December 24, 2003

I like writing, I like arguing, I like taking stands!

Jivha's is perhaps the best known name in the Indian Blogosphere. There wouldn't be many Indian Blogs that do not have him on their blogroll and there mustn't be many either who never ever commented on his post or trackbacked him. Jivha emerged as the deserving "IndiBlog of the year 2003" and we thought it was time we shed some light on the enshrouded but effervescent Indiblogger. And what could have been a better spectacle than Melodrama, who also sponsored the prize for the winner of this category along with Meena, asking the questions. Here we go:


M: Since when have you been blogging (for those who wouldn't bother checking your archives)?
Jivha: February 2003. Started as jivha.blogspot.com and moved over to jivha.com in July 2003.

M: How did you hit upon the pseudonym 'Jivha' and how is it representative of your blog?
Jivha: Jivha, means 'tongue' in Pali (Buddhist).

When I was starting a blog back in February 2003, I wanted a name that would be Indian in origin, and would mean something relevant to me. A mythological story that I had read in my childhood came to mind. In the story the royal barber went by the name of 'Jivha' and was recruited by some opponents of the king to cut the king's throat while shaving his beard the next day. The barber meekly agreed to do so.

The next day when the barber was sharpening his blade ('ustara') in preparation of the dire deed, the king starts humming a song which somewhat went "you move left, you move right, o jivha I know what's on your mind!" Hearing this the barber falls at the king's feet asking for forgiveness and blames his opponents for coercing him. Of course he never knew that the king was just referring to a 'tongue' in the song, and not to the barber!

And that is how the word 'Jivha' came to mind. I started my original blog at Blog*Spot. When I decided to move on to my own domain and Movable Type, I decided to use the same name. This time I reverse-justified the name 'Jivha' to something more than just a long-lost story.

The concept of the tongue fitted very well with the loose, off-the-cuff and direct commentaries that I'd been making on most of my posts. And that is why my blog became simply, 'Jivha - the Tongue'.

M: What do you think of Indian blogs and do you think anything has changed since you started blogging?
Jivha: Although nowhere near the quality and range of US blogs, I think we're more than making up for the lead that the US had in this regard. There are newer sites coming up which make compelling reads and the Indian blogosphere today is almost unrecognizable to it's year-old past.

M: Do you think Indian blogs are representative of India or the average Indian?
Jivha: Um, no. In fact I wouldn't even say that they're representative of an urban average India too. They're representative of probably 5% of the population of the top urban cities.

M: What do you think of any blogging awards, and could you please be honest?
Jivha: Frankly, not much. Because (a) I don't understand what purpose they serve, and (b) I think it's pretty darn easy to 'rig' an award...then where's the point?

M: Is there a mission to your blogging and what motivates you to continue with it?
Jivha: I like writing, I like arguing, I like taking stands. My blog allows me to do all. Besides, in my own small way I try and influence atleast a few people about reality the way 'I' see it :-)

M: Do you think your blog has affected anyone positively or negatively and do you think blogs influence, like TV or radio?
Jivha: Positively. My knowledge of world affairs has increased since I started blogging/reading other blogs.

M: Have you induced anyone to blog? Did your efforts bear any fruit and is the person still blogging?
Jivha: Um, yes. Atleast a couple of friends and even a couple of people I never knew earlier. Some are continuing, some aren't. Not enough data to make a conclusion yet ;-)

M: Do you plan beforehand the topics you blog about? How do you handle criticism of your posts?
Jivha: Plan? Unless you call remembering what I read in the newspapers on the way to office as 'planning', then no. Google News, my daily newspapers and other blogs remain the 3 sources of posts for me.

How do I handle criticism? By arguing back if the criticism is valid/well structured, or by co-opting the criticism if it's illogical and troll-ish (my byline is made up of 'names' people have called me in the Indian blogosphere).

M: We have noticed a distinct political tone to a lot of your posts, so, are you trying to be a political blogger?
Jivha: Two things, (i) I wouldn't want to slot myself, (ii) you're assuming I'm not one already ;-)

M: Do you think only a certain kind of individual blogs or have you noticed people with very different personalities blogging?
Jivha: I've noticed about as decent a range of personalities in bloggers as you would notice amongst colleagues at your workplace. That's a fair sample, no?

M: We also noticed that you tried a bloggers meet sometime back. How did it go and what were your experiences meeting bloggers the first time? Would you organize such a meet again?
Jivha: Asli and Mahesh Shatanaram did land up. A couple of people weren't well, some people misread the timings...overall I wasn't disappointed as me and Asli did chill out over beer after the fiasco ;-) And yeah, you're not catching me organizing anything again. A defunct book-reading club and blogger's meet are 'two' much for me ;-)

M: What are you views on bloggers' aligning themselves like 'Indian blogring', 'blogging bitches', 'blogging for bush' etc.?
Jivha: Not much. I don't like slotting myself into pre-ordained categories. Plus webrings strike me as pretty dorky (don't ask me why!).

