On the Occasion of the 14th Anniversary

I can hardly believe that this blog has completed 14 years. When I started it on March 5, 2012, I never imagined, even in my wildest dreams, that I would be writing and publishing regularly for this long. Yet here we are: at least one post every month for the past 14 years. That realization fills me with quiet pride and genuine surprise.

This is not self-praise or self-promotion. It is simply amazement at the journey itself.

The blog began as a space to express my thoughts on a wide range of topics, political, personal, and social. I wanted a platform where I could articulate ideas that often felt very different from those around me. Over time, something unexpected happened. Readers, from places I never anticipated, found value in what I wrote. My wife and children, along with many others, shared thoughtful feedback, encouragement, and perspectives of their own. Knowing that my words resonated with people, or helped them reflect and think more deeply, gave me the motivation to continue.

I want to be clear about one thing: I do not expect followers, nor would I want anyone to accept my views uncritically. Blind agreement is never the goal. Instead, I hope this blog helps readers engage with the complexities of the world around them and supports them in their own search for answers. If my writing encourages independent thinking, questioning, and reflection, then it has served its purpose.

To me, true success lies in fostering critical thinking, challenging assumptions, understanding nuance, and striving to make our surroundings just a little better than we found them. We need a kinder, more compassionate world for humanity to truly flourish. This blog is only a small step in that direction, but it is a step I am grateful to have taken.

Thank you to everyone who has read, reflected, commented, or simply spent time engaging with these words over the years. Your support and encouragement have meant more than you know.

Happy reading.

Eleventh anniversary

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the blog. Eleven years of sharing my reflections with my readers. When I started this endeavor eleven years ago I had no idea how long this would continue. I am not a professional writer and have no training in writing, but I have a lot to share. I always wondered why I got so many questions and why people around me could not provide satisfactory answers to most of my questions. This prompted me to find those answers on my own, and this is also one of the reasons why I thought my journey, views, and opinions were worth sharing. I never regretted even one post since I started writing this blog. Thanks to all my readers for their comments and encouragement. There are more than 550 published posts on this blog on various subjects and issues ranging from personal stories to political and social commentaries. 

In the past few years, I was pleasantly surprised to know that even the younger generation finds my blog posts interesting. I am a lifelong learner, and I have learned a lot from the younger generation, I am glad that I can offer some insights to them through my blog. 

This journey has been phenomenal so far and I am sure the excitement and fulfillment will continue. Thanks again and happy reading. 

Thank you for reading and for your continuous support. 

© Vinay Thakur,  Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com  

Why do I write?

Someone asked me a few years back, why do I write? I am not a professional writer and do not have a huge subscription base, still, I am writing this blog for more than 10 years. I understand that these questions are not out of any malicious intent, they are out of plain curiosity. People wonder, what I get by writing a blog or social media posts where I share my ideas and thoughts on various subjects ranging from personal stories, science, mental health, politics, and religion. I have a straightforward answer, I write for myself. I write because I enjoy the process, any outcome is a bonus. 

Sharing our thoughts and ideas with others may have a powerful impact on some that we may never know. When we share our experiences and stories with others with honesty and sincerity, we expose our vulnerability to them. This is a powerful experience. This can inspire them to embrace their own vulnerabilities or understand the meaning behind something they are feeling but do not know what it is. Vulnerability is a unique emotion. Many people are not comfortable with being vulnerable as they equate vulnerability with weakness. On the contrary, sharing our vulnerability is a brave act. However, it is also true that sharing anything on a public platform can also result in some backlash or trolling, but that is the risk we take in this process. I feel the rewards outweigh the risks in this case, at least for me. 

