
Mayank - http://mayankchauhan.blogspot.com

DBM XIV

Ok I know I am tad late...actually too late..but still...at the nick of time... Announcing DBM XIV and this time we do have an Agenda...huh finally

DBM XIV

Date : 7th oct'06
Time : 4:30pm (it gets dark by 6pm)
Venue : Steps near audi, (BBC meet waali), IHC, Lodhi road.
Agenda : planning a seminar style meet, progressing onto a blogcamp.

Participation: Be there if this announcement sounds interesting to you

See you

Did this translation long time back....just thought would re post it today.
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Shyama to Bajrasen -

Forgive me my Love
What is the curse for the sin I did,
Let the almighty bestow upon me
You forgive me
My sin was not in thy Book,
sinner I am in God's feet
There God shall unleash his rage,
retribution be silently accepted by me
never shall be able to bear your unforgiveness
Forgive me

Bajrasen -

Forgive her, I could not
Forgive my feeble mind my Lord
My love was crying, My love was dying
of shame of remorse.
Alas! I could not take her in my arms
I hurt my love
Sin I did to punish sin
Forgiven she would be by thee,
she who falls tumbling on thy feet
of shoulder loaded with sin.
Know I this my Lord,
that thou shall never forgive me,
never forgive me for my mercilessness.

From 'Shyama' by Rabindra Nath Tagore

You called me beautiful

'You' called me 'beautiful'

surprised

I turned my ugly face at you

I looked up,

I looked around,

'They' called me beautiful

looking back at you, i could only find a smile

you were gone

I still collect the smiles.

workshop on CEDAW

Every little bit have been taken care of. Its been a lot of hard work and I just hope it goes great. Talking about the South Asia Training of Trainers on CEDAW workshop to be held in TERI Gurgaon from 25th to 29th September 2006. The event is being funded by UNIFEM and executed by PLD.

South Asian lawyers working in the field of women’s rights issues are here to participate in the training. We have participants coming from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Bhutan.

Now what is CEDAW. Its an international Convention on Elimination of all kinds of Discrimination Against Women. Most of these south asian countries including India is a signatory of this convention. CEDAW is the parellel of UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and is the only source for women rights. Why women rights when we have human rights. To know the answer to that question one needs to understand the text of CEDAW which is as complicated as it can be. Lawyers take time to understand the convention so one can imagine how difficult it is for a grass root level activist to weave the CEDAW principle into their work. This is where PLD have had a major contribution, training development executives on CEDAW.

For the first time PLD is going to have a training for trainers. This time the participans are of higher level and they are further expected to disseminate the training obtained here development executives in their countries working in the relevant fields. We have also prepared a very enriching resource package.

I would also be attending the training as a participant. I have worked hard for the event. Officially I wasn’t in it earlier but then things kept coming and I kept taking them and ended up playing a major role in coordinating the entire event. Have not been getting any time for blogging.

Lots of ideas came in mind but never got the time. Also thought of a Nation wide campaign for right to education on 14th Nov. Let’s see what can be done.

Blog Camp...

Ok I may be a tad late in talking about the Blog Camp Unconference...but its never too late.. I cannot even begin to explain how much I would have loved to be a part of it and how much I have got to talk about blogs and blogging. Regular readers of my blog would know why... May be soon we should have a Delhi Edition of Blog Camp and then I would be an active participant.

Only yesterday I had another lecture in AIMC on Media and Law, but the students were more enthu to talk about blogging given the fact that their Swagat Sir has been influencing them 24/7 about powers of blogs. Swagat is always so exited about the blogs and is always trying to be innovative about its use. He wants all his students to share their class notes. He wants me conduct a one day blogging workshop with his students.

They kept saying India have to go a long way in blogging well not after such a huge event like blog camp. The list of participants is as glamorous as it could get including Sunil Gavaskar on board. I would be mailing Bill and Julian regarding the Blog camp.

So if you are in Chennai on 9th and 10th September you better be sane and attend it.

An article I wrote for AIMC Seminar which not many read am linking here again given its relevance to this post. Click here. My efforts to put some sense and direction to the DBM is also of significance once again. I cannot believe how a bunch of around 150 bloggers who have been in this community for a little less than 3 years now still cannot think of doing anything more constructive than sipping cofee and 'meeting new people' in their meets. Every time I have tried to talk about it those guys have blamed me for thinking too much and getting too serious with something so casual as blogging. One of them actually sent me hate mails blaming me of being a cheap attention seeker. For once I thought I would put up his derogatory mails for all to see but then I thought why should I get dirty myself.

