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.

Celebrating 13 Years of Thoughtful Conversations

Today marks the 13th anniversary of this blog. It is truly incredible to think that for 13 uninterrupted years, this platform has been a space for sharing thoughts, initiating discussions, and engaging in meaningful dialogue. Over the years, I have written more than 600 posts on various topics, and the love and admiration from readers have been overwhelming. I am deeply humbled by the support and encouragement that I have received from all of you.

When I started this blog, my goal was simple: to share my thoughts and spark conversations. Looking back, I feel that this blog has achieved that purpose. Through these discussions, I have engaged with friends, readers, and even my family members on topics that matter. Not everyone agrees with me, but that is precisely the beauty of open dialogue. The goal of discussion is not always to convince others of your views but to understand theirs—their thoughts, ideas, and the origins of their perspectives.

By understanding one another, we can appreciate our similarities and work on our differences. In today’s polarized world, open and candid discussions are more important than ever. Conversations, rather than conflicts, help to diffuse tensions and guide us toward collective progress. We must recognize that our shared humanity is far more significant than our divisions, and through understanding, we can work towards a common good rather than seeking enemies to blame for our problems.

Thank you for being a part of this journey, for engaging, sharing, and supporting this blog over the years. Here’s to many more years of thoughtful discussions and mutual understanding. Happy reading, and thank you for your unwavering love and support!

*Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

25 years of togetherness

Today is the 25th anniversary of our marriage. Reena and I got married on 31st May 1998. These 25 years of togetherness have been full of love, excitement, and many other things. I could not have asked for a better companion than Reena for this journey. This journey took us to places that none of us imagined we will go and threw a myriad of challenges that we faced together. She has not only been a committed wife, but also a friend, a critic, and a cheerleader for me. I don't know if we are made for each other, but definitely, we made each other.  

Just to be clear, it was not a fairy tale like they show in movies or we read in books. Ours was not love at first sight or any other love story where we have to struggle and fight with the system or with our families to get married. Ours was an arranged marriage. Even though it could be categorized as an arranged marriage, it was missing some essential ingredients of a typical arranged marriage. Reena's parents and my parents belonged to the same state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), hence my parents wanted to find a bride from UP even after knowing that none of their kids belonged to UP and share any social and cultural aspects of that state. So, I and Reena did not speak the same language, did not grow up in the same cultural and social settings, and did not share the same values. Normally, in a typical arranged marriage bride and groom share these common socio-cultural aspects, but we didn't. As expected, our start was not as smooth as anyone could have expected due to all these differences. Ours was not love at first sight, but it was love after many sights. But once the love entered it never left or got less, rather, it grew year by year and we are now in our 25th year of togetherness.

We tested and challenged each other on many fronts, before realizing that we really complement each other and then the ride together has been a journey full of excitement and joy. Of course, there were challenges and there will be more to come, but we know for sure that we have each other to face them. The key to our togetherness was transparency and trust. We are so different than each other that we cannot live together without this trust and transparency. We are very different, even after 25 years, each one of us has parts of our lives where the other is not required, and we respect that. We know our differences and don't try to change each other. Husband and wife are not a single entity, they are two different individuals who agree and decide to live together, there is no need for one to dissolve in another to make this relationship a success. This is a simple philosophy that we follow and it has been working great so far. I hope people who want to be in a relationship realize the importance of protecting each other's individuality and personal space. If you don't respect these things about your partner, you don't respect that person, and without respect, there is no love. Marriages can survive without love, marriage is just a legal contract nothing more without love and respect. But if you want marriage to be something more than a legal contract, something more than a way to have a display for society, there needs to be mutual respect, trust, and transparency, I am glad that we managed to achieve that. Most marriages come with patriarchal conditioning where the husband has an upper hand and ours was no different. It took a lot of work from both of us to negate this burden and create our own dynamics that had no precedence in our family or culture, but I am glad that we did that and never followed the status quo. I thank Reena for accepting this challenge and making this work, I know it was not easy for her, but she not only accepted the challenge but added new dimensions to it. The journey continues and I am looking forward to our next phase with equal excitement and awe.   

Happy anniversary Reena, and thank you for allowing me to be me.

Thank you for reading and please share your story of togetherness with others, it may inspire more such stories. 

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

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  

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.

Seven years!

Today is the seventh anniversary of the blog. Seven amazing years of learning and sharing through this unique platform. The journey so far has been really rewarding for me and I value a lot what I learned in this process. Like any journey, there are ups and downs in this journey also, some mistakes are made, and many lessons are 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. 

The frequency of posts has reduced, but that's a natural consequence of many other things going on side by side. I don't intend to increase the frequency of posts but do plan to continue to write once in a while as new ideas come to my mind or if I find something worth sharing on this platform. Once again a big thank you to my all readers and please keep on sharing your views.

Five years!

Today is the fifth anniversary of my blog. The last five years of my journey with this blog have been an amazing experience for me. I wish to thank all blog readers for their encouragement and appreciation, your feedback and shared experiences made this blog more special. Last year I wrote 40 posts, which was almost half compared to the previous year. It was not because I didn't want to write, but I got busy with my studies and there was not much time to spend on writing the blog. This trend might continue for some time. It is not easy to manage full-time work, part-time studies, and family responsibilities together. I am trying to strike that sweet balance and at the same time enjoying this phase a lot. It is stressful and demanding but at the same time very good learning experience. The main reason I can do this is because I always enjoyed learning about new subjects and new areas. This adds new perspectives to my life and improves my knowledge. It is difficult to balance so many things at the same time but at the same time, it is a very exciting and rewarding experience. I do plan to continue writing blog posts on relevant topics as time permits.

A lot is happening around us socially and politically. We need to continuously register our opinions about things that we care about, the values we hold dear to our hearts, and protest against any injustice. Many times it's not easy, it feels like our one voice won't make any difference, but remember that many revolutions started with that one voice that dared to resist. Anyone of us can be that one voice that can initiate the change, we just need to have that courage and commitment. My blog is one small step in that direction, the aim is not just to share my views, but also to start a healthy discussion, germinate a seed of independent thinking in the readers' minds, and hope that it will create a novel stream of thoughts which might help to initiate the change for better tomorrow. This effort will definitely continue from my side. At this junction, when I pause and look back on my efforts to initiate that change, I feel quite good about it and want to thank the readers of the blog once again for encouraging me to continue this amazing journey. I am deeply honored by your support and encouragement. I always try my best to answer your questions and will continue doing so. I am glad to read that many of you have got something useful from this blog and I hope you continue to benefit by reading this blog in the future also.

This journey will continue from my side, I invite all of you also to share your opinions and voice your concerns on whatever platforms you can. Let's try to make this world a better place, full of more love, more compassion, more tolerance, and more people who value the liberty and freedom of others.

Thank you very much for your cooperation and happy reading.

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.

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.

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?