Wednesday 28 January 2009

The First Anniversary

This blog completes one year on 31st January. Like all one-year olds, this one is also unsteady on its legs, incoherent in its speech and someone has to check its backside at frequent intervals.

Initially, I used to wonder: who would be interested in what I write and why should they, anyway? So, during those early days, I was frantically searching for ways and means to increase the flow of traffic to my blog. I shamelessly e-mailed all those in my contact list, beseeching them to read the posts and leave comments and to the utter consternation of my wife, started writing down and distributing the blog id to casual acquaintances and even perfect strangers.

Nothing happened.

So after a while, I decided to studiously ignore the blog counter that stubbornly refused to turn over and concentrate on the content. Not that the content was great but I started writing about those topics or incidents from the past that made me smile, not really caring whether anyone was reading the stuff or whether it was all disappearing into some black hole in cyberspace.

And slowly, one by one, all of you started trickling in, mostly perfect strangers who happened on the blog by pure chance or idle curiosity; you came by, read some of the posts and decided to stick around. And if today I feel a strong bond of affection and fondness towards those strangers, some of whom are also awesome bloggers in their own right and much younger to me in age, don’t grudge me this feeling of warm kinship for, these are the people who encouraged me with their comments, referenced some of my posts to Desipundit and Blogbharti, put me on their blogroll and in the case of a crazy lady/brilliant blogger, made me part of a limerick about her favourite blogs!

I cannot even begin to thank you for all the love, affection and encouragement you have so selflessly showered on me. You have also ceased to be strangers but close allies who share a common passion, even though I have not met a single one of you in person, excluding my wife who also happens to be a blogger.

A special thanks to the grammar bully. Barring a few of the initial posts, he has been kind enough to read all my posts prior to posting and edit them with a sharp pencil, while careful not to impose his own style on my posts. His edits, I would like to hope, have made the posts crisper, more readable and definitely an improvement on my own original version.

So thank you once again, guys and gals! You have made my past year such a pleasure.

Image Courtesy: bookburger.typepad.com

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats Rada...keep going...

Let me know when/where the anniversary party is :-)

Razigan said...

Congrats Rada.

Many many happy returns of this day.

Renu said...

Oh the blog seems so seasoned, I am surprised its but 1. Its one of the few blogs that I've come across that is simple, unassuming but totally engaging. Here's to many more anniversaries!

Cynic in Wonderland said...

PARTY!!!!!!!!!!! Happy BUDDAY TO blog!!

And crazy lady ( i dont know abt the brilliant blogger bit - but thank you very much:D) loves your blog precisely because of that - because you are one of those rare bloggers who arent playing to an audience. And each blog is so lucid and clear and well uncluttered - that its a delight to read!To many, many more posts!

Vatsa said...

Congrats on the anniversary. I am usually too shy to leave comments in people's blog. For some reason I have done a few times in your space, probably for being simple, personal as well as detached. Wish you many more posts. :-)

Rada said...

@ Vijay: If you can come to Chennai, we can definitely have a party, anniversaries not withstanding!

@ Razigan: Thanks, pal!

@ Renu: Thank you! Your comments made my day!

@ Cynic:Ah, you indulge me so. Thanks you, my friend!

@ Vatsa: Thanks. I read your cricket-related posts with much interest.

Anonymous said...

How wonderful is that! Happy Birthday, Stepping Sideways :)

So it does happen then...people do eventually read! That's quite heartening. From the "who would want to read me?" stage, it still does seem a long way, though!

Congratulations on the milestone! :)

-g


-g

Unknown said...

Congrats on your wonderful blog-BTW, what's up with the operation etc? Here we are all stressed out in the USA and I have too many colleagues who were laid off for me to do anything properly no :-). All the best with your health!

Unknown said...

congrats rada!
When is the parddy?!:P

Rada said...

@ Gauri: Keep the faith. Trust me ! :-)

@ Ravi: Nice to have you back, cousin!

@ Gerimox: Where's the parddy? Unga veettile parddy! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hey, Congrats!!Here's wishing you many many more years of blogging!!

Free Guestmap from Bravenet.comFree Guestmap from Bravenet.com
IndiBlogger - Where Indian Blogs Meet
Visit blogadda.com to discover Indian blogs
Add to Technorati Favorites
Subscribe with Bloglines
Creative Commons License
Stepping Sideways... by K. Radhakrishnan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.