BYRON LIT FEST SNAPSHOTS

For those who read the blog and packed in the woollies, my apologies. Trust me, it wasn't like this at all last year. We froze, we smacked locked jaws, we walked with endless cups of coffee waiting for some splendour in the grass. Nothing worked. This year, when we came all prepared, the sun chose to shine. I'm so not complaining though.


When you thought they couldn't get any younger, this lil one swept her feet above the ground.


A tisket, a tasket, a book full of baskets....
Now, turn those words around.....


The messages were on the boards....


And this panel was special for many reasons.

It was about an issue close to my heart. It packed the six of us, including the fine moderator Fiona Martin. At one point, it seemed like we'd off the stage, like we'd never get to the end of it, that time would run out (it did!), like all good things this too would end. There were so many perspectives, just as any discussion on blogging should well be. Marieke Hardy, Antony Loewenstein, Kate Crawford and Shalini Akhil made everyone in the audience realise how much more there is to learn in the blogosphere. Beyond that, there was a whole lot more.

You've heard the stories,Antony gave them a face. He recently finished a tour of some of the world's danger zones and spoke of bloggers who keep on despite the obvious dangers in places like Iran, Iraq, Egypt. There's another book in the works and I know this one can't wait.

I'd heard Kate Crawford a day before we met on this panel and loved the way she took on Mungo MacCallum, reminded us there was nothing wrong with Oprah and by the end of it all had us seriously Twittering away.

Marieke Hardy was the most colourful of us all. A hat tip for all her stories, of surviving being stalked online and persisting with one of the many things she balances in her packed young life. Her blog has resulted in a column, so never ever go into those bits of self-doubt. As I've often said before, if you do it with heart, if you put in your soul, if your writing sings, the music will accompany the lyrics.

Meeting Shalini Akhil is always great. She always livens up any panel. She holds her ground and boy can she debate. What I also like is how she shares much good stuff on her blog .

As for yours truly, the blog is the story.

WHY BLOG?

I can't understand why people blog? Why they open up lives for scrutiny? I don't understand this obsession of putting everything out there....

These were questions, thoughts, opinions that fell my way at a party a couple of nights ago. Being a better blog tracker than a blogger myself, this opened up the proverbial Pandora's Box.

Blogging for me has been an experience like no other. It has opened so many possibilities, spawned so many friendships, led to so many creative exchanges that it is now next to impossible to give it up.

Beyond what it has done for me, it's been a process of discovery of a whole new world out there. A world inhabited by real people, real places and even more real stories. It was on a blog that I first heard of Shakti Bhatt and her even more tragic demise. It was on a blog that I first heard the name Rekha and the son she's left behind. These are stories that would have perhaps been covered in the mainstream but would have been written about in as detached a manner as it gets. These would have been stories that would have had to fight for space with flowery descriptions of Ash and Abhi's wedding and who didn't get invited.

A typical obit would be something along these lines:
'Photographer ___ was an assignment from ____ to ____. The scooter she was driving had a head on collision with a ___. She worked us from ____ to ____. She leaves behind a son. She will be missed.'

Just pull out a copy of any old newspaper track the story of messengers who lost their lives on duty and see if I am far off the mark.

There are word count restraints which are of course thrown to the winds when it comes to celebrity reporting, then there's the "keep the I out of the story" that effectively robs you of the feel of the story.

Blogs have changed all of that. There can be all of "I". The writer can be the story. A post can start with a word and end with a novel. The choice is entirely the creator's. The writer can choose to be as involved with the subject. Place, settings, characters and so much more comes into play.

Articles written in magazines and newspapers find their way on blogs. Often writers will tell you a shorter version appears here, the full story is on the blog. Or that this piece appeared in xyz publication first. Stories survive beyond the paper and magazine and find a way of reaching out to you like never before.

One such amazing story is award-winning journalist Sonia Faleiro's
tale of A Revathi. A story that has spawned a book no less. A triumph of the written word like never before. And I wouldn't have seen this if it weren't for her blog.