I fail to understand with the government banning some blogs, the RTI applications and the media attention how can blogging still remain a casual matter an avenue only to meet new people and socialize.

Anyway

It was an awesome rain that delhi had today in the evening and its awlays a beautiful sight to see those shining blades of water falling on the concrete road and the car splashing by...the traffic obviously came to a halt all around and I waited almost an hour at the Jungpura stop for a 727 before I gave up, took an auto to CP and boarded the metro to Dwarka. But what a well spent hour it was.......last year I only wrote about it....this time I clicked and captured....

MORE PICS HERE

I am hating wordpress. Except for one good thing that it allows me to add Pages, wordpress overall is giving me a pain in my ass. It's so f*^&ing; slow... everytime it asks me stupid questions..........you are being redirecting to no secure connections.....blah blah...even before logging in to wordpress it would ask these questions. I wonder if the source is non secure why the hell am I trying to log in to it.




It doesnt allow me to delete my posts, it says I don't have permission to perfom that....who the hell would give me permission now. Its so damn irritating. I thought of shifting from blogspot to wordpress so that I can organise this large blog into proper categories and that bugger won't let me edit or add new categories now. I have been only able to rename the default 'uncategorized' thing

I am in the process of moving to Wordpress

SANJUKTA.WORDPRESS.COM

That page is still under construction. Facing some technical difficulties. Would give a final notice here before leaving this space. Meanwhile keep visiting.

Good Bye Kakan

I had always romanticized the idea of an early and famous death...my friend had it and now am 'living' her 'death'....

I have wondered how would it be to be suddenly gone...what if people who knew me loved me finds out I am no more... will they cry for me? Of course they will.... what about those who don't keep in touch with me any more... will they cry for me? The men who broke my heart and never looked back.......would they even come to know? May be not... I am always wanting to be famous just so that when I die the world knows. The idea of a lonely death scares me...

Am always wanting to tell my sister that if I die suddenly call everybody that I ever knew and say bye to them on my behalf..... I don't know if she said the same to her bro... but I know there are people who would probably never come to know or may be would know it after a long passage of time, unless I tell them today...

So I told them one by one - Somewhere near Rudra Prayag in Uttranchal is a place called Siyalsaur...there flows river Mandakini... on 14th August 2006 Kakan went swimming in the river... 3 other friends were sitting by the river bank. Suddenly they saw her being pulled in the middle of the river and then withing few seconds she disappeared into the water... Its been 8 days they still haven't found her body. She is gone. We have lost her.

And now I am living her death. I am witnessing how it feels to leave suddenly. I have been witnessing how her casual friends who she used to meet once in a while took it, witnessing her ex bf (not much official), the Lets go group members, her new found close friend and although I didn't actually witness what her parents and bro are going through but I can make out.... I look helplessly at her orkut page, people scrap her "hey kakan what's up" scraps that would never be answered, pages that would never be updated again, mailing lists which would no longer hear from one of their members....and they would never know what happened...why the silence.

I read her mails on the Let's Go list....the ones she wrote right before leaving for the trip...

All sounds cool !!! Am really quite enthu about the trek ..hope I dont
breakany bones...

she says

I am gonna be carrying dettol and band aid and few first aidstuff

In another mail she was discussing the schedule

16th august : We would be reaching back to delhi ( hopefully we would have
survived..hehe)

I met Kakan her in MARG in August 2003 we were coleagues for just one month. Since the day one I knew she was of my type may be because we both were aquarians... but then how deep can your friendship grow when you are coleagues. Oh but we did have some great drinking and singing session she used to love to sing...and she was a great singer. She specialized in Child and adoloscent psychology and started her carreer by giving counselling session on a child helpline.

One of the songs she used to sing every now and then those days I am listening right now... Allah ke bande has de - Kailash Kher.

She didn't stay for the whole project left too early on some misunderstanding with other members on the team. I, in anycase am never the one to call up people to keep in touch. And the way she left I had more reasons to leave her alone for sometime. But then she herself called. She took a job in London and wanted to meet me before she leaves. She had invited all the other Margees but none of them came only I did. Honestly, I wasn't too enthusiastic about it but couldn't turn down her...the way she would look at you with her chirpy giggle and innocence, you really can't turn her down. The way she used to that is.

