Domain Maximus

That is not one of those existential angsty type statements. "This is not a pipe." That sort of thing. No.

I merely wish to reiterate to the world that I AM NOT AMIT FOR GODDSAKE!

Amit Varma is possibly the most famous (also popular) Indian blogger out there. A very popular question at blogger meets is "Where is Amit?"

Also one can consider oneself to have arrived in the world of blogging if one can start an intellectual anecdote, dirty joke or mental whimsy with the words "I was talking to Amit Varma the other day and he was telling me about this fascinating electric inflatable doll…"

Or some such thing. Also Amit recently, and famously, won the Bestiat Prize. This award is a renowned prize in Journalism. Most famous for the fact it is merely two letters away from a sexual pervert most weird. Not to say that Amit is anything but most ordinary. I may have caught him in a delicate situation with a Doberman once but he assured me it was platonic. So you should let him be.

And me too!

Every once in a while I get welcome emails from people who want me to write for them. Newspapers, magazines, people who want a kind word written on the blog. That type. This is all quite exciting of course. For a struggling freelance writer nothing fuels the ego like people wanting you to write and willing to pay for it too.

But I have increasingly begun to notice that half of these emails begin with the salutation "Hi Amit!" or "Hi Mr. Varma!"

I am not Amit Varma.

My theory is this. The party concerned decides to link up with the half dozen or so more popular blogs around. Amit, obviously, ranks up their right at the top. I come just below him, merely three hundred blogs between us. So the party whips up an email addressed to person number one on the list, i.e. Amit Varma, and then cuts and pastes it to everyone else on his list. Without changing the salutation.

So this means, more often than not, I get an email addressed to Amit Varma offering big bucks, if seen from very very close, for my modest writing abilities. This deflates my ego so. I feel crushed and belittled. And then I reply in the affirmative because I am an MBA and my priorities are very clear.

Nonetheless I am not Amit Varma. Stop sending me emails like that.

Unless of course you are the Bestiat Prize people sending out the prize cheque. In which case I am Amit Varma! Here! Me! Yes!

Otherwise no.

(Update: The book synopsis is currently being reviewed by publishing house no. 1. Fingers crossed. Latest rediff column here. Over and out.)

Voila! Finally we are up and running!

And, deyvame!, was it a challenge.

I am what you would call a man of detail. I like to do my research and all my homework before I set out to do something. So merely moments after I decided that blogger was passe and a domain of my own was the way to go I was on the interweb looking out for the perfect combination of looks, usability and economy for my new blogging system.

Soon I had a decent idea of what I was looking for. A vast Google search for “high quality back-end” yielded many many interesting results that took me the better part of a week to get through. (I could have done this faster but I work to a strict schedule everyday after my wife has gone to sleep.)

Every search result I read carefully. I downloaded pictures and videos and even took printouts of several outstanding back-ends.

Finally I had zeroed in on WordPress, got the domain nicely paid for and sat down to the business of designing a template. For another week I struggled with PHP, HTML, CSS, XHTML, AJAX, DTDC, BEST and, god knows, ABVP before I had a wonderful little template that oozed class and refinement.

I showed it to the missus.

Missus: “You did this?”
SSV: “Yup. Nifty yes?”
Missus: “Hmm… is that a yellow tractor running up and down the footer area?”
SSV: “Of course not! How classless do you think I am? That is a Combined Harvester dear…”
Missus: “Why would you this to the world?”
SSV:
Missus: <Shift-delete>
SSV:

Soon she made me this warm and friendly little thing you see here. It is everything I wanted. Clean, neat, not too bright, pleasant coloured, much more loaded with widgets and technology than immediately appears and, most importantly, light on the net and unimposing on the actual content in the middle.

Me likes very very much. It is a brilliant template. And I am not saying this because she is standing right behind me with a coffee table book on “Happy Married Life” held menacingly.

You will, obviously, see incremental little changes on the template as time passes. Mostly in colour and some layouts and things.

