Keys to Blog success (Read on, it might help you..)

So....I get on, eagerly anticipating about a 100 comments and a 100 hits in the last 3-4 days, thanks to my last post which could have so easily made it to the editorial page of The Sunday Times along with the likes of Jug Suraiya, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Shobha De and company. Oophhh, such modesty!

After officially entering the blog world, there are a few doubts which I am harboring:

1. How much more time before someone other than me actually comes and takes a look at this master piece, I'm sure you will agree it is.

2. Why is my blog so bursting with activity?

and lastly, which is the most important one..
Till when can I use sarcasm as a pretext for making entries in my blog?

Actually, I learnt this one from Sania Mirza, who has been in the professional tennis circuit since 2003. But even after 3 whole years in professional tennis she continues to give interviews claiming there shouldnt be any expectations from her using her "inexperience" as a pretext to just stay up there and do nothing. Oh pleaseee, till when are you going to continue with this "I am new, I am here to play my game and enjoy" crap. No one likes to lose, and I'm sure she doesn't either, but I am afraid, there is no use constantly using your "inexperience" as an excuse to failure. At the end of the day, I feel she is not that good enough (I wish Sania can prove me wrong here), and is inconsistent. Anyways, I can only hope for the best for her, like all of us...optimistic as you like.

So, coming back to course, as i was saying, my blog is not exactly bursting with activity as of yet. So what do i do? Should i do a Kaavya Viswanathan, copy one part from your blog, another from somewhere else and get myself "known" in this blog world, which seems to be increasing at a rate which could easily bring shame to the population growth rates of India and China?

No, I dont think so. I can suck but I would rather be original at sucking...

So, What do i do?!? What do i do?!?

Questions, it seems get answered in strange ways. The other day, I was watching one of the 'news' channels "India TV", a channel which annoys me no limits, but still I find myself watching it, just to see how low can something/someone fall to increase the popularity (TRP) ratings. Strange as it is, I was shocked to actually see that the channel was actually showing news for once. Please excuse me, but I wish to share this moment with you. Ya, can you believe it, THIS IS INDIA TV ACTUALLY SHOWING NEWS FOR ONCE"



On the other hand this is what usually goes on:

Usually, whenever I switch to this channel, I find reports such as "INDIA TV KA SANSANEEKHEZ KHULASA" and nonsensical things like 5 or 6 or 10 year olds getting stuck in wells and all sorts of things.Fine, you can give a comment or two regarding his/her safety but is it so very necessary to divert a whole days news to it? Is this a national concern? No. If you are a news channel, stick to your job. Other times, you can find even more foolish things being telecast, which dont even need mention. Not just India TV, I find more and more news channels are reducing the actual news time in favour of irrelevant issues which certainly do not not need that much attention. Now most of the channels have sections diverted to all kinds of "sansaneekhez khulaase's" (God, i hate that word, really..) After watching these reports I tend to feel, is there anything even going right in this country which happens to be the seventh largest in the world. Surely it cannot be just about gruesome killings, nonsensical protests, moral policing the list is endless, just pop onto any news channel other than NDTV, one channel which I feel has stuck to news reporting and has done a great job.

I'm pretty sure that most people would agree with me when i say that the media really has gone out of control. But, why is it that even after sucking so much these channels (espescially India TV) continue to be 'successes'. Is it that easy to be a good channel in India? To have a few controversies here and there, which I dont think there ever will be shortage of (after watching all these reports i tend to feel that way) led by a news reporter gone bad (namely Rajat Sharma), no shortage of them either. So what is it that keeps these channels running? Well to begin with, it would help if I just look within. I, even after hating this so much, find myself spending 10/15 minutes of my valuable/invaluable time on India TV and its nonsensical reports. So no wonder they go on and on just like Rajat Sharma and his repetitive reports on how X killed Y, how A got angry with B's paintings and blasted his head off BLAH BLAH BLAH. Freaking pathetic.

But in all of this misery, do i find a way on how to somehow make my blog a hit?
Can you be a hit even if you suck? Maybe , I just need to sensationalize it somehow and adopt the Sania Mirza policy of continually undermining me and my abilities, as I keep rambling on in my blog. Add to that some India TV style "sansaneekhez khulaases" and who knows, VHP willing, my blog will find its way into the very best?

With this I wish to now end this rather large entry, hoping next time that I find myself at http://just-another-blog-in.blogspot.com/ , I see the 100 comments and 100 hits.

By the way, someone needs to tell me how to put a stat counter, I dont have any stats regarding how many people actually visited this blog, I was just assuming that it sucks, part of my Sania Mirza policy to guaranteed blog success! :))

Tony Takloo WTF!

After a lot of thought, I've finally decided that I will sign off by the name Tony Takloo. You might be baffled as to how some strange being called Tanmay Keshav (whos not a takla by any means) could possibly sign off as Tony Takloo. But wait, lets not be hasty here....

A little bit of Sherlocking (Thats a word!) got me to this page...
http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=12460406&tid=2480564020447991509&start=1
I found that Tanmay's all over India are nicknamed as tanu, taNNu, tanny, tommy (I cant get this one maybe that strange species also meowed or something), tan, tanz, tanya (how weird), tyson, tannyboy and lastly a Tony as well!

I have been called tanu, tanny, tan, tannyboy and tony at some point of life or the other. Tony being the most distinct one, I thought I'd adopt it as my nickname.

But wait, theres a reason which is much more important and is actually close to my heart. At school, friends would call me Tony, a name which I think I was pretty comfortable with. When I was all but 12, I had gone for my routine hair cut with my father. There as usual I saw the owner of the saloon (man, he was as fat as you), who on seeing me would cast one of the most wicked smiles I had ever seen. And to add to my woes, everytime I came to the saloon, after getting my hair cut he would add a 'cute' "aaj shaving bhee karvana hai kya?" (for the sake of all the da's here it is to be translated as "Do you want a shave as well today?"). Wow I know I'm 12 but for God sake! Don't question my virility!

But this time there was something more which that devil of a barber had done. As was customary I had demanded of a "normal style" haircut, but after 15 minutes of snapping and cutting what I saw left me disgusted. "You have cut it too short! ", I had shouted at the barber, to which he protested saying it was what he did every 2 weeks to my hair. I stormed out of the saloon to find my father, and when I finally found him I started crying, complaining about the hastiness of that damned barber. We went back to the saloon to hand over the money, I hurled a few more accusations at the barber, it only infuriated me more. I felt my palm over my head, Ouch! Seeing that my tears were not to be stopped, my dad had asked me if I would like some wafers, to which i had replied in the affirmative. "Papa, bring the Magic Masala one...and please bring 2", I had said to my dad. Wow, in retrospect I can safely say, that Magic Masala didnt stop my tears, instead I was sweating from all over.
Well anyways, the barber had cut my hair really short and it seemed to me that I was nearly bald! And so Tony Dada became Tony Takloo :((

Initially, I used to hate that postfix being added to Tony, but now I look back at those very memories with fondness, yes even that barber. It is these very feelings which came flooding back to me when I thought of "Tony Takloo" as a nickname for my blog.

So please bear with this name for the time being at least, even though I am not a Takloo by any means today!