Here’s a thought…

Four years ago I started this blog to channel my energy in one direction. I needed to use my energy positively and I was introduced to blogging, so I thought why not? Year after year, amarllyis became my voice and I consciously started working on my writing. I tried to improve it and cater myself to a target audience. (Let’s face it every writer has a target audience.) However, I never knew what audience I was catering to. The only way I knew that I was catering to an audience were the sporadic emails, personal messages, SMSes and in-person conversations with people who came back to tell me that they read amarllyis and what they thought of it. My personal favourite are the emails/private FB messages that encounter an unsuspecting me to tell me that they’re glad I write. I always respond with: I am glad you read. Four years have passed away in such unexpected liaisons and in trying to build this blog from strength to strength. I could have never come so far without some people who have stood by me along the way. (I will thank them, but on the blogoversary post.) So, today I was thinking to myself about why I even write. For my audience, for me or for a purpose? I had no answer, but I recalled a time when this blog, for me, was myself. When it grew, I grew. When it learnt, I learnt. When it wept, I wept. When it was happy, I was happy. Or clearly, some will say it was the other way round. I find it hard to tell the difference

Sadly, that elemental feeling seldom visited me this year. I have largely written this year, to keep this space going because I know some people read it. It has been a tough year, and I would not have written as much as I did, if it wasn’t for everyone who reads. My courage has faltered, my confidence has dropped and my gait has been unsteady during the year. After much ruminating, I have come to realise that beyond a point, this blog became a place where I allowed people to go correcting grammar mistakes and have their opinion on the content. After a point, this blog became the place where people went to know ‘who’s this girl?’. Well, fair enough; but I want to be a little selfish here and take the real reason for writing back. In my element, I always wrote for myself and that is how I want this to become once more. Someone, very recently, told me something. Incidentally, that person also happens to be instrumental in helping me start this blog. They said that they don’t read my blog for Ghalib (referring to the posts I’ve written about Ghalib), but they read it for me and my thoughts. So, here’s to that thought!

And here’s to writing for myself. Again.