Why Blog? My take on it

Its been a while that we have all been hearing that one should blog, express his/her personal opinions, views or thoughts in a public forum. Specially for people from open source or agile community, there is a lot of credibility that gets built around one through his/her blogs. I personally follow many blogs that get me thinking, Seth Godin's blog is one of those.

I took up blogging as my new year resolution of 2015 @ http://yashasree.blogspot.com. It's a personal blog, and I blog about everyday things in life. I have set myself a target of one blog per week i.e. to cross at least 50 blogs this year. This means that my Facebook friends would get at least those many notifications everyone I blog :)) as I shamelessly promote my blog on Facebook n twitter. It's going good so far, and I am loving it.

Here is my take on the benefits I reap out of it:

• It helps to put my thoughts together on a certain topic together when I write about it
• It's working like a diary for myself which would be a great thing to look at later point in time
• It defines my thinking, what's on my mind, so people close to me know me better
• It also gives me an online identity which is a must in today's world
• I get an opportunity to clear my thinking on certain topics important to me in my life
• It provides me another reason to re-look at various things in life
• It's an open platform, so I don't need many rounds of external reviews to publish the same
• I can flaunt it to my kids and suggest them to write
• It opens new topics to discuss when I meet people
• I get a satisfaction of creating something original when we are all in the business of forwarding what's app messages to everyone
  
  I still need to work on improving the search ability, attracting audience apart from my friends and relatives, but I hope I will get there some day.
  
  My secret ambition is to author a weekly column for a newspaper some day in my life, hope this blogging helps me get there :)
  
  All in all it has been a happy and rewarding experience for me, looking forward to continue...

What's BMC digging for!

Scene 1 - I have left for airport early morning at 4:45 am, my car comes out of the lane and the exit is closed with yellow barricades, signs of men at work. The driver and I request the workers to make space for us to go through, they oblige

Scene 2 - I come home pretty late, ~11:45 pm in an auto, the whole road leading to my lane is now closed n getting dug up. Again after persuading, they make space for me to return home.

So many years in Mumbai, literally having spent quarter of my life time on road ( or railways) I have never understood how they manage to keep digging the roads all the time. 



One of my favorite advertisements when DNA newspaper was launched was this.

What is BMC digging for?
A) Coal B) Gold C) Oil D) It's a top secret

I fell in love with this advertisement and subscribed to the newspaper, reading it for 9 years now!

I think every Mumbaikar will relate to this question. The road near to my house has been dug umpteen number of times, telephone cables, electric work, water pipes, drainage, what and what not. It was first made as a tar road, then dug out completely to use paver blocks, now it's been remade into tar road again. I am sure roads serve as a means of livelihood for so many of them, the workers, contractors, and for sure corporators.



Things have been much better in recent years though, the tar road just outside my house has provided a great opportunity to all kids to learn bicycle, all vehicles to get a great parking space, all young adults to do bike racing late night.

Now till the time this main road gets tarred, we all along with shop keepers will learn to use our scarves or masks to avoid the dust, slow down while walking to ensure the piles n heaps of stones don't trick us down and hope that the road gets done soon.

We all carry on our lives as MMRDA reminds us to "Bear with us for a better tomorrow"!!

Oh Dear National Park, A poem for you

I have been a regular morning walker at the National Park, but missed going there for last few weeks. The other day I went to National Park after a long time, I realized how much I really missed it. 



Here is a poem that I wrote for my dear national park, hope you enjoy :)

Oh National Park, I walk in and realize
How much of you did I miss

The birds chirping sweetly, a music to please
The rustic air, that's  clearly a bliss

The Hot summer and the bright flame flowers
the fragrant air that the flowers kiss



Streams without water and Trees without leaves 
The hilltop and the sunrise, with the view one sees

Summer, rainy, or winter; Shine, color or foggy
Makeover of each season, Is what really appeals


I

Is this really Mumbai? The city that never sleeps
This golden silence, This breathtaking peace!



It surely has it's own charm, it's rustic beauties
Loved by me for this same wilderness, that it is...