The Return Of Ganga Mail

It doesn't seem so long ago -- though it is: almost eight years -- when every evening, after getting back from work, I would ask myself: So what do I blog about tonight?

Invariably an idea would strike, and I would set about expanding on it laboriously. For company I would have music and whisky -- and always the gentle glow of the yellow lamp.

I would rarely finish before three in the morning, but go to sleep a happy man. What can be more gratifying than being able to publish your own writing -- instantly, uncensored, unedited. When I woke up six or seven hours later, I would open the blog the first thing and check for comments. Even if there were a couple of them, my day would be made. They made me feel accepted.

Those were happier days. I had dreams, but no responsibilities. I had ambitions to be a writer, but no commitments to deliver manuscripts on time. I was single, carefree. My mother was alive; I lived in the protective shade of my parents -- and since they lived far away in Kanpur, it also meant a lot of freedom.

Blogging gave a new dimension to that freedom by letting me have my say -- on a range of subjects I felt strongly about -- without my worrying about how many people would read me or what they would think of me. The whole process of transferring your thoughts onto the computer screen, in an engaging manner, was highly gratifying. The comments were an icing on the cake.

I distinctly remember one night: there was no power at home when I got back from work, but I still wrote a lengthy post, finding my way around the keyboard with the help of the light generated by the laptop screen. Those days, the modem would work even during powercuts, so I was able to publish the post too. I could have waited till the next evening, but I had urgently wanted to say something. What was it that I had to say so urgently, I don't recall; all I can say for sure is that the urgency was self-imposed.

Tonight I miss the old me, the reason being that someone, of late, has been reading my old posts and leaving comments on them. Since comments get notified on email, I happened to click open some of the old posts and was surprised, rather horrified, that it was me who wrote them -- how could I write on subjects such as sex? But I had always written the truth, or what I thought was the truth -- then why should I blush reading the old posts?

Maybe because I am much older now; I was 35 and single when I started the blog, whereas I am 42 now and the author of two books -- what will people think of me? Moreover, there is now Facebook: one no longer feels compelled to transform a one-line thought into a 400-word post. The thought becomes status message.

But let me not forget that I belong to Ganga Mail as much it belongs it me, and that I owe my identity to whatever I have written on it so far. The idea, therefore, is to resume writing on it without worrying about what people will have to say. I really don't give a fuck -- so why pretend that I do?