Through her stay in London, the annual breaks in which she came to India and after her return couple of months back, she had always been the one to keep in touch. She used to always call and find out how I was doing. She was some one who would want to help you with everything. Once she wanted me to meet me and I wasn't in the mood and so I said I wasn't feeling well she said, "what happned to you, I can get medicine" (her father is Delhi's renowned homeopath Dr. Kalyan Banerjee)

They have a story on her on Sunday's Hindustan Times (20th), Monday's (21st) TOI and Tuesday's (22nd) Indian Express. May be some of those friends of her who even I don't know would read the newspapers. I think I know how would they would react but lemme not get into that.

We don't have time.......no time to live...let alone fight, hold grudges, have differences, prejudices....its so often that we don't call our friends and keep in touch...we believe they are there and then suddeny one of them is gone... As I feel helpless with my eyes running out of tears for her I am reminded of one of her comments on this blog

Cheer up samy ..its never worth losing what was not yours .. you always
make me believe that.. shouldnt the same go for u too.. what wasnt yours cant be
worth anything when its lost..

U inspire life ..remember that..Cose you gotta gift of doing good ..

Life will go on Kakan, we all would move on, I know that's the harsh reality of life...we all want to live..... but you left a space in some of our life that would never be filled. Rest in peace beloved freind...guess you were a fallen star and weren't meant to be in this world full of misery and pain for too long...guess that's why you were so full of life always........since you weren't meant to stay.

A week later, no trace of drowned girl’s body

A close friend's tribute to Kakan

Those who would want to get in touch with Kakan's grieving family can mail me for the numbers.

All are requested to pray for her soul and her family's well being.

birth of a smile

Two drops fell from her eyes
Landed on a feather passing by
Were carried to a place unknown
touched an ailing soul
and a smile was born

People sometimes act so cowardly and Hypocritacilly. I once wrote this testimonial for some one I knew. Asked for his feedback on what I had to write about him. He read it and got so panic stricken, left offliners for me, comments on the blog itself and then spoke over the phone asking me to do the needful editing. The reason for panic...only the following words

the rest of his time is spent in drinking and shopping.

I haven't written drinking what...haven't mentioned anything like he drinks a lot and is a drunkard. Just the mention of drinks is defamatory for him. He is an IITian and an MBA has spent 3 years in abroad (Ameriaca, Singapore etc) holding top notch corporate position and yet by those words I have put him at the risk of loosing his reputation in the eyes of society and family. This is what he had to say (Yahoo Messenger Offliners)

SP: dont forget internet is an open book! u have to be careful about what u
write else people can make 1+1 = 4!
SP: oye madam ... yeh kya kya likh rakha hai aapne logon ke baare mein! no
one here drinks like a fish or shops like an alcoholic! all we do is have a
party or 2 in a month! KIndly edit as not only my friends/bros/sis are net savvy
but also this sends a wrong message across!

A wrong message??? Coz I said drinks? Reputation of what? Since when did drinking become such a taboo. Who are you fooling man. Don't the people around you already know that you drink. And a friendly testimony, in which, of the many things there is a passing reference to your drinking habits would be taken so seriously by your friends and family? Strange!

Grow up People of India. Open your eyes to things which are of much more significance than mere reputation, tradition, culture, morality, sanctity, decent indecent...there's much more to the human existence. Log kya sochenge...kab tak hum is sawal mein uljhe rahenge...can I not find one person who isn't burdened with this question, whose soul is free. How can we close our eyes to things which are too evident to proclaim that they doesn't exist.

Probably your Net-savy sisters also drink and if they do....big deal... shouldn't be an issue with your parents or family.

Yet another DBM

Time for another DBM. I am not too sure where is this powerful community of bloggers going with these series of Meets...two and half years and we still figuring out what is the substance of our commune...

Nevermind, I in anycase am always looking forward to all of them. So here is welcoming all delhi Based Bloggers to the meet...its a bit too short notice I know... was decided hurriedly...

The 'others' are also having a meet on Sunday. The twain shall never meet...Such a new genre this 'bloggers' and such lack of unity already.

This is ours XIIth and theirs must be 5th or 6th I don't know. Interestingly we do meets in every two months or so and they do it every month so pretty soon they are gonna outnumber us on the total meets they have had although they started two years after we did. It's not about competition, its about an excellent idea being pre maturely lost into oblivion due to lack of enthusiasm and ambition.