I do not write to get more readers, or for praise or criticism, these are the byproducts of the writing process, not its aim. For me writing a blog, my diary, or any social media post is an activity I enjoy and find very rewarding. I only write when I want to, there are neither any deadlines that I need to meet nor any projects I need to finish. I do not mean to say that writing with deadlines or for any specific project is bad or not honest writing, I want to highlight that writing can be done just for pleasure. Also, it can be therapeutic, writing down our thoughts and emotions can relieve stress and anxiety. I share my writing with others with the intention that it may help someone to cope with their journey as the writings by others helped me to do the same. I read many books, blogs, and social media posts. My readings have influenced me a lot, but I don't think most authors of those writings have any idea about this as I never had any chance to communicate with most of them. Similarly, I am sure there are some who read my post and find something useful in them, they may or may not be able to convey that to me but I am happy to think that this is a possibility. So, if you are someone who is debating whether to share your stories or not, and want someone to encourage you to take that leap, I hope my experience helps you to take that leap. Do share our stories, storytelling is a powerful tool, and let's use it to help each other. Happy storytelling.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com  

Nine years

Today is the ninth anniversary of this blog. I can't believe that nine years have passed since I started this amazing journey. I enjoyed every bit of it, sharing my views with readers and receiving their feedback has helped me to grow as a person and learn from others' experiences. I always encourage others to share their stories, we all have unique stories and if we share them others can benefit by reading and relating to them. If you are someone who is still debating about starting a blog or writing a social media post about your story, please do it, you will be surprised to find support from some of the most unexpected quarters. My own journey on this blog is full of amazing experiences. I do not write for the sake of writing, only when I feel that there is something worth sharing, then I write a post. Also, some life changes affect our availability and time management, but this is natural, and as life gets busy it teaches us how to prioritize our tasks to utilize our time more efficiently. 

Recently, I started to reread my old posts to see if I need to update any of them and write an updated version. Many times situations change, new information emerges and our views might change or get modified based on that new information. This is a natural progression and we must be flexible enough to accept that we were wrong or some better options have emerged for our consideration. We get bombarded with so much information almost every second, and thanks to ever-updating social media content, it's not easy to process it. The way social media is designed almost every update prompts us to react to it, and it's hard not to react. This means we are expressing ourselves each time we press like or share the post, photo, tweet, or whatever. The internet is flooded with human expressions, this unique overflow of expressions is a significant cultural phenomenon and we started witnessing some social, cultural, and political repercussions of it. 

Thanks a lot to all my readers, here as well as on various social media platforms like Facebook where this blog is shared. Your comments and feedback help me a lot, all comments and feedback are welcome, keep sharing them, and don't hesitate to share even if they are critical of my post. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, and yes, keep reading. Love you all and thank you all.

Eight years

On the 5th of this month was the eighth anniversary of this blog. Eight amazing years of learning and sharing through this amazing platform. The journey so far has been really rewarding for me and I value a lot what I learned in this process. The last four years were extremely busy, especially due to managing my law school studies and a full-time job. Like any journey, there are ups and downs in this journey, some mistakes made, and many lessons learned. There is no doubt that this is helping me to become a better human being and I thank all readers for their help in making this possible, especially the ones who share their views in the comments section, via emails, or on other social media platforms where I share the contents of the blog. The frequency of posts might go up depending on how much time I can devote to the blog once I finish law school.

Once again a big thank you to my all readers and please keep on sharing your views.

Six years!

It has been six years since I started writing this blog. I published my first post on 5th March 2012, and the blog has now more than 400 posts. The main aim of writing this blog is to share my thoughts and not to publish articles regularly. This journey started with the intention of sharing my views on various social, political, and personal issues while getting feedback from readers about their own views. It has been a very rewarding experience for me so far. I hope to continue it as long as possible, the frequency of posts might get reduced based on how busy I get with various other things in my life, but the blog will remain an active place to share ideas in the near future also. 

As I already mentioned, so far, this has been a really rewarding experience for me and I hope all blog readers also enjoyed reading the blog. Please feel free to share your thoughts, all of us need to express ourselves in whatever medium we feel comfortable with, this is how we educate each other and learn from each other.

Thanks for reading and encouraging me. I wish happy reading to all readers.