But the real change will be, hopefully, in my posting frequency. Honestly I don’t write half the time half as much as I should like and I like less than half my posts half as much as I should like to.

So this time I will try to change things around here a little bit. I will try to post a little something everyday. Maybe not a full blogpost. But snippets of news, links, pictures and other such esoterica.

Original or not, I am sure everything will amuse you, my dear reader.

Of course it is not all altruistic. I am looking to use the blog as a proper vehicle for my writing and consulting work. Therefore you will find links above to pages that showcase my non-blog writing and my contact details as well.

So there. Nothing as refreshing as a fresh new beginning eh? Hope you enjoy things here as much as you did back at Domain Maximus 1.0. Who knows? Things could get even better here.

So full steam and onward ho!

p.s. The guy in the banner is Parthsarathy Kalasalingus.

p.s.s. ‘Whatay’ is a word with much meaning and significance.

p.s.s.s. More on both in time.

Busy busy couple of days. Travelling up and down fuelled only on vada pav, kothimbir vadi and fish and cilantro clear soup. Was in Pune for a bit. (And Arpit before you go ballistic I tried asking around for your number and could not find it on dbabble either.)

Recently I spent a good day checking out wordpress and wondering if I should just migrate the whole thing there. Then I decided I would be creating maha pain for the thousands of blogs that link to the 14 blogs that link here.

So that idea got ditched.

So now I am just trying to get blogger to do unheard of fancy things with CSS, AJAX, HTML, XHTML, IUML, PMK and so on. (Though I think I will go for one of those WordPress layouts with the tabs on top and all. Want to create multiple channels: blogs, links, news, pictures and videos of myself. Relevant stuff.)

Not ruling out a move to an exclusive domain sometime in the future though.

Book Update: Tons of people have been asking me what happened to my book. Well I had to stash that away during that small distraction of getting married. And then subsequently I got caught up in the vaccuming, laundry, roti making. gobi plucking and things like that. But I am glad to say that things are back on track. And I should be able to rake in the moolah in another six months or so.

But in the meantime I want a few of you fresh, young just-post-MBA recruit type guys to send me some of your stories from the workplace. Not the usual Dilbert type nincompoopery. I want those stories which have a typical Indian angle to them. Things involving Human Resources, Interviews, Annual Apprasials, PSUs, the Underworld etc. are particularly welcome. You will be suitably rewarded. Bhai guarantees it.

Hafta Magazine Update: Thousands of people on a daily basis read articles posted on Hafta Magazine and Rediff.com combined. But we have had our fair share of problems. Upload issues. RSS feeds went bad. Formatting. Etc. etc.

A lot of you came in with feedback. And we are now trying to implement all of them. We are working on the format a bit. Then there’s the text editors and upload system. And the entire value proposition in general. In the hurry to put out articles we sort of lost our way in terms of keeping the audience interested. So give us a little time to do that. A couple of weeks at best.

We are therefore trying to now get onboard a fresh group of writers to support our existing bunch. I know a LOT of you mailed me last year. But this time it would be great if some of you could send across pieces of writing as well. Or links to your best blog posts. Mail them to sidinsv@haftamag.com. (Yes we have upgraded the email system as well. Works on Google Apps now. Lost hajaar emails on the old domain-supported one.)

Pitch in. There is a nice bunch of people on board already. And besides we need the help.

NOW QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Somewhere in Navi Mumbai. Just before a Siemens office. (Maybe in Vashi.) There is a hotel by the name of “Hotel Threestar”. That’s the actual name. And it looks decent too.

What would they do if, god forbid, one day they became an actual four-star hotel?

“Hello Hotel Threestar. How can I help you?”
“Hello is this Threestar?”
“No sir we are now four-star…”
“Oh. Sorry wrong number.”

I was just wondering.

Dear Peoples

Drop in a line if any of you can help me with a good book agent. I think my book might be ready to be picked up for several millions of dollars. Or rupees.

Many thanks

Me

Dear All,

Phew. Gasp. Sigh. YIPEE!!!

