About me – in 2024

Over the course of my blogging journey in the last two decades (yes, I began blogging in 2004, when hardly anybody knew what blogs were and before blogging became the most powerful tool of independent social media that it known for today) I have had the pleasure of associating myself with some wonderful bloggers and lovely friends, foremost among them being Sakshi (sakshinanda.com), Sid (iwrotethose.com) and Rekha (rekhadhyani.com), my ‘Core Team’ friends as I refer to them as.

Back in 2014, exactly a decade ago, when WordPress announced that they would publish an annual calendar of prompts for the year, a crazy idea popped into my head about this collaborative project where the team would attempt to post for all of the prompts in the year. Thus was born Project 365, and the first three bloggers I approached would then go on to become more than just fellow bloggers and Core Team members, they would go on to become dear friends over the course of the first few months of working together.

The best part about us was the fact that while we were all fiercely independent in our approach to blogging and writing in general, we were also open to each other’s ideas and opinions as well when it came to how to run the Project in general. We backed each other up without any ego hassles and covered each other’s backs as and when the occasion demanded it. Between the four of us, we handled the Project so well that we ended up enjoying the entire experience which then led on to bigger and better things for all of us.

2014 was year in which all four of us were in transitory phases; Sid was midway through his first manuscript, Rekha quit her 15 yr job in October, Sakshi was just about branching out in her book beta-reading and book-editing endeavors and I was just about starting off with serious book reviewing. This shared interest in literature and the written word ensured that we stayed friends even after the Project officially ended in Dec 2014. While Sid and Reks went on to complete their first book in 2015 and kept on writing more and more, Sakshi ended up developing quite a formidable beta-reading and book-editing venture from her home itself. And me, I ended up devouring more books than ever before and today average around 2-3 books a week in terms of reading them and publishing unbiased reviews on the blog.

Milestones came and went, but we stayed friends. Our children grew up, started reading books of their own, went to school, college and are contemplating post graduations today, but it gives all of us great pleasure and happiness to see that we have all passed on our love for the written word to the next generation as well.

This blog has been a constant companion of my thoughts, both book related and otherwise, over the last two decades and will continue to be so until I find it in me to put finger to keyboard and keep typing. Even when the fingers stop co-operating, I always have my faithful voice-to-document converter which will ensure that the blog stays alive as long as I have coherent thoughts in my head which I can convert to spoken words.

Here’s to a few more decades of this enduring love for words, and friends who love words.

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This post has been written for Project 365 : A post a day where the idea is to publish at least one post based on the prompts provided. Today’s prompt was to write an ‘About Me’ page for my blog 10 years from now.