This amazing journey continues

Four years ago, my first post was published on this blog. I never imagined that I would continue writing regularly for so long, but with your support and encouragement I did manage to do that and here we are celebrating the fourth anniversary of this blog. This journey is one of the most joyful and rewarding experiences of my life. I want to thank all readers for making this experience so special. My special thanks to people who share their views by posting their comments, you all make this blog more meaningful. Please continue to share your views here or on whatever platform you feel appropriate as they all are important and valuable. I feel it is important for all of us to share our views so that various issues and problems get debated and discussed. Debates and discussions are important instruments of any democratic society that aspires to continuous progress. I guess we all agree that our world is still facing so many serious problems and only we can solve them by sharing our ideas. We all might propose radically different ways to solve some of these problems but unless we debate and discuss, we will never know which one is the best or most amicable way to tackle these issues. Please be vocal about your opinions and participate in discussions whenever possible. I agree that there is so much chaos on social media where many times discussion turns into some sort of street fight with a lot of mud-slinging and personal insults. It gets so bad that many times it is impossible to have any sensible discussion on those forums. We should not get discouraged by such a scenario, rather this is why we need to generate more forums where one can have sensible and rational discussions. We need to understand the difference between discussion and argument. Let's try to focus more on constructive discussions rather than verbal spats. There is nothing wrong with engaging in arguments as many times it can be fun and might help us to hone our argumentative skills but we should be also aware that rarely they contribute towards generating any meaningful outcome. 

I am sure readers must have noticed the reduced frequency of my posts during the last year or so. I did that purposely to avoid being repetitive and also as I got busy with some other things. I am passionate about certain issues but I understand that it will be very annoying if I keep on writing about those issues every week, that doesn't mean I will stop writing about them but I will try to do it in a way where I don't look very repetitive. I am also not interested in commenting about each and every sensational topic that is sensationalized beyond limits by various media houses. Many of these things don't deserve my attention and time. Nowadays every other day something sensational erupts from media houses all over the world. The battle for high TRPs and to attract maximum traffic on their websites has forced these many news organizations to present each and every piece of news in such a sensational way that even trivial incidents generate a hysterical public response. I think people need to relax a little and think rationally before reacting hysterically to such news items. Social media and various other online platforms have given us great opportunity and tremendous power to share our opinions, and we all need to make proper use of this opportunity. I am sure as people get acquainted with the merits and demerits of these discussions they will slowly become more mature and start using these platforms to their advantage. Once we pass through the transition phase and people learn how to use and not misuse these things then many of these side effects will wane away. Hopefully, these platforms will be more beneficial to our society, they may also help various governing bodies to feel the pulse of public opinion and act accordingly. This marvelous technological revolution has also allowed many writers to express their ideas freely without being dependent on any publisher to reach readers. I believe this has definitely helped to break the monopoly of those few gifted and powerful personalities who used to rule the opinion of the world as they only used to have access to very limited resources available back then like newspapers and book publishing houses to express their opinions. I think this is one of the biggest changes social media has brought in the field of opinion exchange. One can debate about the pros and cons of this changed ecosystem but this has definitely created a huge shift in the way public opinion is formed and used in today's world.

Please continue your support and encouragement, and also please continue to express your opinions. Let's debate and discuss. Let's try to fix what is wrong and try to preserve what is right. Let's ask questions and try to find answers. Let's learn to agree to disagree sometimes and let's also learn to respect everyone's right to express their opinions.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

The blog is now three years old

Wow, I can't believe that it is already three years since I started this amazing journey of sharing my thoughts with all of you. In the beginning, I didn't know what will be the path and how long will I manage to do this as I had no prior experience of writing. But there is no doubt this journey is a very rewarding and fulfilling experience for me. During this journey, encouragement and feedback from my readers helped me a lot to grow as a person. I wrote on many social, political, and personal issues, and I tried to cover almost each and every subject that felt relevant to me. A few old posts still keep on getting more comments and discussion is still going on some of those topics, especially topics related to Chanakya's controversial views about women and the issue of taboo associated with menstruation generated a lot of attention. I am glad that more and more people are becoming interested in these important topics and they are feeling confident in sharing their opinions about these issues. Most of the issues that we debate or discuss on this blog are quite complicated, many of them have been persistent in our societies for ages. We all know that there is no easy and quick solution for these things. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. It is not the task of any one individual to solve these problems or create awareness about these things, we all need to do this work collectively then only we can expect to see any change. Expressing our opinion or raising our objections whenever we see some unjustified bias or injustice is very important for all of us. The technological revolution of the 21st century has provided us with many easily available platforms to raise our voices and share our opinions, we all need to make good use of this opportunity to tackle major social, personal, or political issues.

