50 Not Out

A few questions for you.

1. How many stars does the US flag have?
2. How many chapters are there in Genesis in the Old Testament?
3. Which is the smallest number that can be sum of 2 square numbers in 2 ways
4. How many names were listed in the first telephone book, (a 1-page list of subscribers), published by the New Haven District Telephone Company, New Haven, Connecticut, in February 21, 1878 ?
5. How many points do you earn if you hit the bull's eye in a game of darts?
6. Leaving this post that you are reading, how many posts have i written on this blog?

The answer to the above questions is 50.

With the last post, i turn 50 posts old. It has been a little less than 2 years since i started blogging on this blog. Before i used to blog on conflicting-anonymity which i deleted because i didn't like the name and because only 7 people knew i blogged on it! It really feels good to have completed 50 posts - something i never thought i would.

It all started as a curiosity to explore what then was a buzzword - 'blog'. I didn't, personally, know anyone who blogged. I found the media flooded with articles on 'blogs'. So, i thought of exploring blogs. It was in the winter of 2007 that i started the blog conflicting-anonymity. I don't really know why i named it 'conflicting-anonymity'. Perhaps, i thought i would write about conflicts. Perhaps, i thought people wanted to be anonymous on the web. Perhaps, i couldn't think of a better name. Perhaps, i didn't take it seriously.

But once i found how blogs work, i stopped writing. Then, this very interesting incident happened with me. And i thought i should write on it. This is when i started Mundane Journey - my second blog. When i started, i didn't know what i would write on. So, i thought of having a name which would be generic enough to cover all future posts. I decided on 'life' - as anything and everything is related to life - even movies like Ghajini are. But i couldn't get 'life' and those 'common' names. It was then i released that i am very late into it. Anyway, the name Mundane Journey struck me and was available. As you must have realized - i wasn't aware of the 'random-thoughts' series of blog-names.

A lot of people have asked me that thought your posts are pretty interesting and lively why do you have such a dull/depressing name. I tell them that the answer is precisely what you said. We keep complaining that life is pretty mundane and there is nothing much interesting. On the other hand, we have these amazing things happening around us - TV's being distributed, Rakhi getting engaged, the whole nation taking CAT, political turmoils, Slumdog winning Oscar, Delhi-6 not doing well despite being an amazing movie, etc. There are tons of happenings happening around us. And, still, we call life - mundane. So, the title was basically to say that what we call Mundane Journey is not necessarily Mundane.

So, there i am. 50 posts. A lot of comments - flattering and candid. But it hasn't been a rosy journey. Google doesn't seem to like me. My Adsense requests keep getting rejected. On the official forum no one has any clue why it got rejected. It went to such an extent the one of the coordinators said that Google's Adsense policy are random! Again, Google didn't bother to give me a page rank. My page rank just recently became 0 [It was N/A till then!]. Bing is worse. It has not even indexed me! [The above is true as of 10/27/09 21:00 pm IST]. I'll keep tweaking to make sure Google is satisfied.

It's been long since i wrote on my personal experiences. I had a lot of things to write about - mine moving to Bangalore, mine starting Vriddhi - our social initiative, some thefts, etc. But i thought there are too many 'i-had-Kopi-Luak-coffee-today' blogs. And i don't particularly find them interesting. So, i have stuck to general topics which a larger section of readers would be interested in - not just my mother. However, i thought on my completion of 50 posts, i should write my experience with Mundane Journey.

And hence the torturous article :)

Cheers