A year as a blogger. 15th June 2014 - 14th June 2015.

A year as a blogger.

On 15^th June 2014, being inspired by my friends particularly Dr Subrat Mishra and by repeated reminders from my two sons that facebook is not the right place to write long articles I started my blog. My younger son created this for me.

I am happy that it failed to complete a half century of articles only by four stories. This included almost fifty percent as short stories equally divided in English and Odia. The other fifty percent mixes up memoirs as Annyatha Mulyaheena (otherwise worthless), some essays, a year review, a travelogue, two film reviews like PK and India`s daughter and on some issues .

I never claim me as a good writer but now feel comfort to identify me as a bilingual writer. This is my gain in the year which I was hesitant to call me before. Anybody speaking is not an orator, any one writing a story is not a story teller. I felt I am able to narrate a story which is all about me as I pen.

My poet son Sayam Suraj rightly says, “Papa your vocabulary is limited, your grammar is too erroneous but still you manage to express yourself complete with readable narrative though sometimes it becomes a little lacking in clarity. If you can be a bit more careful to edit then it will be far better.” 

An expert in English language a friend Mr Ashok Moharana says that I progress in a good manner to finish it in a hurry as if I have to attend my patient.

Amazingly true both of the above two critics are.

Yes my language skill is really rudimentary and my time constrain is so much that the essay, ‘Walky Talky’ was written as I was walking and that is not the only of its kind.

I  am trying to work on both these issues in next five years to be a real good writer.

Why then I should write now?

I believe swimming can never be learnt without jumping to water. A passionate writer can never stop himself writing anything by differing it. The third and most important thing is that if an illiterate old man or woman can so beautifully entertain the grandchildren with range of stories why not a literate man lacking fine language skill cannot do it?

So I cannot and need not stop writing.

Does anyone read it?

Of course people are reading. I got more than 3700 readers in last year, which means every day I am connected to 10 people. I am not a Chetan Bhagat that I know and ten is enough to do a discussion. This makes my average reader per post is 75. I am quite happy with that. My story “Fall of Sunajhari “ is already read by 200 readers. Is it not good for an unknown writer?

It is my observation that UK people except my friend Dr Surajit Sinha never read me. May be the English language of mine is not acceptable to them. After India most of my readers are from USA. That is again understandable as many friends are there. It gives a lot of pleasure to see some of my readers are from Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, and some other countries where no known person is staying. Through this article I want to thank these unknown friends as well as my known friends. One more observation is that my profile is viewed by more than 10000 viewers and I do not know why this is more than page views.

I am not shy to share my small pleasure with my esteemed readers that compelled me to write this.

Finally I want to tell what this 14^th and 15^th of June means to an Odia in the eastern state of India. The summer ends on 14^th June in Odisha on the last day of the month of JESTHA (the eldest month ) as the monsoon clouds with breezing showers reach the land on this day or next day which is the first day of month of ASHADHA . With this the rainy season starts the earth prepares it for the next crop. We celebrate it with a grand festival called Raja that means gain of fertility of a lady and here the lady is none other than mother earth to be fertile with monsoon. Dramatic event, as the maximum temperature suddenly drops from more than 45 degree Celsius to about 30 degree Celsius within a single day even.

Wish everyone who knows RAJA a very happy festival and the farmers of my land a very good monsoon with rich harvest. Thank you all my readers.

(Dedicate this post to the two bloggers of Bangladesh and one social media activist of UP who were killed for their pen.)