This year the frequency of posts might reduce a little bit, because of many other important things that need my personal attention. I know that the blog anniversary is not that of a big deal, it is like any other day and I am not a person who believes in celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, but this journey is very unique and rewarding for me and that is why I want to acknowledge the support of all my readers on this occasion. I am sure that we all will continue to work towards solving many of these social problems to the best of our capacity. I am extremely thankful for all your comments, whether positive or negative all comments encouraged me to continue my blogging journey and I thank you all for that from the bottom of my heart. Please keep on sharing your opinions, and remember that speaking up and raising questions is very important. Happy reading and keep asking questions.

 Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Murders of free thinkers

I was shocked to read the horrible news about the murder of blogger Avijit Roy by a few Islamic fanatics in Bangladesh. Avijit was a writer and a blogger, what subjects he used to write or whether he was anti-Islamic or not is immaterial, the point here is he was killed for expressing his thoughts. This is another example of religious intolerance shown by fanatic groups. Such groups are present everywhere, they are part of every religion, culture, and country. In some places, they are more aggressive and active because of the political and social environment of that place and in some places, they are dormant as they don't have much support from the establishment and people, but the truth is that they are present everywhere. 

The Internet has given an open forum for many people like me to express our thoughts fearlessly. Avijit was one of many bloggers who used this forum every day to express their ideas and thoughts, without the internet it was difficult to share our thoughts so openly and with a large audience. One can disagree with these thoughts or argue against them but to physically harm a person is a sign of primitive and intolerant mindset. Such acts should not go unpunished otherwise we will see many Avijits getting killed on a regular basis. Asking questions is a basic right of any human in any civilized society. A society that doesn't encourage open questioning is not yet completely civilized according to me. Humans have differentiated ourselves from other animals on this planet not only because of our ability to imagine but also our ability to question things. Our ability to question is one of the major reasons for our continuous progress in every area. But this ability to question has come under attack many times, even today we suffer from intolerance. Religious intolerance is one of the major factors which results in such violent attacks and such murders are the result of such intolerance.

The recent murder of veteran communist leader Mr. Govind Pansare was another example of such intolerant attitude of some groups towards people who dare to speak against fanatics of any religion. It would be terribly wrong to assume that such fanatics are part of only selected religions, they are part of every culture and community. It is very difficult for many to understand that some people don't subscribe to any particular ideology, some people question everything, and they dare to take a stand and be very assertive about it without being aggressive. Such people believe in freedom of expression, what is wrong with it? Why such people are attacked regularly? I don't mind intellectual attacks or questions, but such physical threats and hostile social attitudes don't make things easy for such people. It is not easy for everyone to be fearless and express their thoughts when there is a danger of losing your life because of it. Very few are brave enough not to care about such threats and I really salute their courage and conviction. Dr. Dabholkar, Mr. Pansare, Mr. Roy, and others like them, they died while fighting for what they believed was right. They didn't hurt anyone physically and were fighting their ideological battles by using peaceful methods but people who don't believe in peace or dialogue murdered them. These cowards didn't like the courage of people like Dr. Dabholkar. These groups were scared of the power and conviction of these people and that's why they took the route of physical attacks. As they could not fight their ideas they resorted to cowardice acts of murder to eliminate such brave people.

