A half-decent book that is introduced as a collection of wizarding fables (with notes by a Harry Potter character), it soon loses its charm. When JKR buries the voices of the fables’ protagonists under the accompanying notes, the reader starts questioning the book’s length and wonders who the target audience is (definitely not *THIS* Muggle).

I realized that I was closing in upon a milestone. By the time this post is online, it will be 5 years since I started blabbering. My first post was posted on Blogger on the 10th of February, 2003. And barring a few months early on and around 100 days in late ’04 and early ’05, I have been posting rather regularly.

Looking at Lekhni’s tag, I realized that she had given me a good chance to take a retrospective look and to reminisce upon these five years gone by. But the problem with my blog is that, as my erstwhile tagline (( I have an ever-changing tagline now, courtesy Twitter?)) goes, it is the record of an egoist’s road trip through life with cricket, music, books, cars and movies for company.

Which means that this blog is about me and me alone. So, as the days go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the odd posts that one has “written” relating to some of the keywords of this tag. Also, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that I took an oath, with myself as witness, that I wouldn’t post anything personal here. So the odd heartbreak has almost never found an outlet here, even if some friends (both online and IRL) have heard me obsess over it.

I have come to a conclusion that wherever I think I won’t be able to fit within the confines of the tag, I will bend the boundaries to my whims and fancies. Hey, this is MY blog and I do what I think is right. Also, my ego prevents me from sticking to the “1 post per keyword” rule of this tag. I will hence go ahead and regurgitate multiple links wherever possible. But let me just make the basic rules clearer to everyone.

The rules of the tag are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Family: As far as family is concerned, my mom offers the single largest (potential) inspiration for posts on this blog, but I haven’t posted much in this regard. Anyways, as much as I denied it then, this post had its genesis in a phone conversation with my mom.

Friends: I think I will use this keyword as a chance to link to a couple of 55 word shorts. This short is about a short lived friendship. Here is another I wrote about what will intrigue some of my vetti friends.

Yourself: The majority of this blog is about me and my overblown ego. I am tempted to link to some of my “infamous” posts here (tulips/volcano, anyone? Or the silly photo meme?). But I have other plans.

Two years ago, I put up an “accomodation wanted post” that the aforementioned vetti friends hijacked and converted into a post that screamed “Looking for a Significant Other” post. Occupied as I was in my worries about finding an apartment and settling into a new job, I edited that post to make it sound less frivolous. But later, seeing where they were coming from and the fact that it did sound like a matrimonial ad, I recovered the post and put it into a private vault, not wanting to lose anything I wrote.

Until today, that is. So here it is – in an unedited, “directors cut” format, my appeal for shared accommodation in the Parsippany / Rockaway area.

Your Love: I don’t know if people realized this. But I started blogging because of cricket and the fact that Rediff and Cricinfo stopped accepting pieces from guest authors. My posts as a guest author/columnist in these portals were perhaps my earliest attempts at putting my thoughts into paper, barring a few emails that I sent to friends from time to time.

So without my ado, here are my earliest Cricinfo contributions to the Writer in You section -

1. About the continued exclusion of Sadagopan Ramesh in March ’02

2. About the test match at Lords in August ’02

3. Thoughts about the first day of India West Indies test match at Bourda in April ’02.

And my contribution to Rediff as a guest author -

1. Musings about the win at Port of Spain in April ’02.

Apart from these, I’m going to link to a pair of long posts about my favorite cricketing pet peeve – The BCCI. These posts (part 1 and part 2), though a couple of years old ring true even now. I also believe that India needs to look at a core competency model for its selection policies, though positive changes seem to have come through in these past couple of years. And lastly this post about playing cricket with a scientific calculator.

Anything I like: I am romantically challenged, but even then I have a soft corner for this post of mine, a what-if tale of romance, from the perspective of a member of the vehiculum futbolus genetrix family. As I do for this one – about PTC/MTC buses in Chennai.

Another interest of mine is movies, so here are a couple – this post about one of my favorite movies, and this one about the general state of Bollywood. I have also pontificated in the past about dancing my heart out – Here and here. Lastly, I dont think this tag will not be complete without this cooking type post.

But before I leave, I have to apparently tag 5 bloggers whose blogs I love to read. Seems like two of them have to be new acquaintaces. Hmmm, let’s see.

In keeping with the trend on this post, I will cheat and tag 7 bloggers instead. I will tag – Smugbug, Arun, Pri, Megha, DoZ, Missus Em and Max Da Vinci.

A couple of these people haven’t posted recently and that’s never good. So I believe this retrospective look will spur them on. Particularly, Megha, whose latest anniversary post was such a cop out! Yo, Can we get a real post now? And DoZ, if you want, I will look away if you include your posts from Stochastica as well.

There, DONE!

Whew, five years is such a long time. But I am not done yet. Keep coming back and please do leave a comment or two everytime. Thanks to Lekhni for this opportunity. Came at the right time and I can’t think of a better way to usher in a new blogging year.A new template would have perhaps been perfect icing to this cake.But thanks to a brain freeze by yours truly, it was not to be. Ah well. Life’s not perfect, either.

And in other news, I seem to have been tagged again. Guruprasad’s tagged me to write about “non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself”. Now that is quite an impossible task because the blog does not have anything else apart from non-important things/habits/quirks about me and 480 odd posts is a large number to wade through.

In fact I think that this blog’s the single biggest reason that I am still single, because so much dirt on me can be got with a simple google search. So I have decided that I won’t muddy the waters any more. Can you excuse me, Sir?

Awaiting sleep, he lay there silently.

Then he smiled.

“All the vettis ¹ will rub their hands in glee after reading that first line”,  he thought.

He sat up, comfortably propped on the headboard of his new Ikea queen bed and started his fourth 55-worder.

Chuckling, he typed,

T’was his first night.

[1] Vettis – Roughly translated from Tamil as “people with nothing to do” aka the jobless.

Sitting two seats away in the departure lounge, he felt threatened as she told him, a complete stranger, all about her trip.

He had concluded that a married desi woman would never hit on strangers.

“Overqualified”!!

“Experienced candidates only”!!

“No H1s! Citizens & Green Cards only”!!

Such lines soon seemed passe.

Since he was sometimes faking, not even “Lacks communication skills” shocked him.

But “Eager & enthusiastic” ??

This time, he was speechless. Now, he had heard it all!

And at 27, the search for the elusive first paycheck continued….

Written as part of the 55-word story tag from Dhammo. Megha “considered it sweet revenge” when she passed it on to Dhammo. But I am not someone prone to vengeance and so I am leaving it up to anyone who wants to attempt it. But I do hope that people like Dumbs, Shwe and Hathirpithi will try. Mebbe the likes of Vindy and Praveen might even do a humorous tale. But I am tagging no one!