Blog Ratna

If there were a BLOG RATNA award and you were the sole authority for selecting the winning candidate, who would you choose?

My choice is very clear. Of course the candidate is from the blogosphere. Otherwise he wouldn’t qualify for the award. He has been a friend for a couple of years or more whom I met for the first time three days back.

You might ask how a person one has not met can be a friend. The best way for me to answer that question is to quote from Ronni Bennetty‘s comment on my post Senior Citizens, blogging is a passport to good health

Ronni says about blogging ‘…it is a godsend for friendship. Real friendships form among bloggers, as strong over time as in-person friendships. And with blogging, one's new friends might be anywhere in the world.’

It could be said that there is some similarity between blogoshpere friends and pen friends. But the latter is a rather confined field, usually focusing on one individual or just a few.

Talking about pen friends, have you read Kunal Basu’s lovely short story, The Japanese Wife (Harper Collins Publishers India, 2008. Rs.395) in his anthology by that name? Do try it.

Returning to Blog Ratna, I met this person at his hotel in Chennai on 6^th Feb on my way to a function. It was as though we had known each other for a long time. He is a former journalist, retired from the Times of India ten years back. He can talk knowledgeably on many subjects.

But what has he done for the blogoshphere? First of all, he is an avid blogger. And, more importantly, he has introduced quite a few people to blogging. And they are good writers, worth reading. He has been a mentor and guide to many of them.

Look here, I can’t hold the suspense any more. If it were my choice,

the Blog Ratna goes to GV Krishnan (GVK) of Mysore.

My Take by GVK is an interesting blog to follow. Then there is MYSORE BLOG PARK, which GVK promoted as a ‘parking lot; a one-stop site showcasing bloggers’. The writers range from Lakshmi Bharadwaj (An Amateur's Attempts) an undergraduate student in U.S., to the Chennai-based great-grandmother, Maiji, (Memories and Musings) who has ‘seen history being made at various stages, and at times been part of it’. The topics covered are varied and fascinating. That is a tribute to the team handpicked by GVK.

Another GVK venture in the blogosphere is a group effort, Giving it a shot. It is a blog ‘that banks ideas awaiting people willing to try them’. There is more, but this post is getting to be too long to list all of them.

Well, do you agree with my choice? I suggest to those who are not familiar with the sites mentioned, to visit them and then come out with their opinion.