Such cowardly acts are a blot on humanity no matter where they happen. Someone getting killed for expressing their thoughts shows the primitive level of thinking in that society. These things need to stop, we can not keep on saying every time that it is easy to kill a person but not easy to kill their thoughts. If these things keep on happening regularly, there will not be enough people to express such thoughts. But getting bullied by them is not an option. We all need to stand united against such barbaric acts then only such groups will be forced to abandon such ways. The only way to fight them is to keep on expressing our thoughts fearlessly on every forum. We have to stand united against such barbarism to eliminate it from our society.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Anti-Islamist US blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh
2. Kolhapur bids farewell to Pansare

On the occasion of second anniversary of the blog

Today is the second anniversary of the blog. Two years have passed since I started this amazing journey. I enjoyed every bit of it and I hope all readers also had a similar experience. I started writing this blog to share and express my views on various issues that affect our personal and social lives. I tried to share my opinion about various topics like women empowerment, discrimination, sexual abuse, politics, and religion. All these topics are linked with many social issues, and many problems that we face today are directly or indirectly linked with at least one of these. All these areas affect everyone's life either directly or indirectly, therefore we need to be aware of several issues related to these topics. We need to educate ourselves on various aspects of these topics and that is why I discuss them on my blog. Only through discussion, we can solve problems that our society is facing today. This blog has also taught me many things; one of them is I now appreciate and enjoy good articles and books even more, because I know personally how difficult it is to express your thoughts in a way that people can connect to it. I read a variety of books on various subjects. I read articles, and listen to many talks, discussions, and debates. I enjoy reading, it's been my hobby since I was a teenager. Amongst all the things around me, I can vouch that this hobby has resulted in tremendous changes in my personality and thinking. This blog also taught me the importance of expressing my own thoughts and concerns and sharing them with others. It also taught me the importance of debates and how to deal with hostile commentators who can go to any extent to criticize you personally just because you don't agree with their point of view.

Topics like women empowerment, discrimination in name of gender, religion, race, caste, sexual orientation, or any other thing, malpractices of organized religion or cult movements, and politics were some of the subjects that were mainly discussed on the blog so far. Politics was a new entrant last year as I feel it is a very important subject. Political parties that come into power affect our lives directly or indirectly, that's why I chose to discuss some political topics last year and will try to continue to do this in the future too. I also tried to update the blog very regularly by posting at least six to eight posts every month not as a rule but to keep a steady flow so that readers have something interesting and thought-provoking to read every time they visit the blog. The journey for me has been eventful in its own way. There were some intense arguments about some topics, and some heated debates too, but they all taught me something, they all taught me how difficult the struggle to bring any change is and how difficult it is to change age-old systems and beliefs. The battle against the system whose ill effects have become traditions and many people are so used to them that they endorse it in the name of tradition. It is not going to be easy to change these things in a short time. It is very tough to challenge these discriminatory traditions or even get rid of superstitions. One is always going to get abused or criticized by some section of society for doing this. Any activist or reformer who tries to do so goes through this phase. I expected many of these comments. I am not trying to claim here that I am any activist or reformer. I am just a simple person trying to do his bit to make our society a better place, but it was definitely very interesting to see to what extent some brainwashed people can go to defend discriminatory practices.

The blog will continue as always. I want to sincerely thank all readers for their time and especially to all those, who took efforts to share their opinions and concerns with their comments. Your comments are very important and they contributed something to my knowledge, thanks again for that. I also received a lot of encouragement from many readers whom I also want to thank from the bottom of my heart for their kind words. Sharing and discussing each other's ideas is a very important aspect of a liberal, civilized, and progressive society. Tolerance towards each other's views and the ability to discuss any disagreements in a civilized manner is very important and this blog is a small effort towards that direction, I welcome all disagreement and criticism, these things help me to grow and perform better, so please keep reading and sharing your views. Together we can make this world a better place for all.

Thanks for reading.

Links:
Some popular posts on the blog,
1. Chanakya and his views about women
2. Does Religion Divide or Unite People?
3. Worshiping while Menstruating- What's wrong with it?
4. Where was God when I was raped and murdered?

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

* Thanks to Mr. Chandrashekhar Vairale for suggesting corrections.

