Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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August 15 2008 - India’s 61st Independence Day. Most of the post would be a rant on India and what it means for me. Please ignore my over enthusiastic patriotism. In the past too, I have written about Independence Day on my blog. Links: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

For me independence means a lot. Freedom to act. It is the freedom to choose things I want to do. Freedom to think on things I want to think on. Freedom to express myself. One might argue that

Hits

• Gold at Olympics: India won a Gold at the Olympics. An Individual gold. After 108 years. Abhinav Bindra in 10 m Air Rifle. (Wrote about it here).
• Berlin-School: Berlin School of Creative Leadership has accepted my application. According to their email, people from more than 25 countries applied and I am one of the select few that have been accepted. Wow. I can not afford the course. I will see how to go about it.
• Saurabh Garg gets popular: For the first time in my life, my website was suspended for exceeding the bandwidth limits. Wow. This means two things. Either my website is too popular or I have too less bandwidth. Anyways, I got myself upgraded and hopefully my demands for bandwidth last longer.

Misses

• Omar Abdullah, one of the few leaders I really admire has decided to shut down his blog. I think the decision is short-sighted and impulsive. I sent comments, messages, posted on mutiny.in, Facebook and here. Hopefully he would not shut down his blog. Our politicians need to know more about powers and reach of social media and reaching out on the Internet.
• Freedom Blog: Back in July, I thought if it would be a good idea to collate opinions and views of people on freedom at one place, would it be a good idea? I posted it here and asked friends to share their opinions. Sadly the response was very limited (I got couple of comments and two emails). I wasnt expecting everyone to write in anyways but I did not know that people who read my blog are not really bothered about our country and what it offers us. Or may be my approach was incorrect and flawed? I would want to believe later.

Random Musings

• Other Indian Athletes at Olympics: Others disappointed at Olympics. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (medalist at Athens games) dint even qualify for finals. Surprise was Saina Nehwal - Shuttler from Delhi who reached the quarter finals. She is all of 18, hopefully, we will have more medals in future from her.
• Sania “trackpants” Mirza: Sania Mirza as expected lost out in the first round itself. But she did something even more audacious. She walked the opening ceremony in track pants. IMHO this is as big a disgrace as you can bring to the country. You might be busy with all the preparations but somethings are just sacrosanct.
• Hopes at Olympics: Only hopes left are now from Paes-Bhupathi and Kumar. I expected 5 medals but now at most we can have three.
• Movies: There has been a long list of really good movies that have released in last few weeks: Kung Fu Panda, Dark Knight, Jaane Tu. I need to get a life and think beyond businesses, money and twitter.
• Blogging: I changed my blogging policy. I will now try to create “Saurabh’s personal Wikipedia” rather than a blog. More on this here.
• MBA: I was thinking about my MBA from MDI. On one hand it gave me friends and idea about life, world. On the other hand it took away time and made me a more complex person. Still dont know if I should recommend a MBA to people.
• Marketing: I happened to walk past a Levis’ store and I was surprised to see real people dressed as mannequins and using synchronized movements in store to attract traffic. This is something that I have not seen ever in this country. Hats off to them. I dont know how much sales did this generate but people did look at these people and people did walk-in to the store.

In the end, since it is 15th Aug 2008, need to renew the vows to take the country to greater heights. I will make sure I do my bit. Future looks uncertain but there is a glimmer of hope somewhere hidden behind the clouds.

I dont have to make more evident that I am a huge fan of Mr. Omar Abdullah. I posted this on Mutiny.in about five minutes ago. I am reproducing it here. The context is that Omar Abdullah used to write this blog here and he has decided to shut it down.

I dont know how many are even aware of Mr. Abdullah’s blog (Chacko posted about it on Mutiny), but as on yesterday he decided to shut down his blog (via this post). I tried posting comments but they are not being either approved or responded to.

Omar Abdullah says that he is shutting down his blog because

[QUOTE]Last night as I finished my last post I realised that I was filled with dread at the heap of personal abuse I was expecting when I logged on this morning and I was not wrong. We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one.[UNQUOTE]

Can we @ mutiny do something about it? I know the regular signature campaigns are just another way to show you care and not do anything. What if we as Mutiny Media (a publication starting 15th Aug) talk to him and try to give him more reasons why to blog? What if we show him that there are enough people who care about his blog and respect his opinion? Any media specialists hanging out on Mutiny?

I think a politician blogging is a very good idea because.

• It makes him more human and approachable.
• He gets timely and honest feedback. People can write back without fearing bureaucracy and lashback.
• People get to know what he really thinks (and not just the excerpts from media - media that can be biased).
• He sets a precedent for other politicians and public figures to follow suit and start writing.

Shutting a blog just because it attracts a lot of hate comments is simply not done. Blogging as a medium has its pros and cons and what we see in Omar Abdullah’s case is just one bad example.

Can we come up with ideas? Can mutiny finally make a difference and be counted as the “New Media”? Someone?

I also posted a comment on his blog. It is yet to be approved. If they approve it, I will reproduce it here. If anyone can give any ideas, please leave a comment.

Thank You.