I was tagged by Thejesh on a series of questions that he had answered about blogging . His format of writing in very simple one liners is what had prompted me to take up weekly notes as well. I think the format is very freeing to document how I live my weeks’. I discovered his blog ring and the fact that I’m in the ring only after reading that post.
I had just fixed the RSS feed on my site and had added his blog to my feed (Because giving up Twitter meant I no longer see recent updates from contextual folks (Indians, politics, tech and other happenings) and I do not open BlueSky as much as I used to open Twitter for it does have an Indian momentum yet. I had to see updates somewhere, and thus I set up my first RSS feed, and caught the tag by accident.
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
I hated thinking of Instagram as the sole sharing platform for my photographs. I learnt of Flickr, I tried creating galleries on my site, I thought of sharing as very curated collections, like many photographers and magazines do, ref1. But I could not settle or find comfort and momentum in any one way of sharing. Instagram had become too performative. I had been following Thejesh’s weekly notes for a few months in 2024. And suddenly in the first week of 2025, decided to write them as well. They have naturally become a way for me to share my photographs, in the many ways I want, in a space I own.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?
This is a Hugo site, that I’ve designed over the years. The base theme is called PaperMod. A CMS for a static site means it will depend on Git, like TinaCMS, and I’ve yet to reconcile the fact that my blog will now be photo heavy, something that is not well suited for Git. For now, I build the Hugo site locally and push to Netlify, who hosts it. My dream is to buy a ThinkCenter like machine soon, to self-host and serve my sites. The Constitutional Observer is self-hosted on a server at Aruvu for the timebeing for example
How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?
I write on VS Codium! And very inefficiently manually curate and convert my photos to the webp format before building. I’ve also begun writing on my paper journal.
When do you feel most inspired to write?
Whatever I remember brightly after the day ends goes here. Whatever was photographed may also go here.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I publish immediately. I suppose I’m not blogging yet (only writing weekly notes for the time being) ! If I let them simmer, I never complete them. I have small notes sitting in my Signal, and more recently on my paper journal. On Saturday I begin writing, and publish by Sunday, or sometimes mid week.
What’s your favorite post on your blog?
I wish I could add more to this post: Innocent questions, innocent poetry, political personals’ but until writing becomes more regular, I will have to wait for it.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
I was talking to Aman to see if having my RSS feed public would be a good idea. A public RSS reader on my site, something like Thejesh’s blogring, but as a feed. I also want to selfhost it, and automate image compression.
Who’s next?
I am only learning of and frequenting blogs now. Thej already tagged Mihir, so I will reserve my right to tag somebody at a later point in time here, hehe.