A little over a year back, I started a blog. This blog, to be precise and on 2 June 2011 My Favourite Things celebrated its first blogoversary. 🙂
Looking back, it’s actually surprising that I started blogging. You see, I didn’t have too high an opinion of blogs—I found many of them narcissistic, self-obsessed, and opinionated. But what irritated me the most was bad language and a complete disregard for spellings and punctuation. My dislike for blogs was so great that I got into a rather heated and completely unnecessary exchange with a close friend about blogging and bloggers. The poor guy had just started a blog and I jumped down his throat with a “Not you too!”, and said many things better not shared here. Once again, I’m sorry, Aniruddha.
My Favourite Things is actually my third blog, and currently the only active one. My earlier two attempts at blogging (you can read them here and here), were done under duress. Both were assignments as part of my postgraduate coursework, which I would have failed if I did not complete those blog assignments. I didn’t take to blogging happily. I grumbled and pouted and researched and cursed and wrote and rewrote and edited and re-edited and published blog post after blog post for the assignments. But something changed during those 3–4 months of assignment blogging. I discovered that I enjoyed writing, and what’s more, I could write too ! The grades and feedback that I received for the blog assignments only confirmed what I felt.
After completing my postgraduate course, I rejoined work and eased into my routine soon. But I felt I was missing something. Something important. It took me about 6 months to figure out that I was missing writing, and more specifically blogging. Yes, I know, I can be quite slow sometimes. That’s when I knew that I had to start blogging again.
Once I had decided on a completely unoriginal name for this blog, I registered it on WordPress and on 2 June 2010, published my first post on the Bandra Fort. Thus, My Favourite Things, a.k.a. https://thatandthisinmumbai.wordpress.com/ was born. My initial plan was only to write about my travels. But my blog had a mind of its own and along the way developed its own multi-faceted personality. Today, it is less of a travel blog and more of a mix of travel and a personal blog.
My 1-year blogging journey has revealed many things:
- I found travel writing tedious. I struggled over each post that was tagged with ‘travel’ in this blog. Ironically, it was a travel post that won me my first (and so far only) contest—the Indiblogger Cleartrip “My Purpose” Contest. Go figure !
- I found that I couldn’t write film reviews to save my life and after 3 rather embarrassing (non) reviews (you can read them here, here and here if you wish to risk it), quietly gave up the idea of reviewing films.
- Because my attempts at reviewing films were such a disaster, I thought I couldn’t and shouldn’t do book reviews either. Big mistake. When I wrote about a book for a Blog Adda contest, I found that I loved writing about books, and I did it fairly well, if I may say so myself. And voilà, that’s how book reviews found their way into my blog.
- I discovered that it was the more serious stuff (you can read two of them here and here) that I loved to write. And those were the kind of posts that I wanted to avoid writing about when I started this blog !
- When I said in my post titled “Should the Kohinoor diamond be returned to India?”, that this was an emotional issue for Indians. I didn’t realise just how much. This is the third most popular post in my blog and rarely a day goes by without at least one hit for this post through a series of permutations and combinations of keywords—kohinoor, koh-i-noor, koh i noor, kohinoor diamond, british crown jewels, koh e noor, where is the kohinoor diamond at present, kohinoor diamond of india, kohinoor diamond in london, india kohinoor, diaries for the kohinoor, koh-i- noor, koor-i-noor, the koh-i-noor, koh i noor diamond, kohinoor diamond tower of london, kohi-noor, uk crown jewels diamonds. Phew !
- People who are interested in knowing about the favourite things of Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor or Hrithik Roshan also land up on my site. All thanks to the title of this blog and these actors appearing in my 3 film (non) reviews. But what I can’t understand is why would anyone be interested in knowing about the favourite things of these stars?
- My wordiest blog post is on Elephanta Caves at a whopping 2,792 words, and the one with the least number of words is the one on the Zero Meridian with a measly 47 words.