M: How does one make one's blog work-safe?
Jivha: Simple. Give your blog URL to your Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother amd Girlfriend. No one'll have enough b***s to write anything even remotely un-work-safe after that!

M: Who would you dedicate this (best Indiblog) win to? (Wait let us all jam our ears and shut our eyes, we fear a jivhaesque outpouring.)
Jivha: Who else but myself?

M: Are you planning to donate the prize (Tantra tee shirt) or to enjoy the fruits of your success? If yes, who would you donate the shirt off your back to?
Jivha: No. I wanna show the tee-shirt(s) to my would-be-better-half as proof that blogs are not 100% pointless ;-)

M: Who is your favourite blogger? (If you say its me, I might even be induced to enhance the prize to say a autographed tantra tee. Teehee!)
Jivha: Calpundit

M: If we see Jivha on the streets how could we identify him?
Jivha: Considering that your tongue is on the street, I think it would be a fair assumption that so would be the rest of your face, and body. I think you should call an ambulance as most people who get run over on the street do tend to need one.

M: This is for all the lovely young ladies who have a secret crush on you and are waiting to stalk you, what exactly did you say your address was?
Jivha: Ahhh, be still my beating heart! Can you please ask those 'lovely young ladies' to mail me for further directions :-)

M: And finally, do you have any message for new bloggers? Stop, we didn't mean to unleash so much verbal diarrhea, stop! Stop! STOP! Yeahhhhhh.......
Jivha: Just two words - 'post frequently'.

December 22, 2003

And the winners are..

Fellow IndiBloggers! You did a great job and thank you for that. We hope that this effort kindled the spirit of Indian-ness in the IndiBlogosphere. Hopefully, this get-together brought us closer as a community. If this effort introduced you to even a single blog that you had never heard of before, if it prompted you to say, "ya man that blog is truly good, I must have it on my blogroll", we would deem this as worthwhile. What this years awards lacked was some slackness in nominations, many deserving blogs were perhaps left away, atleast for vernacular blogs we expected a lot more nominations, but hey this was just a beginning.

Here is to the IndiBlogosphere, hope all IndiBloggers would rise above the mediocre and strive towards excellence. Let Blogging make a difference to the world we live in.

Enough of commentary, here is the final list of winners for the IndiBlog Awards -2003:

Heart Congratulations to all the winners! Jivha and Vaijayanthi, please get in touch with the award-sponsors directly to claim your prizes. The show is not over yet, we have one more item to go before the curtains are down for this years awards. Watch out for the surprise post!

December 01, 2003

And the nominees are..

Ladies and gentlemen! Thanks a zillion for your contribution to this effort. The Nominations phase is over and here are the lucky ones. Congratulations people! Please do read the note at the bottom of this post. Give us some time to arrange the polls (it came to us that no free poll site allows having multiple polls, www.blogpoll.com could not be selected because the polls are also visible on their site. We ultimately have settled for sparklit.com's excellent free service). Meanwhile you can send in more nominations or request to strike-out any in-eligible ones, till December 6, 2003. The voting shall commense on December 7, 2003.

IndiBlog of the year:

Best ArtsMedia IndiBlog:

Best Sports IndiBlog:

Best Technology IndiBlog:

Best IndiBlog directory:

Indiblog with the best tagline*:

Best topical IndiBlog:

Best designed IndiBlog:

Most humorous Indiblog:

Best New Indiblog:

Best Hindi Indiblog:

  • Alok (http://9211.blogspot.com)

Best Regional Indiblog:

  • Venkataramanan (http://www.tamillinux.org/venkat/myblog/) -Tamil
  • Badri (http://thoughtsintamil.blogspot.com/) - Tamil
  • Kamat (http://www.kamat.com/econtent/kannada_blog/) - Kannada

IndiBlog Lifetime achievement:

Best Male IndiBlogger:

Best Female IndiBlogger:

Best IndiPhotoBlog:

Note: Some of the blogs which were not considered are: Ashifications for best tagline* (reason: no tagline found), Dr.Mani for any category (reason: we are not selling anything here), Kingsley for best Tech blog (please tell me if this was appropritae to be considered) and Jivha for best topical blog. If you find the URL/Title/Details wrong or feel the blog does not qualify for the category or if the blog contains any objectionable or unpalatable stuff do let us know through comments to this post or email us at indibloggies@myway.com.

November 19, 2003

Call for Nominations

So the moment has arrived. The Indiblog awards solicits your nominations for the First IndiBlog Awards 2003. Please add you nomination(s) using the comments links against each/any category. We know, you may have to click more than once if wish to add many blogs in different categries, but believe us it will be an worthwhile effort. Alternatively you can email us your nominations. From our earlier post you would notice that we have added two more categories on Best Hindi/Regional IndiBlog.

Note: These are only "nominations", actual "voting" for each category based on these nominations would begin on December 1, 2003. Please nominate as many eligible/worthy IndiBlogs, you know of, this would add to the healthy competition. If a blog that you think should be nominated to a category has already been nominated by someone, perhaps there is no need to re-nominate it, just make a mental note and vote for that blog when the Polls begin. Also, try finding and nominating an eligible IndiBlog for a category which might have attracted lesser number of nominations or no nominations at all. For each category one blog will be treated as a single entry despite of multiple nominations.

