Repent in leisure

*Warning: this is a totally unapologetic post about Missus Em and her year where she crows, grumbles, gloats and wallows in her blog. You may leave now.*

At the end of the calendar year, if I look back, the leitmotif has been blogging. I discovered blogs, decided to blog and learnt how to go about it; and have been blogging compulsively.

When I started blogging, I was ignorant about the control key and uses thereof. I wrote, saved, tinkered, refined and published, all online. So when a kind friend taught me the 'ctrl A, ctrl C and ctrl V' method, I was overjoyed. I could actually write out, edit and tinker with my post without getting online. So thrilled was I that I posted twice in a day, just revelling in using newly learnt tricks.

They warn you about marrying in haste, but not about posting on the spur of the moment.

I wrote a post, conceived in the shower one Sunday, out of pique about classified advertisements in the weekend newspapers. It took me some half an hour to write, while luxuriating in the fact that I didn't have to get online to do it.

So, I wrote a post. It has been bringing visitors to my blog ever since. My site tracker tells me that Google searches for massage in Kolkata, sexy massage in Kolkata, unisex massage parlours in Kolkata, sandwich massage in Kolkata, the best body massage parlour in Kolkata, all lead to my blog.

It is depressing.

I do get visitors who are searching for the meaning of Neha, who are looking for the best way to make an omelette, who are trying to find out more about the quote' love all trust a few', or looking for 'I never saw a poem as lovely as a tree', who are researching the Zarapkar System of Cutting, who are looking for sensuous poems, who are looking for factorial tutorials, who are looking for Lalita Sahasranamam or 'young lalita porn' and more.

But this search for massage parlours in Kolkata yields me the most number of unique visitors and I despair that they probably never come back for more. It was a post written in haste, in pique and a burst of irritation. Now I repent in leisure.

Blogging reconnected me to people I lost touch with. Blogging made it possible for my son to acquire a Tatkal passport. Blogging helped me help Anantha when he was looking for an apartment. When an old friend needed to get in touch and Googled with the search words 'kalyan mukherjea telephone number', he was led to my blog and we met up and had a wonderful evening together again.

So blogging has been the leitmotif of the year. But it has had its share of the bizarre. I receive mails from readers, those who don't want to comment on the blog but have something to say about some of my posts. I cherish such mails.

This wasn't the first time a reader who came across my rant about the classifieds wrote to me, nor the first time expressed interest in 'making friendship'; though I much prefer mails that sympathise or add their own pet peeves to my list, I enjoy getting mails as a blogger at all. But this mail I received a few days ago has set me thinking.

hi. this is mayank , 33, executive with dsp, durgapur. want to have quality time wid u. what all services u give n charges. pl let me know. also ye age etc

My first impulse on reading it was to offer lessons on how to write a first missive to a stranger, and further services about punctuation, grammar and spelling. Then I wondered about how much I could charge for a lesson. And then it struck me that Missus Em has another career option, that of a part-time call girl.

A Happy New Year to you all, folks.

Cheers!