Thursday, September 04, 2014

Dus numbri

Tomorrow marks 10 years of this blog’s existence. Around 1700 posts and close to 1.5 million words (an approximation based partly on a formula from the Elder Days when Blogger.com provided total word counts!), give or take a couple of hundred thousand. Strange to think of it, and a little scary too when I skim the archives to find a post I have no memory writing (sometimes little memory of even the book or the film it is about), or read something written by my 27-year-old self that I now completely disagree with or feel terribly embarrassed about. (But then, to paraphrase a famous writer, life is about getting things wrong and wrong and wrong, and then, after careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again.)

Wish I had the time to do an elaborate post full of memories, turning points and links to missteps and highlights – and maybe I will in the near future. For now it's enough to say that Jabberwock – which I began in September 2004 with no sense of “purpose”, no idea that it had any long-term prospects or that anyone other than the four or five friends to whom I sent the link would ever read it – has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for most of the good things that have happened in my professional life since then. That’s one reason why I continue to be so proprietorial about it and update it regularly with versions (sometimes twice as long) of most of the pieces I write officially, even though this consumes time and energy, and sometimes seems pointless given that the websites of most newspapers and magazines are better organised and more publicity-savvy today than they were ten or even five years ago.

I have been hearing for years that blogs are passé, but this hasn’t been a “pure blog” for some time anyway – more like a writer’s site, a storeroom for the officially published stuff. That said, even with readership and comments falling over the past 3-4 years (largely the effect of social media and increased online clutter), some of the most rewarding discussions I have here are in the comments sections of relatively “bloggish” posts that don’t intersect with the official writing: this one, for instance, which grew and grew into a discussion board (with just three participants, but still) about continuing developments in the Star Plus Mahabharat. It's amusing to see comments still coming in on ancient posts such as the one about Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, a book that has a profound effect - for good or for bad - on anyone who survives it. (And sometimes it isn't so amusing: I disabled a rant I once wrote complaining about Julia Roberts's teeth, because the post became a magnet for vicious comments from people who love her as well as people who hate her.)

Anyway... more such reflections another time. The site will continue, but I may soon shift it to another domain with my own name, change the design a little, perhaps do away with the Jabberwock “brand”. (One of the things I have done recently is to add a cloud of labels/categories on the right sidebar, but this is very much a work in progress - hundreds of posts haven't been labelled yet.) Will provide updates about all that. Meanwhile, do keep reading.

39 comments:

  1. ha, that post about The Unconsoled that you mention kept me going with the book when I was struggling with it, and I am very glad I did. The "Morose Humour" post about Upamanyu Chatterjee's book I quote to all and sundry. The Trikaal post stayed with me, as did others that may not come to mind immediately.

    Your "Song tag (not to be confused with Sontag)" post is one I have to hit the link for every once so often (for the post, for the comment by Yazad Jal).

    not much of a commenter here and in general (am easily intimidated by good writing, and also wrestle with the sense of admiration, the pointlessness of gushing for every other post and the inability to keep up with the seeming polymaths who can keep step with you). so this one gush for the blog :) Thank you for the... erm... "music". My life would have been poorer without it.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Sup! And for mentioning the posts you liked. I vaguely remember the "song tag" one - I'm sure many of the songs on it will have changed if I did the list again today.

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  2. I open this page almost every day, and I'm sure that over the last eight years of trawling this blog, I've read almost every one of those 1.5 million words, give or take a couple of hundred thousand.

    My view - keep the Jabberwock brand. I always tell people things like, "Hey, Jabberwock really liked that book," or, "Ooh, I remember reading about this movie on some old Jabberwock post."

    (If this is a repeat comment, please delete it! I don't know why - my comments don't seem to go through smoothly.)

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    1. Thanks! Hugely flattered, even as I suspect you could be doing much better things with your time. About the comments - yes, that does seem to be a common complaint these days. Perhaps I can convince myself that THAT'S the reason for reduced comments activity...

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  3. Congratulations Jai. And don't you dare lose the Jabberwock brand.

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    1. What a marvellous wordsmith you are. The same comment, written three times with subtly altered word arrangements and changes in emphasis. But thanks!

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  4. Congratulations on completing ten years on the blogosphere! Jabberwock is one of the places I turn to for my cinema education and always discover something.

    And I agree with the others, don't change the brand. All the best for the next ten years!

