This is my first blog. I write this from Doha, Qatar.
For some time, my wife, who has been a big fan of various culinary blogging posts, has been pestering me to start my own blog post. She believes that I do write well and so I should do this.
I am not someone who reads blogs a lot or loves reading at all. I doze off the very moment I pick up a book in my hand. As as kid, I never read any and since I grew up I haven't read many. It was with much effort and hardship that I managed to finish reading through one of my first books, which was Arundhati Roy's 'The God Of Small Things'. Although it is, and remains one of the most engrossing books written so far, it took me a year to conquer its pages. But I love reading short stories and yes, I love writing them too. So I thought, why not give in to her suggestion and write my own blog.
I have been carrying along a perennially lethargic body which loves it best, while in an inert state. So you know, deciding itself was a big ‘big’ task accomplished. Immediately after I decided to have my own blog post, instead of putting the idea on my task list, I fished it off and stored it in the darkest and coolest corner of my freezer (that's my brain).
It has been two weeks now, since my only wife, Tara along with our two boys left for their two month long vacation to the God's Own Country and over one month since my fatal decision. Today, during one of my usual chats with her on skype, in her usual style (read bossy) she followed up by enquiring about the blog post that I promised to start. For a moment, I shuddered with fear as my otherwise dim mind expeditiously transported me to this imaginary Performance Review Meeting, where I visualised a Venetian style office with my Lady Boss sitting across an elaborately decorated rosewood desk spinning her gold Sheaffer fountain pen on her fingers, stopping it just to point at me and remind me that I have missed out on my key KPI points, and that I have failed miserably in performing my duties as a husband. But my Boss, who is a kind Boss, granted me that one last chance which could save my job. That only chance was to start the blog today. Now that I got a new lease of life, I promised to do it and, then rushed off to Al Osra Restaurant. Whether I survive tomorrow or not, I had got my today and I had to celebrate it, which I did by devouring a sumptuous dish of my favourite Chicken Biryani.
I was so content with having the Biryani that I came back and straight away hit the bed, so much that I even forgot that I had to attend an online management training session at 18:00hrs today. I woke up around 19:05hrs and logged into my classroom, just to find a screen with a feedback form. I filled in the feedback form. Since I did not attend the class, the trainer got 'very good' ratings for all the aspects. I logged out of my classroom and got into sync for the main business of the day.
I said to myself "With five hours remaining for the day, you have no choice, you just have to do it" and got on with the process. All I knew was that I had to start a blog and keep writing it. That's all. I do not follow blog posts, so I really didn't know what people like me could write in it. So, two questions popped up in my mind. First, what should I write about? And second, where should I write it? A few weeks back, my closest friend Jee, suggested about having a blog site, where a select group of friends could contribute by writing in about certain select topics. For a moment, I thought I'd just cheat her by writing a few lines of cheap Urdu poetry in English text on Jee's proposed blog site and confirm to her that I have contractually accomplished the feat. I just thought about this idea and had just given out my sly grin, when I felt sharp thwacks of baton lashing my bum. I jumped off my seat and turned back, and there were my two boys, both dressed up in police uniforms, pointing their batons on my face. I got the message and decided to write something genuine. I searched google.com, read through the wiki on blogging and finally visited blogger.com. I quickly signed in and lunged on to the easiest task of fixing the layouts and working on the cosmetics. Now, with three hours remaining, I was still not sure of what to write. I asked some questions to myself and these were the answers that I got:
- Should it be a cookery blog? / NO, because that would become a 'How not to cook blog'.
- Should it be a fitness blog? / NO, because I hardly exercise. I burn my calories mostly in bed sleeping, and its related performing activities.
- Should it be a travel blog? / NO, because I hardly travel. There is nothing I could write about Qatar, and what could I write about that one trip to India that I make every year.
- Should it be a drinks blog? / Could be. But NO. I drink, but not a connoisseur in that.
- Should it be a parenting blog? / NO, because I don't think my boys will approve of my calibre to do that.
So, what should it be? And the answer I got was "Let it be about me" and so the name 'This is my life'. Well, there isn’t anything narcistic about this idea. I know I am not a celebrity and it just happens that I am not skilfully endowed enough to write about anything else. I am just under pure pressure to fulfil my commitment. And while I do so, it is the pure ill luck of my friends that I will write all the bullshit and they'll have to follow (read swallow), albeit I know that most of them will do it not with the intention of 'being there on that blog', but purely because they love me.
So, this is my life and I welcome everyone to be part of it. By the way, I myself don’t read blogs, so I don’t give a damn if people follow me or not. But yes, it is a good means to keep a check of ‘what’s happening to this guy?’. And I guess that’s exactly what’s on Tara’s mind.
And if you are thinking “What can I find on this blog?”, just keep reading and find it out. This is my life.