Hafta Magazine emerges today with its first issue. Check out the site, read some of the 18 articles put up already and do leave your comments.

There are some familiar names there and some new ones at HaftaMag.

We do have some issues with formatting and forgive us the clunky parts in the interface. Hafta is undergoing constant evolution as we speak.

But there is a lot of excellent, thought provoking content put up already and we aspire to be the latest addition to your list of bookmarks.

www.haftamag.com

Go NOW!

(Update 4: Phew! Thanks a ton for the response people. We have lined up a bunch of great writers and truckloads of eager contributors. We still need more but hold your emails for the time being. If you’ve mailed in and not got a response so far do not fret! You will be contacted in due course. This thing is looking very very interesting…)

(Update 3: Excuse all who have mailed in/left comments and have heard nothing from me. I am plowing through the emails trying to match interests to sections. Everyone who has mailed in will get a response but just give me a little time. Currently I still need people enthu to cover business and “all sports”.)

(Update 2: The response has been accumulating rapidly. We have a high-power civil servant on board who will give us the inside line. A couple of music maestros and a very keen lifestyle editor. And an agony aunt. Don’t let the “Mumbai” moniker hold you back. It’s open to anyone serious about doing this. Send me no resumes. Link to your blog will do well. Expedite expedite!)

(Update 1: We have a photographer, a cricket-writer, a business whiz and a couple of general writers who’ve buzzed me. And, lo and behold!, we also have someone who is willing to donate server space! Yey! So now all I need it more editors. Please please reply. Or pass on the word.)

Hark! Hark! Hark!

Imagine an online magazine that has Bombay blood running in its veins. Free, fair and fun. Serious about quality and credibility. But laughs at itself after a brief moment of embarrassment while it frantically looks around for an excuse. Something that eventually will be as elaborate as this but maybe with a little of this irreverence.

A magazine that brings together writers, especially bloggers, who have strong opinions, will stick by them, and will smoothly adopt new ones when proven wrong. We will be cocky, yes, but not pretentious.

It will not pay you anything. The opportunity to write and be read will be reward in itself. And anything we may make will be plowed back.

At some stage we will be bought out by a private equity firm and then we will all retire happily into homes on Nepean Sea Road. I am not joking. Maybe.

But before that we need some able-minded and fleet-fingered writer types. The author envisions the following:

An online mag which will come out every Monday morning in time for the intrepid office-goer looking for exquisite lunch-break literature. High quality content in bite-sized 800-1000 word pieces. If there is one word that must describe the content it should be: ‘Intelligent’. A tiny bit of this with a smattering of this with a distinct Mumbai tang to it.

As Winston Churchill once famously said, I can only promise you the headaches of sacrosanct deadlines, painstaking proofing and a few hours of madness on the weekends. The comments, including ones like “Go do it with a mad dog you imbecile”, will come on their own.

So if you are a Bombay-lover, or write like one, and want to be a co-conspirator check out the profiles below:

1. Lifestyle Editor: Books. Movies. Restaurants. Hotels. Porn.
2. Music Editor: Albums, shows, soundtracks, crit
3. City Editor: Local happenings, local news, , local trains, local stuff
4. Business and Economics: Sensex. WTO. Karvy. Shit like that.
5. Sports Editor: Cricket, Football, F1, Lacrosse, Darts, Competitive Eating etc.
6. Politics Editor: National, International, Inter-brother
7. People and Places Editor: Social and Environment, Andolans
8. Template Designer
9. Server Space!! – Kindly Donate Whole Heartedly

Yours truly will be the glue that holds the whole thing together and makes most when we cash out.

You will drive your mag-space and to start off with we will need one article a week.

Operations to be sorted out once a team is in place.

Target launch date: 1st Monday of June

Drop me a mail at sidinsunny at gmail dot com. Tell me what tickles your creative heebie-jeebies. As unlikely as it seems this might turn out to be great fun. Positions filling fast!!!

Ciao.