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  5. Dear Jai Sir,

    Wishing you all the very best for many more years to come :) you may consider shifting to Wordpress :) looking forward to reading many more wonderful book and movie reviews and all the posts about Foxie have remained very close to my heart :)

    Regards,
    Mahesh

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  6. I don't comment here all that often, but I read every single article you write. About 20% of them go over my head, but I think that's par for the course :)

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    1. If it's any consolation, around 30 percent of them go over my head too. The posts I have the most fondness for are still the "lowbrow" ones - the humour column I used to do for a tabloid, or the careful analyses of such films as Dhan Dhana Dhan John Abraham ka Nose. Becoming self-consciously Grown-Up and Serious is a terrible thing. I feel like I am stuck on a chariot in Kurukshetra, preaching away, when I really want to be back in Brindavan drinking strawberry-flavoured lassi.

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    2. Dhan Dhana Dhan Nose is still one of my favourite posts!

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  7. Jai, I am also signing up for Team Jabberwock. Don't do a Sherlock Holmes on us & push the poor creature over the parapet of an unfinished high rise in Mumbai!

    And also, a happy 10 years to you. Got to know you & your interests through this blog & it has broadened my horizons a lot. Waiting for the post in 2024 called Bees Saal Baad,

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    1. PS: That comment was from me, Tipu.

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    2. Tipu: I live in Delhi. Sherlock and the Wock would have to topple over the modest-sized waterfall at the fountain outside DLF mall, Saket.

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    3. That isn't romantic enough. How about the barsaati in Chashme Baddoor?

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  8. It seems everybody's doing a re-run of the 'They say blogging is dead' posts. Which seem to crop up every few years, and then fade away. Till the next time.

    Social media has a lot to answer for.

    Congrats on the decadeversary. And even if we're not commenting on every post, we're still reading.

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  9. hi jai arjun , i came across your blog when i was searching for some information on the assassins song by mg vasanji , and since then got hooked on your writing , your writing is very simple and full of content ,i read your reviews on old movies , and saw them , a new world opened to me through that , those long forgotten masterpieces needed its mention some where and thanks to you , i gave those old movies to my friends and they to their friends and by this many came to enjoy films which we thought never existed , i also liked your review on hamza nama by musharraf ali farooqui a delight to read , your interview with Amitava gosh gave us the behind the scene of sea of poppies , long interview with naseer uddin shah made me think of old tv serial MIRZA GALIB which i saw on door darshan long time back . and also your piece on PAW and IAW was full of depth and info . .

    the list goes on , and space short , so keep writing jai , my best wishes to you , your effort and time on your art is worth to many ,

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  10. Congrats Jai!!! Ten years is a long period of time. The first time I came to your blog was in 2009 and I have been coming here on a regular basis since then. Got to know about writers that I perhaps would never have and even film-makers. And yes, the comments discussions are very enriching. For instance, the first time I realised that "I" the narrator in Kazuo Ishiguro's novels tends to be unreliable was in comments section of your blog. Also, I remember reading in one of such discussions about a movie called 'Advise and Consent', which I just loved. I hope you keep on writing and make it available for public consumption free of cost :). All the best.

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    1. thanks. Good to have you here. I don't have as much time for comments as I did 8-10 years ago, but it's pleasing to have a few regular commenters around, like you and Shrikanth....

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    2. Not to forget The Prevalence of Witches :)) That whole part on how a village headman commits a murder and later narrates it innocently is top-class stuff. Can't forget that book. I did a damn fooling thing by selling it to a book-store in Goa. I guess they haven't sold it yet as it had an unusually dull cover. Let me check. I will go there and buy it back from them. Sold at 20, re-buy at 50, I hope :))))

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  11. Mahesh, Farheen, Hisham, and ??! (!!) - thanks very much for these nice comments. Much appreciated, and always good to know this thing is still being read...

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  12. I only just discovered your blog. I finally watched Jodhaa Akbar, and found your analysis of it side-splittingly funny (though I loved the film...I think it may be a classic "chick flick") Anyway, I've been reading your other posts and waxing nostalgic about childhood memories- Gol Maal etc. Thank you. I've been sad to see blogging go bust, and glad you'll be carrying on.

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    1. Deepa: thanks. And oh yes, Jodha Akbar - feels like another lifetime. I may have been rude about Aishwarya there, though probably not as rude as I was in the Provoked and Mistress of Spices posts.

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  13. Wishing you all the best Jai.
    And you haven't answered my question some good Indian satirical novels in English other than 'English,august' and 'Raag Darbari'? Maybe another post on the nuances of Indian satire?

