I will not repeat here what I have already written in the blog’s sidebar (see ‘400 Volts Jolt’) but suffice to say that facing the imminent danger of having years of my work vanish overnight, on the night of 16 October 2009 I began to copy all the material from a certain website (which remains damned, literally and in the fullest literary sense).
As I did this, another writer who openly criticised the exploitive policies of western governments saw his work wiped off the same website’s archives. The website had hit back without a warning—much as I expected it would—where it hurt that writer most but it failed to injure me because I pressed the ejection button at the correct time. I also stopped contributing at the same website in order to concentrate on getting my own blog up and running.
It took me two full weeks to copy all my work and within a few days I learnt all I could about blogging. With conviction in what I wrote and a decent following to further encourage me, the timing was perfect for jettisoning the used first stage and propelling all efforts beyond cyberspace’s blogosphere.
On 02 February 2010, after a few months of beta testing, I announced my blog to the public. 8,900 hits later and having spent one year in the blogosphere, my work lives on the blog, categorized under the following three headings:
1. Chowk articles (things I had written since September 2000)
2. Chowk blogs
3. Blogs you’ll only find HERE
The last category caters to original material not published elsewhere on the internet.
The first blog came out on 04 February 2010 and whose title was a twist on Oscar Wilde’s famous quote ("That awful thing, a woman's memory!”): That Wonderful Thing
Right after announcing the blog I headed for FaceBook which undoubtedly helped attract more readers, many of whom I found interested in reading text more than a line long.
Even today the pessimists ask, “So, what exactly have you achieved with your dark socio-political satire?”
Do I need to prove through statistics what I have achieved? Must I look at people’s faces for a reward? The pessimists do not bore me; it is the naive optimists who provide me with satirical thoughts. Only if a certain intelligence agency, whose motto it has unfortunately become, does not interfere globally with the whole truth, ‘the truth shall set you free’.
It feels great to maintain a mailing list through which I am able to inform keen readers about new articles on my blog. The old layout and colour scheme recently received a complete makeover; the blog now has RSS (‘really simple syndication’ through which one can know, via the browser, whenever new material gets added) and Google chat too.
‘Writer’s Block’ is a terrible disease that seems to afflict almost every literary person at least once in a lifetime but perhaps by the word block, I do not mean stop or hinder but rather a chopping board of ideas. The blog is a record of my time, of thoughts turned into digital ones and zeros. They may not outlive the Egyptian hieroglyphics in terms of longevity but they will live until the globalists decide to end our freedom of speech picnic in cyberspace.
So how does it feel after having done it for a whole year? Wonderful is one word that comes to my mind. My blog has also very kindly been listed under the esteemed category of Webblogs/Think Tank at http://www.mazhar.dk/
I wish to sincerely thank all my readers and helpful friends who still visit my blog to comment on issues, and suggest changes in a well-behaved manner. I hope that you will continue to enjoy what I love writing about in this space.
Peace.
And now for the awards:
Most Visited And Commented Upon blog: Noah's Flood And The 9/11 Eid
Top Referring URL: http://www.mazhar.dk/
Top Referring Website: Facebook
Windows Users: 93%, Mac Users: 3%
Country That Most Reads My Blog is: USA (Pakistan is 2nd, England 3rd and India 4th)
Most Interesting Keyword Search: “what does TGH mean”
6 comments:
Congrats Tahir sb!!!
May Your words get more n more response. You write truth and that is the beauty.
Thanks Tayyaba, I'd forgotten what you looked like! Anyway, you look healthy and happy. Thanks for the kind wishes; just spread the word around.
The tortoise not only wins the race, it can out live almost all its peers. Congratulations and God speed.
Wish you success all the way
I don't know where my own comment about the tortoise and the hare vanished! Thanks again for the encouragement.
I like satire articles! good read
Thanks Tariq. Which Tariq are you?
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