100 Followers Celebration

On the fateful day of December 18 2017, history was created on this place in the blogosphere I’ve come to call my home- Charlie and the Cerebration Factory, which has confused many a blogger into believing my name is Charlie, while it is just a spin on the title of one of the most famous books written by my first official ‘favourite author’. I once thought of changing it to ‘Nerds of a Feather’, but never came around to doing it.

On a completely different note, I don’t even know why I’m typing in italics.

Makes it sound more formal and narrative, I guess. Anyway, as you’ve probably guessed from the title of this post, I’ve reached a hundred followers!

Thank you, Dhanyawad, Shukriya, Efcharisto to everyone who made this possible (couldn’t add more, since these are all the languages I know). It’s taken a long time, but it has been worth the wait. Each and every one of you- whether you followed me in February itself when I got the Factory up and running, or discovered my place a day ago- has been instrumental in achieving this milestone. I could have been at 99 for all I know, if it hadn’t been for you, dear follower. So it’s as much your milestone as mine.

I still remember the day I celebrated 10 followers. I was so happy that day. Now, it’s like my happiness is ten times of what it was back then.

I started this blog with nothing more than a desire to get my writing out there in the world and gain some background before trying to publish a book. But this blog has given me so much more. It has made me disciplined, has improved my skills by forcing me to write something every week. It has pulled me out of my comfort zone by pushing me into the terrain of 100-word stories and whatnot. It has been the reason for numerous smiles on my face- my first like, my first comment from a stranger, my first follower. My hundredth follower. The lovely words of appreciation which are actually honest, because they are from people I don’t know. The constructive critiques and the words of advice, which have challenged me and helped me grow.

It has also been the reason for tears as much as for smiles. Those days when I’d just started out, and I used to check the number of visitors daily, being in a bad mood all day when that bar graph remained at zero. Those days of self-doubt, when it killed me to look at blogs with a hundred, five hundred, a thousand followers, neglecting the time for which they’d been running in my naïve jealousy. Those days when I absolutely had to publish a post every two or three days, otherwise the world would end. Those days of shameless self-publicizing.

Looking back down this road, these potholes have shaped me as much as the smooth stretches, if not more.

In the end, I’d just like to say- thank you for holding my hand through the woods,  giving me my space as I argued with myself, attending my poetry conventions like a good friend, even when I made silly little parodies, patiently listening to all the stories I had to tell, being understanding when I turned into a vocab geek and laughing at my cheesy jokes. Thank you, dear follower.