May be I think about it way too much for the reason that blogging and this Blogger's group is one of the best things that has happened to me. I cannot even begin to talk about what all have changed in my life, how I have re-discovered myself ever since I started writing this blog. I was recently on CNN IBN talking bout hte ban on blogs issue. Glimpses of me was on NDTV and was interviewd by The Guardian, Deccan Herald and Indian Express. The hype I got at the last DBM...my guest lectures at APJ...Can't deny it all feels good... am not at all one of those humble souls for whom fame doesn't matter...
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Anywhichway

So Cafe Turtle, Khan Market, Lodi, New Delhi is where I would be tomorrow, 29th July at 5 pm meeting some of the delhi based bloggers.

Come along if you are around
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Current Song - Mujhe mat roko, mujhe saajan ke ghar jaane do from Gangster.
Don't I always say I am gonna be "gone too soon", time for me to move on please don't hold me back, I like it when you do but let me go...

Remember that old wrapping paper?

It’s been years, you were quite young then, it was your birthday. One of your friends gift wrapped a present for you with that paper. What was the present, I guess you don’t remember anymore, you probably don’t even remember who gifted it, but that wrapping paper was nice. Wasn't too glossy neither was it too colorful, it had a soothing pastel shade which actually doesn't even look much attractive at first sight. In fact, you didn’t even bother to be careful while un wrapping the gift and so it lay tore, twisted and crumpled from all sides as you threw it on the desk adding to the pile of all such wrappers tags etc.

I remember you took note of it only the next morning when your mom was cleaning up the room. She was trashing the paper bits, the deflated balloons, the gift cartons, the chocolate wrappers, the paper plates etc. in the bin, when that wrapper caught your eyes. You quickly took it out of the pile and kept it carefully in your book shelf. You thought it would be of use some day.....may be in a collage or might even be used as a wrapper in case you forget to pick one from the stationary......but then, you lost sight of it.

You had a habit of saving things for later use... And so it too got dumped along with many such small items that you had kept. In your cupboard it lay purpose-less, help less... all it could do is wait... wait for you to some day take a look at it... It kept waiting wishing and praying you pick it up someday with a smile and give it the worth for which you originally saved it... days passed, months rolled, turned into years and went by but the wait seemed to be never ending. The cupboard seemed to be filled with more and more such stuffs... it was pushed towards the bottom, deep down it tried to remain in sight but couldn't.

Are you looking for it today? Is it that wrapper that you are crazily searching all over your room, in your cupboard, book shelf, lofts, old paper bags, old ragged files...and you can't find it. I can see you sweating and exasperating, you are so sure you kept it right there on that inner cabinet but it’s not there anymore. You are getting more and more irritated for you just can't figure out where it went.

Oh c'mon why don't you get it? You simply lost it. You won't find it ever. Wonder what made you think you will continue ignoring something, which you once thought was precious, and it will still be yours.

Thus Speak Me

"Give me my share of tears and I shall leave you alone"

These golden words, refelecting upon my penultimate wisdom, which is given to me by all mightly to save the world of all its misery, are framed in the wonderful invention called Yahoo 360 under the series "Thus speak Me". So keep visiting my Yahoo page for more of these quotable quotes uttered by this fascinating personality at those rare glorious moments I reach after sufficient amount of vodka and rum...

Disclaimer:

Purity of Gold not guranteed.

Definition of wisdom you are free to form your own.

Misery shall not include those hazards occured by reading my words.

ENJOY PEOPLE

No, you are not out of my mind. There isn't a single 'free' moment of the day when I don't think of you, you are the first thought when I wake up, you are the last when I sink in sleep. Just that you don't know, and you would never know coz I won't ever tell you what's in my mind unless you ask me.

Took me 6 years to find, and probably for the first time in true sense, a man who appeared to be some one I can spend time with...wanted to be with you, thought we can give it a try, thought we would be good for each other, but you turned me down. And then my dreams were broken. And the only thing that's real in my life embraced me with warm open arms. My pain.

You were very fond of reading this blog. Every now and then everything I said you said "I know, read it on your blog". You read everything, you knew everything and still you went ahead and did exactly what they all have been doing......... you left me in the middle of no where with endless questions and no answers....... you never felt it was necessary to have a talk... I opened my heart to you layer by layer... and you remained silent like a stone...indifferent to everything I said.... kept me wondering.... why? Why didn't you stop me? Why did you on the contrary did things to encourage my feelings?

