Spice up your blog.

A few days ago I had posted on some tools that could be used to communicate with 'visitors' to one's blog. One of the things suggested was rating of posts, without having to go through the bother of commenting. Two blogs where I've seen a rating tool being used are:
Priablog and
Deepa's - Some Template Tips and Tricks - This blog has a most comprehensive coverage of the different things that one can use to spice up their blog. Here Deepa describes how to add the rating feature to posts.
As a test I've added the rating feature to just this post. I seem to have encountered a bug. So I am taking it off for the moment.

Now, I've put the rating feature on all the posts.
Deepa spent the better part of today afternoon helping me to do this, because it required a template upgrade. Thanks Deepa.
PS:Itchy, now you know who to go to if you want help regarding your blog widgets and layout.

I am removing the rating feature; nothing against it, just that I am not using it.

Nita Writer

Nita Jatar Kulkarni (aka Nita Writer?) is a multi-faceted person - mother, writer, journalist (now freelance), teacher, palmist, and many more, I'm sure, can be added. She writes on topics as diverse as Ordinary Truck Art on a Highway to a discussion of healthcare delivery systems in different countries.

She is a prolific writer, with an output of almost one post per day - this might not seem significant if one were to create skimpy posts as I do; all her posts have a focus, they discuss multiple angles of the topic, are mostly comprehensive (yet, giving enough scope for further discussion) and are copiously littered (might not be the most apt word) peppered with cross references. To cap it all, the discussions in the comments section are vibrant and healthy adding muscle to the structure she has provided; she also never fails to answer any queries put to her.

The name of her blog - My Writings - A wide angle view of India aptly describes her blog. Her post Why I blog makes for interesting reading.

Thanks Nita for the great work that you are doing.

Message from The Brownie

Gounder Brownie has left a new comment on your post "Missing!":

Thank you for all your support. I am going through a rough patch right now and I don't feel like doing the things I used to like doing. I'm sorry to have disappointed people who liked my writing, I didn't stay to say my goodbyes with grace...but I'm hoping I will be able to come back. Once again, thanks a lot everybody.

Take care GB. We are all hoping to see you back soon. :)

Social conditioning and Identity

A lot of one's identity is conditioned by the environment (family, society) in which a person grows. A friend of mine had posed an interesting question to me, quite a while ago.
Assume that there is a person who is brought up in an environment that says that his/her own race (caste/religion/language) is superior to that of others' and the person is also a proponent (subconsciously or vocally) of that creed. Now if it is revealed to that person that (s)he is indeed a person belonging to the others' race/caste/religion/language, how would that person react?

Mosilager sent me this link, Reflections of a Queer Dalit; though not an exact fit to the situation above, it does have elements of similarity. It highlights the problems faced by people who don't fit into the hetero-patriarchal order. It analyzes the different axes of discrimination and their inter-connectedness. A very well articulated post.
Another post by the same author relevant to this topic - My Gender Dangles On The Margins.

* About the author - Sumit Baudh works on sexuality and law. His areas of interest include the human rights of queers, dalits, and undocumented migrant workers in India. Sumit obtained his LLB from the National Law School of India University and his LLM from the London School of Economics. An Advocate (Delhi Bar), and a non-practicing Solicitor (England and Wales), he has worked with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and the AMAN Trust, both NGOs based in India. Sumit is presently located at the South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality, in Delhi. He self identifies as a Queer Dalit Buddhist.

Multicultural India

India as a country probably contains one of the most heterogenous set of people, differing in culture, religion, language etc. This is brought out by Nita Jatar Kulkarni in her post Multi-cultural, multi-racial India. I don't know about China and the erstwhile USSR, which might have as varied a population as India.

There is an interesting debate in the comment section, on the language issue / north-south divide, of her post South India is better developed than North India says CNN IBN

How to communicate with visitors

I am not talking about myself here - (though it'll help if more people communicated with me). ;)
This page gives a list of link to resources / tools (video, text chatbox, ratings, comments, etc) that one can include on their blogs to increase their communication with visitors.

