To Blog or Not To Blog !

Just the other day, I came across a piece in The Hindu supplement NXG about ubiquitous blogs. The article went on to talk about a book titled The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen. In the book, he says there are more than 53 million blogs on the Net, and the number doubles every six months ! If this trend continues (I am not sure why it should not), he says there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010 ! He goes on to say that we are blogging with "monkey-like shamelessness about our private lives, our sex lives, our dream lives, and our lack of lives." His point is mediocrity thrives in cyberspace. Though I think he has a point there, I think it is one's own prerogative to blog or not. Blogs are just tools, it is up to you to exercise it properly. Personally I have gained quite a few friends from blogging and I am not to going to stop blogging too soon. Just like there are people who meticulously jot down their thoughts in their diaries, today's generation makes use of tools like blogs, Facebook, Orkut for communication and networking.

BlogWatch

Today NDTV 24x7 featured blogger Mayank Austen Soofi in their breakfast news with the news that he could be the youngest India to be featured in Pakistani textbooks aimed at 11th standard students. This piqued by interest and I did research on him on net and came across his blogs and also a write-up on him in The Hindustan Times (July24, 2008). Let me reproduce it below:

He has broken new ground on the blogosphere. Twenty-eight-year-old journalist-blogger Mayank Austen Soofi, 28, could become the youngest Indian to be published in a Pakistani textbook.

Soofi’s blog Pakistan Paindabad aims to shatter stereotyped Indian perceptions about its neighbour. “People treat Pakistan as a country of terrorist camps, but there are swanky cafes, pretty girls, galleries, writers… a very Khan Market crowd. I wanted people to see that it’s as normal as India,” he says.

Samuel Ray, editor, Oxford University Press, Pakistan, recently wrote to Soofi showing interest in using material from his blog for an English textbook for class XI students. “It’s great. Nothing’s finalised yet, but if I’m published it will be a slap to all those people who think Pakistani publishing is all about India haters,” says Soofi.

The excerpts being sought are from a series called ‘Five Best Things About Pakistan’, wherein Soofi got writers, activists and common people from Pakistan or of Pakistani origin to pick their top five.

On his first visit to Pakistan in 2006 for the World Social Forum, Soofi fell in love with the country. His travelogue on Heera Mandi, Lahore’s red light district, has garnered interested from Sanjay Leela Bhansali. “But he doesn’t want me to talk about it yet,” he shrugs.

The assistant editor with Hindustan Times has five blogs that he updates regularly. And if you are wondering how the nomenclature came about, he is officially Mayank Singh but his passion for Jane Austen and Sufism made him denounce a sectarian identity.

It is indeed heartening to know that he is doing his bit towards friendship with our neighbor. We , Indians, should realize that not all Pakistanis are terrorists hellbent on destroying us. An average Pakistani is as much peace loving as we Indians are.