And now, with every passing day of your indifference towards me the wound is only getting deeper and deeper... you are always there in my mind reminding me of my defeat, what is it that I don't have, why is it that I failed to even be a "friend" of yours... True you said we'd be friend but there is an ocean of difference in saying and doing. Action speaks louder. I am nothing more than a mere aquaintance to you...... some one you smile at if you accidentally bump into... every day you make me feel how lonely i am... you make me feel I am not worth considering... I am not worth spending time with.... so you see you are never out of my mind...

But that doesn't mean I can't pretend I am over you..... I am good at that. I will pretend like nothing happend so that 'you' don't feel uncomfortable when we meet in a common group. I will pretend that it was just a convinient crush which got over as things became inconvinient. I will pretend I wasn't hurt and everything is just the way it should be. With time we shall drift apart...... words unspoken, questions un-answered will forever remain with me.....

-----------------------------------------------------

The purpose of starting this blog could never be any more justified than this post that I worte today. I took a look at the series of events with him, how we met and how I felt, how hopes were build and dreams were weaved, how smiles were planted on my face and everybody around me, how I spent my time being happy about every sms he sent (which he now calls as 'kidding myself') how with every small step I became more and more sure about me standing a chance with him and so I told him bout my felling and what happened next...... I wrote a blog post in each of those moments... my initial apprehension that it was just a mirage, my dilemma whether I should tell him or not, my final decision that I won't tell him, how I decided to give him hints, told him "I wrote this testimonial for you"........ and today at the end of it all this post only proves how uncertain and short lived it was... As always.
--------------------------------------------
The reason I wasn't blogging for some time was becoz I couldn't have helped writing this post and I didn't want him to read...now that considerable time has passed I am hoping he won't visit here any more... but if you do..... then well what can I say.... This is my truth... you gotta handle it.

I don't want to write this blog anymore.

Coming back from work today (Dilli Haat after work) I felt like driving till the end of the world. Wished the 6.5 Km long road connecting Dwarka to South Delhi never comes to an end, felt like taking the NH8 to jaipur and from there to some where else. I just wanted to go on and on and on... Me and my thoughts on the run.

Dino called ES while she was sitting with me in the car, he was discussing the trip to Gharwal. I asked him yesterday if they can postpone it till the last week coz I would like to go, he said "talk to Amit he is organising, not me." Another chapter closed all it took to close it was just a turn of leaf.

Why can't things be left at vague....why does it have to end? All stories must have climax and a The End, that's why.

I really wanna take those roads one of these days...

Some one asked me today if I was happy. I never ask this question to myself surprisingly the answer was quite simple. Yes I am. Any body who reads my open heart here on this blog would think I am one of the most unhappy. Well it just occured to me its actually so easy to be happy in life, all you need is just a little tact. I am happy being unhappy. I love my loneliness and my pain, they make me a special person, they are my muses, my source of inspiritation for my writing...... they make my life worth living, some day they will make my life worth reading......... Given a chance I would not want to change anything of life. Really I have no regrets, I believe everything that I do or have done is unique and special in its own way. I stand out and that's what matters to me. No fun being the happy go lucky girl next door......... They laugh at me, think I am fooling myself, may be i am but let it be, I am happy thise way.......... They think I live a life full of false presumptions, I see world through my eyes only.... so what if that makes me feel good about the world and about myself, that serves the purpose.........

I am not talking sense. Stop here. End post.

I take pride in having arranged the XIth Delhi Blogger's Meet with Bill, Gareth and Julian all the way from BBC UK. The event was a gala event, one of the most significant in Delhi Blogger's community. I think for the first time The indian blogging community got such a projection at the world level. Post my interview with bbc they have linked the Delhi Bribe Rates Blog on the main BBC page. Since then the blog has been getting a tremendous traffic inflow from US and UK. I can't ever fully thank Ankur enough for associating me with this Birbe delhi Blog. I owe it to him. When I said that to him he said but had you not arranged and attended the meet it wouldn't have got the hype it got. True. We both kinda have complimented each other.

Mean while the BBC Radio show Digital Planet went on air today with Me, Twilight Fairy, the professional Blogger Amit Agarwal, Snigdha aka Encounter Specialist, Mayabhushan and Monica talking to Gareth the presenter of the show. The event was attended by around 30 Bloggers in Delhi.

The entire edition of Tuesday's Digital Planet show can be downloaded as a MP3 File of 11MB size from here

The highlight of both the event and the show was this culture of blogger's meeting up in person. A culture very unique amongst internet users in the Indian Metro and also amongst bloggers accross the globe. As Gareth said the blogger's were trapped in their respective homes and then one fine day they decided to meet and actually quite like it.

