The tenth blogiversary sneaked in unnoticed while I was otherwise occupied, and left, probably in a huff. Sigh. It is not everyday that one turns ten and the lack of excitement on my part must really have chafed.  And yet, what could I have done under the circumstance? With the sons home together, that too after more than a year, and for the briefest of holidays, how could I have found time to celebrate the reaching of the tenth milestone? Hmm…  Looks like the only recourse open to me now is to make a belated go at it.

‘Twas ten years back that I wrote my very first blog at the now extinct Yahoo 360. At the time, Shail’s Nest was still two years into the future. When the Nest was eventually born, the same post written back at Yahoo, was carefully dusted, polished and presented as a brand new one at second place, titled, A Sketch.

Come to think of it, ten years is quite a long time and the question naturally arises, has blogging changed your life and if so, how? Believe me, it has. It changed a nondescript homemaker and turned her into someone. Not SOMEONE or SomeOne, not even Someone, but merely someone. You might well ask, how did she, this homemaker, me (all one and the same), know that she had turned into this ‘someone’? Good question. The reactions from those around has been a fairly good indicator. There’s been equal amounts of cheer, admiration, applause, disbelief, and what-the-fu*k-do-you-know-about-anything thrown her way.

The post-blogging version of Shail is different from the pre-blogging one who tentatively let her fingers try out tap dancing on the keyboard. Of course, it is not a whole brand new version, because she still has a lot of the old stuff running too deep in her, but a version that has a lot of new elements introduced and incorporated with the original. Is it good or bad, all this mixing of the old and the new, only time shall reveal.

Another question that raises its head is, how long shall this torture of unsuspecting readers go on shall blogging continue? This far and no more, is a fav motto of mine. It shall be no different with blogging. Much to my chagrin, I have found that there is an expiry date to everything in life. I am damned if I am going to have the expiry date thrust on unsuspecting me in this case. So, I have set the date myself. The clock ticks. How far or near is a secret I am loathe to part with. All in good time, my dears.

So, let the fingers waltz, kathak, bharatnatyam, mohiniattam, bump and grind, bollywood, bhangra, drobushki, flamenco, samba, para para, mazurka, jig, gidha… Naaah, none of them. I’ll stick to the tried and tested, the tap dance. So let the fingers (mine) tap dance till such time as the clock stops ticking.

Happy Tenth to Me.

©Shail Mohan 2016