- The most viewed posts are the ones on Homai Vyarawala and on my family history, and the least viewed is the Wimbledon post (I hope this will change with The Championships just around the corner)
The last one year of blogging has been a year of self-discovery—that I could write and more importantly the fact that I enjoyed writing. Though I began rather tentatively, the range and depth of my blog posts increased as my confidence levels increased. A special thanks to my friend Deepa, who posted very nice comments on my blog, but would actually give me an honest critique in private. I owe a lot to her for the way some of my posts turned out, in particular “Is silence always golden?”, a blog post very close to my heart.
One thing, however, did not change—my opinion about the general quality of blogs, nor my irritation levels with spellings and punctuation. What has changed is the way I approach such blogs—I just don’t read them and move on to the ones that interest me. In this process, I have discovered some wonderful blogs and bloggers along the way, and got discovered too when I received the “Versatile Blogger Award” from two fellow bloggers—Raksha Bhat of A Canary’s Diary, and Deboshree from Saddi Dilli. Thank you so much, Raksha and Deboshree. 🙂
1 year, 99 posts, 70,338 words, 351 photographs, 11,647 page views, 737 comments and 1,101 spam comments… and counting. Yes, it has been a wonderful year of blogging.
And you, dear reader, are invited to participate in my first blogoversary. How? By commenting and giving suggestions on how to take “My Favourite Things” forward. I do have ideas, of course, but I would love to hear what you have to say too. 😀
The Blogging Journey… Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 | Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 |
My Favourite Things 
Firstly a hearty round of congratulations for completing a whole year of blogging. 😀 Reading through the origins and experiences, I can see just why the year has been so memorable.
I like all sections of stories that I read here – reviews, travelogues, photographs the works. On my part I hope this place continues being the way it is, giving readers some fantastic reading and viewing. 😀
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Thank you, thank you so much, Deboshree, for commenting regularly and for your suggestions.
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Congratulations for completing a year of blogging. You have a wonderful blog and I am looking forward to more posts.Keep blogging! Congrats once again ! 🙂
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Thank you so much, Abhi. 😀
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I do like your blog and its content. The one I liked best was “The lonely drinking water fountain”. I am looking forward to more such writing from you in the next year. Congratulations on completing one year of blogging.
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Thank you so much Merry. “The lonely drinking water fountain” is actually a rare (for me at least) inspired post, and a post that could not be written any other way. I still await for more such inspirations to come.
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That was the post which first brought me to you blog. A splendid piece!
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Just a suggestion – I think I liked your blog better in its former theme. This one, for some reason, looks half-done. I always feel as though there is something missing here (Maybe more colour?). Also, it is a little difficult to pick out the older posts I want to see.
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I was actually thinking about the same thing. I just might decide to go back to my earlier theme.
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happy blogversary!!
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Thank you, Magiceye
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Congrats madam. Its wonderful to be consistent in writing blog for a year. I have done this for two years and I am very happy to see a blogger writing regularly.
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Thanks for stopping by and giving me your wishes, Abhilash. Writing regularly is sometimes quite a challenging task and I hope that I can maintain this momentum. 🙂
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Congrats!! 🙂 You have a lovely blog! 🙂
Keep writing!
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Thabk you so much for stopping by and commenting, Lavender. I do hope that you will keep visiting. I just hopped over to have a peek at your blog, and I’ll be back soon for a more detailed read. 🙂
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Congrats for completing one great year, hoping you celebrate many more:)
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Thank you so much for your wishes, Arti.
PS: I read your posts on Benares as I am planning a trip there sometime in October, and they were of great help.
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Congratulations Sudha! Must say I love the way you write. Pssst- i hope i wasnt one of the bloggers you overlooked- that wld break my heart;-<
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Thanks for stopping by and wishing me, Sandy. And no, thanks to your comment I discovered your blog. Just had a quick look, and saving it up for a leisurely read later. 🙂
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Congratulations.