Next highlight is Bill's understanding of the Indian Blogging community. Inspite of being the blogging expert of UK he wansn't here as an expert, rather he was here to have some cultural exchange with young and vibrant people in indian blogging community and this is what he says after he met us, "It’s too easy to have a western technocratic view of the world, and having to defend my views in front of this articulate, argumentative and skilled group of practitioners was great exercise." One of the major difference that emerged out of the discussion was that we, Indian bloggers, don't, as of now use the blog as a medium for net activism, as much as they do in US or UK. We have much more variety of bloggers writing about hundreds of things from being personal to public. One of the reason behind this could be (a) that we have other effective media to exercise our freedom of expression, (b) We are other wise also talking about politics and rights issues so blogging need not be the only medium to inititate movement.

Amit Agarwal was undoubtedly another interesting part in the meet. He is a an IITian who quit his job to take up full time blogging. Makes some couple of thousands of dollars per month, "more than what he could have earned in an MNC", he says, just by bloggin.

The show digital planet also featured, the election commission of India whihc has been since long using electronic voting machines.

More later......

I happen to know this person through Yahoo Messenger who is married, is a father to a daughter, loves both of them truly but is looking for one night stands without having any strings attached. When asked why such weird desire he says coz he can't ask his wife to fulfill his fantasies.

I see a social problem in him. Sex is one of the biggest truth of nature after probably death. Nothing else is as certain as the desire and need for sex between humans, animals, plants and all other organisms. It comes so naturally to us that to try to fight with our sexual urges and curb them down would be an act extremely against the order of nature. Good sex they say can keep a persons body and mind healthy and just as lack of vitamis and minerals affects our health, non availibility of a medium to satisfy our sexual urges also affects our mental and physical health. This is so because the sexual urge that we have is a part of the many systems that works in our body. We have been given these glands which would natually secrete hormones and when that happens our body reacts natually to it. This is all chemistry.

When two people get married, of all the things they promise, they also promise, whether directly or impliedly, to fulfill this most natural need of each other. But in India sex is such a taboo that a man who might be more sexually charged than his wife is actually ashamed of it.

In our culture even husband wives can't talk bout sex. Not only that, some times we have such stupid traditions making sex more and more a topic of shame and indecency. In joint families the bolted door to a couple's room is supposed to be opened up early morning before the elderly members of the family wakes up. They have to pretend they didn't do it last night. Particularly for the bahu it is a matter of embarrassment if she is still with her husband behind closed doors when rest of the family has woken up.

Another weird habit is the hush hush tone we use when a woman is found to be expecting a baby. Why? Because the fact that she is expecting makes it evident that they did it...... duh.... Otherwise the people in the house were under the impression that the couple were just kidding themselves......... So we have these stupid cliched movie scenes where this wife is getting all red blushing to such extremity that I don't even know how to explain, while she break the news of her pregnancy to the family members and to top it all, to her own husband. I mean what on earth is there to be embarrassed of or blush...

This guy never fully told me what his fantasies are so I don't know how weird they are but whatever it is, I feel he shouldn't have any hesitations to ask for it from his wife. If she is ok with it, nothing can be better, if she isn't, they can talk about it, think over it, try to find some way out, may be see a therapist. But here we have him thinking its gonna be indecent on his part to talk about sex with his own wife and therefore indulging in adultery.

I have noticed this in some traditional bengali families that once the children are in their teen age and the parents are in mid 40s they cease to sleep together in the same room. It is considered indecent to give out this impression in front of the rest of the people in the house including the grown up kids, that the parents still enjoy their marital intercourse. How unnatural is that. I just don't get it.

I know this guy for more than 6-7 months now and yes our chat conversation did start when he popped up my PC with this proposal of his. He didnt want to talk about anything else, didn't even want to know anything about me or my life, just wanted an answer to his proposal in Yes or No. Being the smooth talker that I am, I managed to start talking and since then we been talking. And over time I found out he is actually a nice guy and not some pervert, is sensitive, caring, responsible, intelligent, loves his wife and would never want to hurt her...but then why?
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Lemme ask this question to all of you here.... do you think this person is an one off case or do you think there are many such persons around...... just that they don't talk bout it honestly........?? And do you have a sexual fantasy that you are embarrassed of?

With a spectacular Charm and a brilliant smile he is every woman's dream come true and yet he isn't the one for you...or may be you aint the one for him.