The effect of social media on us

Today the presence of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) is felt by everyone in our lives. No sector or section of society has managed to remain unaffected by them. The revolution in communication technology in the last few years and the spread of mobile phones to the remotest corners of the world have made these things accessible to a vast number of people. Social media has changed the way people communicate with each other, it has modified the ways we interact with each other, and for the first time in history, we have written or recorded data for conversations of common people. All those tweets, FB posts, blog posts, comments, or chats are written records of our conversations with each other which never happened before in the history of our civilization. For the first time in our history, we are talking to each other so much by writing rather than speaking. In the past also people used to write long letters but the percentage of literacy was not that high in many places around the world and this mode of communication was limited for special reasons and occasions, but now we mostly chat with each other by recording our conversations in some form (SMS, FB, Twitter, Orkut or whatever). This is really unique, today we have the power to communicate anytime with anyone, anywhere in the world who has access to an internet-connected device. Anything we communicate today is recorded somewhere, stored somewhere, there is proof of what we express whether we know it or not doesn't matter, it's stored somewhere. We are generating a tremendous amount of data every day, that information is enormous and the speed with which we share our thoughts with each other is also phenomenal. One tweet, a blog post, or an FB post can reach millions all over the world in just a few seconds. This was not possible in the pre-social media era even in the presence of TV or radio. TV and radio also revolutionized our lives but that was mainly in the area of entertainment and news, but social media took the level of our communication with each other to a completely different level. We now live in a virtually well-connected world.

Politicians, celebrities, and even common people like you and me are using social media to communicate our thoughts to our friends and to people who don't know personally. We can share our thoughts more easily now, and many serious discussions can be done without meeting each other personally. Some political parties or organizations who ridiculed these things in the beginning as some temporary internet craze and didn't take these things seriously are also trying really hard to make their presence felt in this virtual world. Establishments and big corporates are using this medium as an efficient tool to attract new customers. Social media websites (like Facebook) are highly valued (worth a few billion USD) this is just because number of users associated with them. Nowadays many debates discussions and business transactions take place online, where actual debaters or buyers and sellers don't interact with each other directly or don't even know each other, but things work out smoothly. This is an amazing transformation of our society. Just a few decades back these things were considered impossible or can be seen only in fiction movies or books, but now it's reality and we all are living it, we all are part of it.

Social media and the internet have given us a parallel virtual world, which is very different from our real world. This virtual world is a place where two strangers can interact with each other at various levels of intimacy. Where relationships can be formed or broken, bonds can be developed, and almost every emotion can be shared privately or publicly, such is the power of this medium. Technically, one can spend their entire life interacting with people they will never know or will never see in their entire life personally. This was only possible in dreams or for very few people (like popular writers or actors who respond to fan mails) but now anyone can do this. This is a tremendous change that is already having a huge impact (positive as well as negative) on our personal and social lives. There are some similarities between the virtual and real world, like in a real-world in the virtual world also there are predators as well as saviors, people can transform each other lives positively or negatively, and they can torture and abuse. The only difference is that in the virtual world, they can do this anonymously without coming into physical contact with the victim, and this is the most dangerous aspect of this medium.

This technology has given us the ability to expand our horizons. We can be in touch with people who are physically far away from us, we can chat with them, and see them in real time. At the same time, some people indulge in this too much, they are so absorbed in this virtual world that they don't even realize that they are neglecting their real world, sometimes families suffer, and relationships break because of this. This medium is so powerful that's why its effects are also very powerful. It can even assist in creating mass movements against ruthless or corrupt establishments, and it can spread rumors faster than ever before. These are a few of the reasons why many governments are worried and concerned about the power of this medium and some of them are even thinking of censoring or controlling these things (like Facebook and Twitter). I guess they think if they can control this medium effectively they can have better control over their citizens, such is the impact of this medium.