Nominations close: November 30.

  • IndiBlog of the year


  • Best Arts IndiBlog#


  • Best Sports IndiBlog


  • Best Technology IndiBlog


  • Best IndiBlog directory


  • Indiblog with the best tagline


  • Best topical IndiBlog


  • Best designed IndiBlog


  • Most humorous Indiblog


  • Best New Indiblog


  • Best Hindi Indiblog


  • Best Regional Indiblog*


  • IndiBlog Lifetime achievement


  • Best Male IndiBlogger


  • Best Female IndiBlogger


  • Best IndiPhotoBlog



* IndiBlog in any Indian language except Hindi/English.
# Being added based because no IndiBlog perhaps covers Music alone. So this category is for IndiBlogs that discuss Movies (Any language), Music and other art-forms such as Drama, Paintings, Poetry/Fiction.

November 15, 2003

A bad start, but not loosing hope

As far as our divya-drishti can see the effort has hardly generated any interest. Our gut-feeling tells us that the banana-effect has taken its toll, if its true, well, we can only say: bad luck of IndiBlogosphere. A point that we missed earlier and wish to jot here for reassurance is that the entire process of IndiBlog Awards would be democratic, with the automatic ballot machines and all ;) So every IndiBlogger (even non-Indians IndiBlog readers) would be eligible to suggest the rules, the categories for which blogs are to be nominated and finally, selecting the one that is unarguably the best in each category. The last phase would be implemented through a cookie based web-poll that would (hopefully) ensure that a voter votes only once for a chosen category. A word of reassurance again: We would have no say on the final selection process, that being automatic, even the poll software would not be hosted by us (infact we do not have any money to pay for hosting).

We propose to complete the process of nominations by this month end so that the voting may be started in December first week. As you might have expected, the polls would close on December 31st and the winners would be announced as soon as the year 2004 ushers-in.

To set the ball-rolling here are the categories we propose. Go ahead! Tell us if you wish to add more or strike out the ones given. Feel free to drop your comments here or better still, drop an email. This effort can only be successful with your feedback. We are also bloggers like you and were pained to bitter banana. Our view was, if bitterness can provoke, sweetness would kill. As we said earlier, what we have is an eye for appreciation. Those are multitude of pairs of eyes that belong to you fellow IndiBloggers. We hope you understand that we have nothing to gain from this effort. Lets utilise this opportunity to foster mutual appreciation among the IndiBloggers and recognize the talented from amongst us.

  • IndiBlog of the year: The best IndiBlog overall

  • Best Music IndiBlog: IndiBlog writing a lot or entirely dedicated to a musical cause.

  • Best Sports IndiBlog: Given our madness over the sport we doubt it would be a blog on any other sport other than the Cricket.

  • Best Technology IndiBlog

  • Best IndiBlog directory

  • Best tagline of a IndiBlog

  • Best IndiBlog about IndiBlogs

  • Best topical IndiBlog: IndiBlogs with a definite topic other than general/personal, music, politics, computers and technology.

  • Best designed IndiBlog

  • Most humorous Indiblog

  • Best New Indiblog: IndiBlog started in the latter half if 2003 i.e. on or after July 1 2003.

  • Lifetime achievement: IndiBloggers who have been blogging at least since January 1, 2002.

  • Best IndiBlogger (Male)

  • Best IndiBlogger (Female)

November 14, 2003

The First IndiBlog Awards 2003

The number of Indian Bloggers is increasing by leaps and bounds. Don't take our word for it, just notice the ever-growing listings at Indian Webloggers list or the Kamat Blog Portal. The sheer amount of posts that these talented bloggers churn out everyday on a gamut of topics can make you feel dizzy. The quality of writing often lets you marvel at the literary talent this country has produced. We Indians are known for our tactful gift of gab. We have proven our mettle in all walks of life and we are perhaps the largest blogging community in the world too.

So why the IndiBlog Awards, you ask. Well, aren't the above, reasons enough for a celebration? Agreed, these awards may well be just another awards but they are a celebration of the Indian Bloggers around the globe. And yes here we would only be praising and looking at the positive aspects about the Indian blogs, no pundit here to feed you bananas of crap wisdom. Suffice to say that the IndiBlog Awards has, what the Razzies don't, an eye for true appreciation.

Now, the IndiBlog Awards may the based on the concept of the Bloggies but together we can add the Indian ethos to it. The awards, unlike the Bloggies, would not be able to give you anything apart from the praise and recognition you deserve but let's hope that it also instils some healthy sense of competition among the IndiBlogging community. Who knows, may be some kind corporate soul may notice and start sponsoring this effort in future.

Watch out for further announcements on the awards, the methodology, the rules and when would they be announced. Meanwhile, your comments and suggestions may be posted here or mailed to us at indibloggies at myway dot com.