And you do have a great blog. Honestly speaking, my blog is older than your’s and is less popular; so I am a teeny meeny bit jealous. :p
Do keep writing as I would love to keep returning to your blog. 🙂
Take care.
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Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting, Jo. I amgetting quite overwhelmed with the comments. Thank you once again.
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Wow! What a post to make a mark on Blogging! Congrats! 🙂
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Thank you so much Vinesh, for stopping by and commenting. I really appreciate it. 🙂
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Hearty congratulations on completing one year ! 🙂
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Thank you so much, Arving. I really appreciate your stopping by and commenting.
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First, Congratulations on your anniversary.
I am just 2 months into blogging and I am finding it difficult to keep it up. But you have got a wide canvas “all favorite things”. I am trying to stick to just humor. let’s see.
My suggestion:
Why don’t you form a theme like book review on mondays,
photos on fridays.
maybe, now that you are getting good traffic some contest for readers would be a good idea too.
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Thanks for the suggestions, Sairam.
It is very difficult to keep posting regularly, particularly when you have a full time job. Which is the reason I do have posts or themes fixed around days—though I try to post on Mondays and Thursdays. What I try to do is to alternate long posts with short posts, so that I don’t feel too pressured. But maybe, I could turn my skywalk series into Saturday Skywalk, since all of them are done on a Saturday. 🙂
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Hey ! first time on your blog via IndiBlogger so gonna scout around and check out some of the other links you’ve shared in this post.
Congrats on your 1 year Blogversary 🙂 Its my 3rd year blogging now and I’ve crossed the 350 post mark 🙂
Just keep blogging about whatever catches your fancy – there is no right or wrong way of blogging .. Enjoy 🙂
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Wow ! 350 posts? Double Wow. Right now, I think I am hitting blogger’s block, so such numbers are giving me a headache. 😉 Thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time o comment. 😀
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happy blogging more years ma’am 🙂
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Thank you so much, Rachit, for your wishes and taking stopping by and commenting.
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Congratulations! I could relate to the way you started off blogging and the sudden discovery that you could write. I still have a few more months to complete my 1st and I’m already planning on how to make it special 🙂
Hope there are many more Blogoversaries to come. Cheers!
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Thank you, Ashish. Waiting to see you you make your blogoversary special.
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Congratulations Sudha ji! It is really wonderful to complete an year with these much posts and comments too…this certainly tells how worthy your blog is… 🙂
P.S.: Ran spell-check to avoid any mistakes…I know you won’t recommend it 😉
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Thanks a lot, Punit, for your wishes.
PS: If you read any of my posts, you would know that I too have spelling mistakes, which I correct whenever I notice the errors. 🙂
PPs: I hate spell-checks 😉
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Couldn’t agree more that over time the purpose and theme of a blog changes so much! Mine started as a poetry journal, and now its a decor and craft chronicle, that’s where I’ve found my blog-calling 🙂 and loving the whole experience!
You’ve an interesting blog, full of interesting thoughts, opinions! Keep writing, and see you around!
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Welcome to my blog, Ambika. I think your blog calling is perfect and I love it. I don’t think I have found mine yet. Maybe it will always remain a little bit of that and a little bit of this. 🙂
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It has been an amazing journey of knowing you and i have come to realize that to know you is to love you, Sudha. I feel privileged to have been a little part of your process of self- discovery. What a repertoire of topics you have chosen to write on. Like an artist with a wide array of styles, you have written on myriad themes with equal passion. I love the variety and the fact that none of your posts are predictable, and that you express with a clarity and childlike wonderment at people, places, events and goings-on. I particularly love the restraint you manage to exercise while expostulating on topics that melt the reader…I have many favorites but the One Post that made me sit up and take notice was Meenakshi’s Lamp..
All the best and may you keep us regaled and also win many many more prizes in the days to come.
Love and Congratulations..
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I will surely come back For more.
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