I've always thought that including a tool for rating a post would be cool, because, it helps delurk people, without having them to type in text, negative feedback can be given without having to coin it diplomatically and questions with multiple choice answers are easier to attempt than those requiring a descriptive answer. I hope that Blogger provides this feature in addition to the comments feature.

The History of Love

Have you ever wondered how emotions evolved? Here is an interesting POV taken from the novel, The History of Love written by Nicole Krauss. Courtesy Broom. An excerpt:

Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while new feelings were being invented all the time. [...]

Struck a chord.

My first crush

Well I'm not saying anything about my first crush; except that it was at a fairly early age. Here are some posts on first crushes posted at BUF (Between Us Friends).

BUF is a multi-author blog, which invites posts from members on chosen topics. To know more read - BUF rules. Thanks to Vishesh for introducing me to BUF.

Missing!

Brownie is missing since today morning! :(

Harry Potter by ...

I was always scared as to whether I would run out of links for this blog, but such an event seems unlikely at least as long there are HP fans (to read the stuff) and HP buffs (to provide the material).

My last post was to acknowledge JKR for what she has given us. Now to more timepass stuff. Dr Mosi having successfully completed his doctoral studies in virology has now taken up serious writing that would be of great value to the world, as is evident in his recent post - Harry Potter by.... We, The Visitor editorial team, thank him for his yeoman service and wish him success in his endeavors.

Keep them coming Dr. Mosi. :)

Thank you, Ms Rowling

Its more than a month since HP-7. Most people have read it; I am one of the few who is still saving it and savoring it slowly.
How is life going to be after HP-7, particularly when JKR has said that it is the last of the series? Well, one survives by rereading the seven again, or reading interesting bits of trivia relating to it, or sharing experiences with friends and so on. I recently came across this very nice tribute by Broom to JKR - Thank you, Ms. Rowling. The post appealed to me because I too started off on HP in very much the same fashion, and it allowed me to recall my own experiences. Thank you, Broom.

Surprises!

Do you like surprises? Maybe all of us do. But not everyone is like that - some like to have everything planned and in order; surprises of any kind quite often displeases them. I've been accused of creating confusion in the name of giving surprises, at least by certain sections of my family (post-marriage) :(. I envy anyone who indulges in it.
However this loony-bin family seems to thrive on giving surprises, as a member proudly proclaims, We are like this only. :)

Many of Boo's posts bring up a lump in my throat.

Celebrating Sexuality

In the early period of my bloghopping I wasn't bound by any image in blogworld; I felt free to post whatever I wanted. But over the last one year that I have blogged, I have probably veered away from topics considered taboo in Indian society. Then there were these posts by GB and Pri on Pridefests held in Brighton and Denver respectively; I thought twice about linking them, as to whether it would be 'appropriate' on my blog (LOL, goes to show how even in 'anonymous' blogworld, one can be straight-jacketed - pun unintended - by a perceived image).

What finally pushed me to posting these links was a hypothetical question somebody put to GB:

[...] She then placed a hypothetical question, the answer to which I realized I don't know- IF you were gay, would your parents disown you? [...]

GB - Pride and Prejudice
Pri - I'm so making this an annual event

I am not sure how I would react if my children were LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender). While I may not disown them, I would still be 'troubled' by that fact. I haven't yet moved out of my mindset. Time for introspection and coming to terms?

I am normal (almost) :-(

I've always thought that I was crazy and would be a psychiatrist's dream patient. I came across this test for Personality disorders on Lakshmi's blog, and got the following results:

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

Of all the online quizzes this was the most disappointing :( It rated me to be as normal as normal can be! Wouldn't it feel nice to be a little crazy?

Anatomy of Addiction - Orkut

Shadowy Pilgrim outlines the phases of addiction - to Orkut. One could probably replace Orkut with email (in those days), chat, discussion groups, blogging or any other activity and the phases don't change. I certainly concur, because I have been/am such an addict - and there are several other bloggers who are privy to the fact. :(
Pilgrim surely knows his(her?) onions.

I got to know quite a few 'discerning' bloggers from Terri's - Thanks Terri. :)

Cross posted on Kathambamaalai.