Did I join the blog bandwagon

These days every Tom, Dick and Harry own a blog one way or the other. Why do I need one? … especially when I consider blogs are for pseudo authors. The real authors publish in the main stream. Don’t they? I myeself as an academic is expected to publish in academic journals, not in a silly blog. “Publish or perish” so they said. But writing an academic paper is such a boring task. As the saying goes… academic papers are read by the author(s) who write them (is it true?), the reviewers (do they?), and perhaps a couple of graduate students. Non-academic writing is more appealing to a wider spectram. But do I have skills to do something like that?

I thought of writing a blog as a rehearsal before writing something more appealing to you. Is that a good enough reason?

Two of my friends write blogs. One writes almost every other day from Australia about anything from sanitary napkins to estrogen, and poetry to quantum physics. When I asked him why he waste his time on silly blogs, he retored referring to the boring academic papers that I have written. He writes for his own happiness. He has a strong enough reason. He make himself happy by counting the number of published blogs, hits, comments, years etc. and even blog about those numbers. Am I interested in numbers? No! Am I interested in writing about a wide spectrum of subjects? No!
My other friend writes on his Facebook page about 3 songs that share the same theme. He write it like a blog, once in every 2-3 months. It is like a three course meal in a French fine dining restaurant. I am sure lot of thoughts go into it. I can’t do something like that either. So I will try to be somewhere in between following the philosophy that I always believe in - madhayama prathipadaawa (the noble middle path).

Then what should I write about? Several friends who saw the pictures of my ‘experiemntal dishes’ suggested me to write a cook book. Do I have any credentials for something like that? No! I should not become a joke. Wait a minute… Do I have fond memories of good food? Yes, I have a plenty. My interest in cooking and tasting good food goes back to my childhood. I vividly remember that we helped our mother to prepare ‘string hoppers’ in some weekend mornings. It was an activity that brought the whole family together.


Our beloved mother left us exactly 12 years ago. Although she went on her own ‘trail’ and we on our own, the strings that bound us together are virtually there. I named this blog “Trails and Strings” in her loving memory.

Life is a journey and we make many bonds on the trail. Strings bind us not only to various people but also to tastes, smells, sights, sounds and feelings on this trail. Travelling and food always amused me. Architecture became not only my career trail but also my hobby. Therefore, I decided to write about, travel, food and architecture in my blog.

Let’s see if I can survive in the blogosphere.

(Photo credit: Jagath Siriwardena)