Tuesday, July 24, 2007

On Fleeting Fame and Misc.

It has been about 20 days since my controversial post propelled me to instant albeit temporal fame on the blogosphere. For statistics' sake you can see this. The small spike on 17th is about the average number of hits I get everytime I publish a new post while the numbers in the beginning are all due to hits from Indiauncut, Instapundit and several other blogs whom I thank profusely for helping spread the word about what exactly I, along with more than a million Indian Muslims, felt about everything.

The comments were varied. While most were supportive and appreciated my stand, quite a few were skeptical about the whole issue while others were just abusively stupid. And oh, I finally managed to get my first death threat after which I felt like someone really important and realized what a kick it is to know that there are people out there waiting to get to you. I'm serious! Although the original comment was deleted, here is what it said:
You should watch what you say. You may be next. Placing your selfish desires to live with the kufir over Islam could get you hurt.
As they call it in messaging parlance, I was ROTFL. Needless to say, the comment was anonymous and I didn't bother tracking the IP.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is this: Fame is fleeting and that's a very good thing. A large number of people observing you can be nerve wrecking and I am not yet ready to write for an audience ( possibly a cliche often deployed by aspiring but unsuccessful authors). I still write for myself, a sort of a diary if you may call it. But on that day I will admit that I felt like Shilpa Shetty who shot to instant global fame post-BigBrother. One hit wonders like Rahul Roy and Kumar Gaurav could also be mentioned. What followed, as you can see in the graph, made me realise that you ride on a wave of popularity for a short while till it ebbs towards the shore leaving behind nothing but blurred lines on the sand along with a vague sense of familiarity. And when you return back to frivolity, the ripple yearns to rise again and possibly kiss Richard Gere only to lose itself in the ocean of other such ripples. Parveen Babi comes to mind. And so I say it once again:
Fame is fleeting and that's a very good thing.

But I'd hate to be a one hit wonder.

5 comments:

Zulfi said...

You are not a one hit wonder......... you can do more than that. Appreciated how well you articulated the views of so many..... and yes MANY
in brahmin dominated media were just wondering why muslims not joining al-quada.....for them half opertunity is more than what they wanted to have field day.

Anyway keep posting.

Unknown said...

i guess Islam is a highly misinterpreted religion, and a lot people who commented on misinterpreted your post.

Just to say i visit quite often...

Anonymous said...

I still drop by to visit your site from time to time, since i had it bookmarked.

Unknown said...

Must feel good to be popular, even if only for a short time. I suppose it was rather an out of control comment thread on that post. Especially, a few people who wrote 100 word essays on the comment thread. Perhaps, they should get their own blog and stop hijacking yours.

Lalbadshah said...

@zulfi, azhar, j.p. :
Thanks!

@Tarun: Yeah it felt good. And I'm not complaining about the length. But the content is something I was quite shocked at.