This medium has also given us a unique platform and opportunity to create or invent new things. It was never easy to become a writer, storyteller, or inventor before as it is now. Now we have this very powerful tool in our hands and we are free to use it in whatever way we want. The choice is entirely ours, we can use it either to connect with friends and relatives, spread awareness, spread love, freedom, a message of equality, fight discrimination, or spread hate, fanaticism, inequality, and polarize society. The choice is all ours, the medium will work in a way we make it to work, so let's use it to bring positive change.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Thank you for reading

Exactly one year ago (5th March 2012) I posted my first post on my blog. It's hard to believe that one year has already passed since I started writing this blog. This journey so far has been quite an enjoyable and fulfilling experience for me. When I started this blog, I didn't know how long I would continue writing. I never knew what topics I would discuss. I only knew that I wanted to share my views on various topics with others and was interested to know others' views also and wanted to have a healthy dialogue. The blog survived for one year and it is still going strong. Today is the first anniversary of my blog and I want to celebrate it with all my readers, critiques, and well-wishers because you all are the people who helped me to come this far.

First of all, I want to thank all my readers for their time and encouragement. Readers from all over the world visit my blog and I am really thankful to all of them. I also want to express my gratitude to all my friends and family members who encouraged me to write and instilled the confidence in me that was required to start this adventure. Without their support and encouragement, this blog would not have come into existence. We all discuss various topics with our friends and family members and express our concerns and opinions on almost all issues but rarely do we think that we should share it with a wider audience. Previously it was difficult to share as mediums like blogs or social media like Facebook were not available but now it has become really easy to share our thoughts with others and this is the major reason we see so many blogs by so many people who want to share their ideas and opinions. I was also inspired by this phenomenon and was thinking of starting my own blog sometime at the beginning of last year but was hesitant to start for a few reasons. First of all, English is not my first language and I was wondering if the topics that interest me or trouble me will also interest or appeal to others or not. But my friends especially Vishnu encouraged me to write and this blog was started. I don't worry anymore about my English because I know that there are many people like me who speak and write very simple English which is not written or spoken in conventional literary style but it serves the purpose. The main intention here is to share thoughts with others and language is only a medium and I am sure that my language is pretty simple and clear to understand.

To my great surprise blog was mentioned in one of the very popular Marathi daily newspapers Loksatta (लोकसत्ता) in a section "वाचावे नेटके (Wachave Netake)" which can be translated as "something good to read," and the author said very good things about the blog. He said that language is simple to understand, topics are socially relevant and thoughts are presented in a very clear and non-provocative manure. I was not aware of this article and came across it very accidentally and it was a pleasant surprise for me. Along with this praise, the blog received some criticism as well, I found it was mentioned as an "anti-Hindu" blog on some Yahoo group's message board. That message has been deleted from this group for some reason after I wrote a post about this rare honor some time back. Some readers also criticized some of my opinions and I tried to answer all their concerns and doubts to the best of my abilities. All these discussions and debates are there to read for everybody in the comments section of the blog. Some of them are very interesting, maybe more interesting than the post itself and I recommend readers interested in those topics to go through them if they have enough time to spare because some of them are really lengthy.

I share my blog posts on some other platforms like the Speaking Tree section of Times of India and on my Facebook page where I get to interact with many other blog writers and readers who don't visit this blog. Blog writing and interacting with my readers on various platforms has been a very rewarding and satisfying experience for me. I enjoyed it a lot and I hope that readers of my blog also enjoyed it. I wish to continue this journey as long as I enjoy it. I learned a lot and hope that people reading my views also got something useful from my blog posts. Many of the issues that I discuss on my blog are very serious and complicated. I know that it will take more than just a blog post to deal with them but this is an attempt from my side to initiate a thought process in people's minds and I hope it will generate some interest and awareness about these issues. Even if few people get inspired to do something different and good I think the purpose of writing this blog is served.

Thanks for reading and please keep on reading and sharing your thoughts.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

Reference:
1. Loksatta link
2. My blog at Speaking tree
3. Some of my old posts on Speaking Tree
4. Two most popular posts from blog: Chanakya and his views about women;
                                                          Does Religion Divide or Unite People?