Why do you blog?

“Why do you write blogs”, asked a friend while driving on way to what I can call a long drive after quite a while. Had it come from someone who would have been ignorant of the pleasures of academics and writing, I would have avoided it as another off-the-cuff query. But knowing the fact that she herself is an addictive blogger and admittedly a competing writer, if not a better one and works with a leading media house was worth reading between the lines. It was not a normal query and I could read something in her sparkling and even more inquisitive eyes.

To the extent of my understanding of human behaviour, often being judgmental through the prism of Freudian psychology, the query was borne more out of an ideological and professional dilemma. Hence I felt the issue had the merit worth a serious introspection. It was all the more so since it seemed to me as if she herself is looking to find an answer. Writers, good bad or indifferent, are often the captive of their own make belief world where self doubt rules supreme.

I have always maintained that a counter question can not be an answer to a question, something that I often tell her too. And hence I had no liberty of choice but to resist the temptation of asking the same question back to her. Blogging, of course, is not as unusual today as it has been a couple of years back. Of late, the new tool in the form of Linkedin has also been flooding my mail box with all sorts of ideas on blog. This query, however, has not been on the innovative and often stupid ideas as to how the blog can be an effective tool in increasing business and how to increase the traffic on the blog. Another school of thought suggesting how blogging can add to your business too did not figure in my scheme of things.

Thus, there has been a simple query yet it led me to introspect as to why I spend so much time on blogging. Is it the pleasure of leisure that drives me to write blog? Or is it the absence of creative avenue to express that I find a solace in blogging? Well, in my case both the options were ruled out. While the process of establishing a communication consultancy company keeps me on my toes, I have also been doing freelance writing quite a bit. Added to this my advocacy and activism on various media outlets and associations are keeping me over occupied.

What instantly I could think of as an obvious reason that drives any blogger to waste his creative energy is his passion to raise issues and voice concerns. I suppose blog is the ideal platform to raise issues as per your own taste and wish. It is not something which is bound by the editorial policy or editors’ wish list. I believe the blogosphere is ideal for advocacy journalism since there is “no time, length or editorial constraints" and information is immediately available to everyone. “Hmmm…”, the friend agreed and wished “as if we all could have got such an ideal platform in the mainstream journalism where you make a living out of writing your heart out”.

We finally reached to a road side food joint for lunch, but a simple innocuous question forced into some serious introspection. The very purpose of life at one point in time that drove me into journalism, advocacy and activism, had taken the back seat over a period of time. It seems to have resurfaced yet again and hence this debate was the genesis of my initiative for such a media vehicle www.indianewsstreet.com, where we can practice journalism for analysis, advocacy and activism. TRACK2MEDIA is coming out with the dream project very soon, and till then it is blog blog….. and then, of course, this habit forming exercise too will continue.