The Good in Me, The Good in You

I am thrilled that my 100th post of the current calendar year is again a tag post. When I started blogging I thought that the genius of my writing would shine through like a beacon and draw readers to my blog like moths to a flame! The idea that the light of my genius did not cause my blog to shine like a star and people can be dazzled only when they came into my blog dawned on me much later.

The question was ‘How do people even know that your blog exists leave alone know how you write?” Blogging Communities were certainly a big help but networking, it seemed to me, was the only way I could inform people that I too inhabit this sphere. Of the many means of networking, tagging is one way of being introduced to readers and of introducing good bloggers to readers.

I am blessed by the fact that I have found enough affection from fellow-bloggers, who have been kind enough to tag me repeatedly. Since I have been tagged in my early days of blogging, my own memories of scrounging for readers (and I am still scrounging!) is too fresh in my mind for me to let go of the opportunity of doing my bit for other bloggers by way of tagging them. This once I am trying to limit myself to bloggers whom I have not already tagged as well as bloggers who are not already familiar to the known readers of my blog.

As usual I am getting ahead of myself. I have been tagged this time by a very popular blogger – and one of the few with whom I have met and interacted – The Fool. It is a privilege to be tagged by him and he has also been kind enough to write in praise of my posts – and coming from a reviewer of note it means a lot. What I do not understand is that he claims that I need no introduction! To maybe a handful of readers that is true but the vast majority would probably react ‘Suresh, who?” It is nice to be considered popular but it would be far nicer to actually be popular and I would not want the former to come in the way of the latter!!

To get back to the subject under discussion, let me first mention the rules of this tag.

1.      You are tagged.

2.      You give links to posts that belong to each of the following categories

1)      Your most beautiful post.

2)      Your most popular post

3)      Your most helpful post

4)      Your most controversial post

5)      A post whose success surprised you

6)      A post that you thought did not get the attention it deserved

7)      A post which you are most proud of

3.      You select five bloggers for passing on the tag and inform them about their being tagged.

My most beautiful Post: I am not too sure if beauty is a word that will ever spring into anyone’s mind upon reading any of my posts. If, however, I may extend that term to mean ‘emotionally touching’ and if I may assume that a post qualifies based on the nature of the comments, I would say that ‘The Gates of Hell’ would qualify under this category.

My most popular post: I have no means of assessing popularity except by pageviews or comments. Bar one post, ‘Yesterdays and Tomorrows’ qualifies as the most-viewed post and, certainly, has invoked the most comments of all my posts.

My most helpful post: I normally write either humor pieces or short stories and thus, except as entertainment, my posts cannot qualify as helpful. I have written quite a few pieces on Philosophy, however, which may be considered helpful. The one post that is most materially helpful is, possibly, “The Arithmetic of Retirement”.

My most controversial post: I am normally non-controversial and like to be so. The one time I deliberately wrote what I thought of was a controversial post was “On Criticism on Blogs”. That, surprisingly, did not cause any controversy with any disinterested reader. “My Guest post for Alka Narula, Again” on the long-standing 'Ram’s treatment of Sita' issue did give rise to a lot of argument, if not controversy.

A Post whose success surprised you: I think of all my posts as just what the world should be rushing in to see and read first thing in the morning and, thus, obviously I am the last person to be surprised when any of my posts succeed! (So much for my reputation for modesty!!) “Eviction”, however, surprised me when it gained 200+ page views in a day – and without any spam comments to explain the upsurge. If you consider the fact that – up to then – not a single post had got 200 Page-views in toto you can understand why I was surprised and continue to be so.

A post that I thought that did not get the attention it deserved: I am modest – as everyone will tell you – and, thus, I do not expect more than a quarter of the English-literate population to read each of my posts. Going by those ‘modest’ standards no post has truly got the attention that I think it deserved!! Even by the standards achieved by my latter-day posts none of my earlier posts have been paid any attention.

For me, however, ‘Marketing Battles’ is a 8-part post that deserved more attention. It is a fun tale to read in my opinion. It can also be read as a relatively painless introduction to the basic concepts of Marketing Management. At another level it is also a parody of a world that advertising can bring into being. With all this it has largely been an ignored series – whether because of the length or because the values I see in the post are only a mirage, I do not know!

A post I am most proud of: Mmm! For this I have to select the one that I found difficult to write and managed to do very satisfactorily. The Fool had challenged me to write an Indianised version of the movie Wild Hogs - which I have still not seen - and I managed to write ‘Desi Wild Hogs’ and, in my opinion, did a very decent job of a humorous story.

Now for the bloggers I wish to tag.

Abhyudaya : I have been a fan of his cartoons for some time now.

Bhushavali : The amount of traveling this young woman has crammed into her life is astonishing.

Ash : I like her humor posts though she is articulate about social issues as well.

IndianSatire : He runs a nice line in funny horror-scopes.

Kappu : Writes fiction and day-to-day happenings with equal versatility.

I do hope that each of them actually continues the tagging and bring more bloggers into the purview of their respective readers.