Blog Orwell

It is every blogger's dream to get 30-40 comments for his/her posts. Quite a few manage that: if is a different matter that a quarter of them consist of the obligatory Thank You's. But attracting 100-plus comments for a personal diary-type post can only be a fantasy. But a desi blogger has achieved that with a one-word post!

Ony July 23, a Mumbai-based blogger called Dilip D'Souza wrote just one word, "Goodbye", and stopped blogging. Today, August 10, when I chanced upon his blog, I saw 130 comments for the post! The initial comments are of the type, "Hey, how can you do that? Please come back." But they soon spin out of control and erupt into a full-fledged debate -- on issues ranging from Gujarat riots to Kashmir! And the debate is still going on and the comment box has been completely taken over by the readers of that blog.

Must check out the spectacle -- it could be entertaining and -- who knows -- even informing. By the time I waded through to the 130th comment, I felt as if I was in a fish market or in the Lok Sabha. As for the blog, it has achieved what it could not when it was live -- somewhat like George Orwell.