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  14. Good going Jai.
    I always make it a point to read your posts about movies. I may not agree everytime, but I do like the way you write.
    10 years!!

    -- The Alco Guy.

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  15. Congrats. And I wish the great man a speedy recovery!

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    1. Sadist. I hope your great man doesn't get triple-bagelled in the final by you-know-who, the infernal Prince of Darkness.

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  16. Thanks for the very enjoyable posts over the years! I especially have enjoyed the posts on 80s hindi movies (and movies in general). Also I have used your book reviews to pick books to gift my wife-- your recommended books have always hit the mark. So thanks and please keep on going!

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    1. For some reason I also got reminded of how I got to know about your blog in the first place. One of my friends point me to this post of yours (after having introduced me to Ebert a year or so back). Ah, those were the days when it would surprise me that folks from "reputable" media outlets would blatantly plagiarize stuff. (Having taught for a while and dealing with plagiarism cases has made me more cynical...)

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  17. You and Great Bong were the only two bloggers I read regularly. And come to think of it, your writings have aged so well. I just reread some of the 04-05 posts, and there's nothing sophomoric about them (especially the posts about movies; I congratulate you for your good and wide taste; the balance of genre and high art is perfect)

    One minor issue, though: lately, as you rightly said, the blog has become a repository of your professional writings. The personal, "bloggish" posts are getting fewer and fewer. Hope to have more of the latter, as they are great avenues to discuss books and movies. This blog, and some of its readers have been quite intelligently adding to the informal, but valuable (and much needed) discourse on the seventh art.

    And if possible, retain the layout. As a long time reader, there's something possessive about the look of blogs. Had begged Great Bong not to move domains, but he didn't listen!

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    1. Thanks! I avoid going back to the 04-05 posts, and when I do I am embarrassed at times - but that's partly because my views about some things, such as the workings of Hindi cinema, have changed so much. There are a few posts in the archives (written when I hadn't even got back to watching Hindi films) that seem hopelessly simplistic to me now, and definitely not representative of how I feel today.

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  18. Hi, Mr. Jabberwock!

    I've been reading your blog for five years now! When I first started, you used to write book reviews. I would compare book reviews on your blog and the ones on The Middle Stage, and write both lists down for the next relative boarding a flight to Delhi. "I don't wan't any salwar kameez or laddoos. Just get me the books on this list," I'd tell them. Nicely, of course. A good 60% of the South Asian novels I have on my bookshelf are direct recommendations from your blog. Unfortunately, I see you've gradually stopped writing book reviews of novels, or at least they're not featured as much as before. It's a pity because now I have to rely on Amazon reviews (not always great), and if a really, really good novel is released by an independent publisher in India (like how Zubaan released Anjum Hasan's Lunatic In My Head, or Amruta Patil's Kari, which I had to direct order from Delhi) there's no way those of us interested in South Asian literature outside of South Asia can know.

    Anyway, I digress. The point is thank you for keeping me connected to India all these years and please, please write more book reviews! You're adding to the continuous education of many, many adults across the world.

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    1. Thanks, Preet - that's a very kind comment. I do see your point about the decline in book reviews, and it is a gap I sometimes feel myself, but writing about cinema is more of a passion for me, and so I have had to divide my time. Plus, book reviews usually take up far too much time and energy (if you do them honestly and seriously) to justify the tiny rates one gets paid for them. I will continue to do them every now and again, of course.

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  19. Congratulations, Jai! May I be utterly selfish now and say I'm so glad I discovered your blog so many years ago? You're one of the funniest writers I know: even your comments above made me laugh out loud. (I don't think you'd appreciate a smiley here, so I'm restraining myself.)

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    1. Thanks Unmana. And this You're one of the funniest writers I know is one of the nicest compliments I've received. "Funny" or tongue-in-cheek writing is so rarely appreciated (or a least by a very narrow band of people).

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  20. Congratulations on the decade and thanks for writing. I'm sure there are thousands of blog followers like me out there who get lots of pleasure from a) reading your posts, and b) seeing someone make a success out of following their passions. The latter especially is harder than most people realise.

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    1. Thanks, Kaushik. And yes, when I do go through the archives I am reminded of how lucky I have been in many ways. With hindsight, it was just a matter of chance that I started this thing when I did, at a time when there was much less clutter on the net, publishers and people in media were tracking interesting blogs, and it was possible to get noticed.

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