What Blogging has come to mean to me...

Blogging to me in the beginning was a way to cleanse my innermost thoughts. A medium to air all the conflicts and clashes that collected like grime and fogged my mind and soul. I did not have the courage to express my opinions to others clearly. I would try to but when the other person was louder and more vehement, then I would just clam up after a time; but the thoughts and words would keep struggling to come to the outside. For this purpose I resorted to blogging- I had this need to be honest, completely honest to myself. I felt stifled with the veneer of politeness that one had to adopt in daily life to avoid confrontations, to ensure peace; and blogging was the outlet for me- it gave me clarity of thought, it helped me sort out things within myself and then move on without pending accounts. - (Eternal Quest). … I wanted to express thoughts and ideas that I wouldn’t acknowledge to real life me. (Deliverance). Needless to say, the encouraging comments from the other bloggers helped a lot.

And for this, I started out with a pseudonym- how I coined the name Ardra Vamshi is no longer a clear memory. I always liked the sound of the name Ardra- I liked the meaning too I guess. Anyway for me it was just a pseudonym- an anonymous mask I wore. I’m not very sure as to what I wanted to hide. I think that I wanted to give voice to certain sounds, words that I would not be able to express in the real world.

Time and again, we feel bound to stick to definitions of ourselves sometimes given to us by others or sometimes as we perceive ourselves; and that somehow curbs our spontaneous responses, gestures, actions. Sometimes these boxes are deliberately created by us and sometimes they evolve on their own without us being aware of it. People around us form their own perceptions of us coloured by their own experiences and attitudes; and when they respond to us accordingly, we unconsciously react according to these perceptions, thus fulfilling their perceptions of us. The image cultivation is not deliberate, it just evolves. However, at times we might deviate from these perceptions...we inadvertently provide a glimpse to the real us now and then and slowly the veneer between the real and the virtual dissolves.

Ardra- when she started blogging was a different person- then the other bloggers began responding in a particular way, and Ardra was evolving accordingly. Though Ardra was definitely a part of N; but only in parts. I realized that in spite of the pseudonym- an assumed identity, I still was expressing only selectively. Though my blogs have always been spontaneous, I saw that I had chosen to explore only certain aspects of my life on my blogs; not because I wanted to keep some aspects hidden but only because I was comfortable that way. I realized that Ardra could not be different from N.

Gradually, more of N spilled thru into Ardra and now I think Ardra and N have merged into a single identity. There is no longer a need to vent or rant; at least nothing that I wouldn’t be able to sort out in Real life either. Now it’s only about talking, conversing, sharing. I’ve become comfortable with my thoughts, reactions and ideas. I’ve become comfortable with whatever perception other bloggers may form about Ardra. This acceptance has come about because most bloggers I read are very honest, very brave about expressing themselves and most bloggers too accept the honesty non judgmentally.

And seeing my thoughts crystallised into words on the coloured template on the monitor gives me a strange sense of high which eliminates all the negativity within me, and I’m at peace with the world and Life :-)

My first post ( on sulekha)- a creative attempt-

An offering from my Heart