A little loud...some times rude too...but at least no pretentions...that's the first impression that will probably be built by him on you, a man whose every move is not guided by how much attention he can seek from the gorgeous girl in view. A man who can be friend with anybody and everybody in just a hello, a man who belongs to a group and yet keeps his identity aloof, someone who listens to everyone, tries to help, but seldom talks about himslef, and yet keeps asserting he is the GOD.

Long after he has gone his smile still remains fresh in your mind. Every time you call him, you are greeted with a wide smile which you can actually hear over the phone, and a long hiiiiii, he makes you feel good that you called. He is very busy but he tries to keep in touch with the large number of friends he has... he allots his time accordingly, some of his freinds keep calling him and complaining "You never call" he says "Sorry, I should call, will call" and then tries to manage his time again.

He is someone who you know is gonna be a friend forever but he is some one who you can not keep to yourself for too long... he is someone who belongs to the whole world and yet doesn't belongs to anyone... he is always on the run, talks and walks fast, like a butterfly you just can't catch him. He comes like a flash of light, brightening up your ngiht, but you get so little of him and you always long for more.

He doesn't really know what love is, yet he is looking for that eternal love and cause he learnt it over the years that it doesnt exists, he will do all he can to deny that he is looking for it....

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If you just change all the *He* to *She* you'll get me........
One small tiny step at a time...everything seems to be blurred.....

The XIth DBM went great. Here is keeping a track of all the write ups and pics of the event...till the the time the official blog is updated... I can update the blog since I have the password now, unless of course they have changed it... but the original creator of that blog has issues with me updating his blog...so I won't. Apparently its better not to update it at all than let me do the so very needful.

The latest edition of Digital Planet is a special edition on Delhi the Indian Capital. We, Delhi bloggers were expecting the meet will be covered by Julian and his team in this edition and admittedly there is a slight disappointment when it didnt so happen. But then they have put a pic of our meet on the program and well, let's say a photograph is worth a million words. Besides of course Bill himself has extensively blogged about his first visit to India, his visit to hardware market Nehru Place, the blog meet., the old city etc. He also have so generously named me in his blog and also linked me. I am so happyyyyy.

BBC UK
Twilight Fairy
Solzaire's first step in Delhi blogging Community
Great pics taken by Amit Aggarwal's
Paavani's Account
Amit Verma
Varun's accout
Ashish Kumar
Asit Ranjan Mishra
Mayank Chauhan

For the pics of the DBM visit our Flickr Account.
Delhi Blogger's Group on Flickr

XIth Delhi Blogger's Meet

Time again for the Delhi Blogger's Meet and this time I made it a real special one. It all started with just some 4-5 lines of mail written by Julian Siddle to me...I took it up from there. Told him when he comes we would have a blogger's meet and here it goes.

We would have Julian, Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson, all the way from BBC UK, with us.

Julian is the producer of BBC World Service Technology programme Digital Planet. Gareth is the presenter of the same show. They would be here to shoot a special edition of the program, on India. Culture of Blogs in India is an area Julian would be particularly looking at and would be trying to find answers to questions like "Do you have a particular view on the use or effectiveness of your blogs? What do you think about the use of IT in India or its potential? The country is often seen as being in the grip of a technological boom, is this the case from your experience?"

Bill is one of Britain's leading authorities on blogging and Net activism and advises the EU. He has a regular column on the BBC's website. Bill would be here to share with us his expertise over the subject that connects all of us here...Blogging and also Net activism. Inviting all the Blogger's in and around of Delhi to be a part of this special Meet.

Date: Saturday, 6th May 2006
Venue : The Amphitheater, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Time: 6pm
RSVP : Me @ the Comments section here
Participation: All you old and new, fast and furious, slow and steady, arose and awakened, dreaming and dormant bloggers out there...

Please confirm your participation in advance.

This is one of the hardest thing to do...and I could never do it properly.

To know everything you want is right there infront of you and not being able to reach out and have them. And yet not being able to get over it and move on. You don't stop wishing you could have them, you don't stop wishing and praying, you know there is no hope and still you try to hold on to that weak string of hope... Has it ever happened to you?

This is what is happening to me these days... And I can't even fully write about it here cause some one reads this blog quite regularly... Although that is the purpose of this blog, here I say things, which I can't say at your face.

I don't know what to do?
Wait and watch?
Get over and move on?
Express?

