rajeshvora’s blog

 

 

Those
days most of us just used to post blogs, read other peoples blogs and of course
the occasional gb followed too. (My use of words “those days” makes this sound
as if this was long long time ago.. and yes it of course is).

 

There was
a simple sign-in page with just a box for log-in and password.

That”s
it.

No
blog-o-mania.

No
watch@iLand.

No “what
all can you do on rediff iLand” and no search either.

Just a
plain sign-in page.

One had
to hop from iLand to iLand to find some blogs to one”s liking. Those days there
was no “tracker” to reveal your presence of your visit to any other iLand.

 

Dumbos
like me dint know how to create a “cool” URL so just used my own name as the
URL. Same goes for the display name too.

  

The one
mail that prompted me to make friends on iLand.

 
"

team@rediffiland.com

Subject:
Hi

Date:                            10:31:54 IST

 

I guess
the reply for my comment is from u only….

it is better wen u send mail put ur
name…..

if u dont
mind i wish to know sumthing more abt u….like wat u do…abt ur family…..(dont think y me bothering so
much) nothing wrong in knowing abt good frs right?

me working into ac/s and HR in blore…….married and got a 3 yrs old kid…..

c if i wont write my name u cant find …this mail is from whom…. right??? so
guess and reply me …

 

"

Those
days, if you used the "email me" link provided in the blog to mail someone, the
receiver wont know ur
mail id. The mail will go only as from 'team@rediffiland.com'.

This mail
put me in thinking mode. That out there in this world, there are all these
people, just like you and me. And that the world, esp. the internet, is not
such a bad place after all. That we all can share something. That I can say
something about me to my friends on iLand, knowing that behind the different
avatars that they adorn, there lies a person just as good as me.

I wrote a
blog giving a brief introduction about myself after that. Not revealing too
much (still unsure if I should be telling about myself at all.. ). To my
surprise, many of my friends followed suit and gave a brief introduction about
themselves on their blogs too.

Thank you
Myna.

But for
your mail, I would have been just another faceless creature in the sea of
iLands. Write I would. Comment I would. Everything I definitely would. But Faceless
nevertheless.

Apart
from the above, I remember two other mails that were exchanged with my friends
on iLand. I am not sure about the chronological order of all the three (including
the above mentioned one) but shall write in brief about them..

The
second was the one I wrote to Deepa. Once it so happened that instead of the
name, her email id got displayed on my list of friends. I promptly copied it
and mailed her saying how I got her id too. "By writing to me, you have
revealed your id to me too"- pat came a reply from her, in her own inimitable
style.  getting deep’s email id itself was like getting a treasure. we could not know of anyone else’s id, unless that person gave it. so when i got her email id, i was like feeling great, as if some sort of achievement… lols..

The third
was also a surprise. Vidya had posted a blog about here kayaking experience.
And the pic that she posted was not a great one. So I wrote my email address in
the comment box and asked her to send me the photos by mail and also asked her
to delete that comment immediately too. Ash K stumbled upon that id there and
wrote a mail to me saying how she got it etc. that was the first and probably
the last mail too from Ash. But we do talk once in a while.

For many
of you it may be just time pass or just another activity here on iLand.

But as
for me, I have learnt a lot from many of my friends.

Make that
an understatement to write it in one sentence.

 

 

A Trip Down Memory Lane  - An introduction and The initial days.

Well, its that time of the year, when I start taking stock ' not just at my shop but a
few other things as well. For eg. My blogging.

I could / might  have shared  some / many experiences with  few / many of you. But this time I am going to unload my memory fully here. Except for classified and personal information of my iLand friends, I am going to share with you my experiences on iLand and with iLanders. And of course it won't be possible to put down all that has happened
in 2 years of blogging into one single post. So again this is gonna be a series
(how many posts in this series, I am not sure at the moment) that will continue
till March. I shall indeed try to post a few other posts in between too.

(another reason for this series is this- I was recently reading this trek post of mine. I myself was amazed with it. I had forgotten a few incidences during that trek. If I hadn't put up this blog, I would not have remembered it.)

Last year I had posted a blog on how I came to rediff iLand and how I started my blogging
and a bit of my initial days here. To read that blog click here. So I am not repeating that story here again.

Rediff iLand was launched around October / November 2005. I had started blogging here
in March 2006. Amit, Monu, Deepa, Nischal, Vishal, Vidhya, Myna, Isha etc. were
already entrenched into this blogging thing and had laid a firm foundation. I
was a novice at that time ' novice to iLand and novice to the internet too. But
the love for reading kept me hooked on iLand. This blog summarizes perfectly
about my Blogging Philosophy to continue blogging. 

Another thing that held me back on iLand was that I got a bit of admiration and praise.
Someone sometimes here and there (and me too) noticed two things mainly ' the
humour part of me and a bit of creativity too. (I guess I should be in the
advertisement sector . Lols). In real life I have always been chided for
anything and everything that I have done. A lazy guy like me actually deserves
that no doubt.

In those early days Two topics used to be everyone's favourite and you could almost find
everyone writing on those two topics. I am not saying that people shouldn't
write or that they were forwards or anything like that. But I used to get pretty bored reading about them all over the iLand space. And those two topics were ' Love and 'reason for our existence'. Lols

But I still religiously used to visit iLand everyday. Not just once but more than a
couple of times. And it was a great experience. You were actually reading
something what an ordinary person ' anyone like you or me was writing. You were
not reading something pushed down your throat by some media moghul. And that
people either used to share something good. Some (including myself) would be
posting email forwards too. But then it was not a case of just posting a darned
forward. You found something nice either to emulate or tickle your senses so
you thought of sharing. So the sense of sharing and belonging also was there.

To be continued

(I wont be in town for the next 10 days friends. so you wont find me scratching your gbs or littering your comment boxes with my no-brainers. But trust me to invade your iLands once I am back in town. Lols.)