I too was trying out and then I found something which is like the best I could ever afford to have, now I want to stop trying and zero in on this thing that I have found. Again, that's what 'I' want.
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Life otherwise is going great...been partying almost every weekend. Thanks to all the special friends, specially you ES. After a real long time I once again have friends in my life. Otherwise I am mostly surrounded with a crowd. we make a great group and its fun to be with all you guys RM, YD, AG, AB.
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The Delhi Bloggers Meet is happening once again and this time it is really special for me. Life takes such unpredictable turns... just at the wake of me completing one year in blogging I got this mail from one Julian Siddle from BBC UK. Apparently Julian got my email ID through one of the Community Blogs that I am a part of. He is coming down to India to shoot a special edition of his program Digital Planet and wanted to get in touch with me and my blogging coleagues (that's how he wrote in his mail) to get an idea bout the blog culture here in India.

The mail took me completely by surprise. It once again (previous being the AIMC Seminar) puts me under the spotlight so far as blogging is concerned. Both the community blog was started by Ankur and he has more number of posts on them. Both of us have our mail ids up there, it probably was just a matter of chance that they contacted me. And here I am coordinating the meet with everybody asking me, "how did you manage to get BBC on the event?" Everyone around speculating all the high funda connections I must be having in BBC.

I could finally get the password to DBM's official blog. Ever since Harneet left the group it hasn't being properly updated. Will do it hence forth. Have already done the necessary updates. Why do I do all these I don't know. I guess I just assumed, for no reason, that I am the moderator of this group. I was nothing more than just another member who joined the list via the blog and there started yet another eventful chapter in my biography. The fight over the name Delhi Blogger's Meet with Shivam Vij and Co., the differences with Harneet, the then moderator, his exit from the group, his exit being blamed upon me by Amitken......and more.....and then all was calm followed by some low profile meets attended by few new joinees. The January meet was good though and hopefully this forthcoming meet too would have some good participation.
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The dilemma about choosing between all the available options in my career has come to an end and I am joining Partners for Law in Development tomorrow. Its a legal NGO. We are into social mobilization, capacity building training in Law for development executive, lobbying, PILs etc.

I realised the first option that of joining a corporate as a legal executive won't work... They just don't like my profile and I don't like theirs. My 3 months work in FS was the worst period of my career and I don't wanna go back to a corporate structure again.

The next option, starting independent practice..... that's not easy. Its a task getting a client and then proving your credibility to him. All litigants are apprehensive about a young lawyer. Besides, I have acquired the habit of advising people to appear themselves, in front of the court instead of wasting money in hiring a lawyer, wherever it is technically so allowed. I have been cautioning my friends about the various crooked means these lawyers adhered to...to extract every bit of money from the client. Two people's fight... which ends when both of them loose, one looses his money and the other looses the case, cannot be the source of my income. I would take up cases when I see some serious miscarraige of justice happening. As I get some time I'd take up some of the women's cell cases. Till then litigation would only be part time.

The third option....joining a law firm. I have been plain unlucky in this... or may be destiny have something else decided for me. This is a profession of cut throat competition. Here both the employer and the employee pay and they both earn. Only those juniors are taken in a law firm who can pay....... either by their contacts in the judiciary (the law firm gets the verdict in favour) or in the corporate world (the firm gets heavy pocketed clients). I don't have any such contacts. Neither does dad have. Dad is a one person who doesn't even belongs to this world..he lives in his own world. He doesn't keeps in touch. He doesnt know how to build contacts and keep and optimise them. He has served 40 years in the Government of India and have been througout surrounded by lawyers and yet he doesn't have contacts. In the past 2-3 years I have visited quite a few of the Delhi's Elite lawyers but none of them have been too keen to take me in their firms. I have been inflexible myself as well... have always been maintaining I don't wanna do Exise and Customs cases..... and most of these lawyers I have visited were experts in Customs and Exise. So, no luck in law firms.

Finally, the socio-legal side. A field I am passionate about, a field that allows me to work as per my rules, allows me to be creative, to take initiatives... a work where I get to travel and meet people, where I work not only from my mind but from my heart... The NGO Sector is a sector where I have good contacts, I have so many people who knows and appreciates me, I have great recommendation letters from firms like MSI. This is my place. This is where I would be.
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The new workplace is 30 km away from home. The perfect reason for me to move out. Have already spoken to mom and dad. They are not happy but they don't see any option. I am quite determined this time. Would start looking for a one room set soon and then........
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Lawyers don't win or loose...the clients do

Phew........