What the readers are saying

If you notice, there is a green link called “ShortSurvey” on the right hand side of this page. Sometime back, I had requested regular readers to take this survey so that I can get an idea of who they are. Blogging can often get isolating in this age of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where it is very easy to have a real-time, two-way, instant conversation. However, I am old-school, am neither on Twitter nor Instagram, do not restrict my thoughts to a certain number of characters, and still find that blogging is the best way to express my thoughts. I do agree that interaction becomes delayed and one-sided, and I am not really the best at replying to comments. But about sixty of you filled out the survey, and your responses were enlightening. I promised not to identify people or publish personal comments, so I’d rather post some generic findings. I am all about the stories that data tell, so thank you to those who took the time to respond to the survey. You can still do it.

Sixty percent of those who filled the survey are women.

Sixty-three percent of those who filled the survey live in India. Twenty-eight percent live in North America, and the rest in Europe.

Seventy-eight percent who filled the survey are in the age range of 30-40 years. Eighteen percent are younger (20-30 years) and a very tiny sliver of those who sent me their responses are in the range of 40-50 years.

A good number of those who filled out the survey live in Bangalore.

I do get some of this information about geographical locations from the trackers on my blog. I know that till date, the US, India and Russia are where I get most of the traffic from, closely followed by Germany, UK and Ukraine. I do not know anyone from Russia, UK or Ukraine, and would love to know who they are and how they got here. For example, are they Indians living in other countries, or are they Russians and Ukrainians?

I know that I get a lot of traffic from Sayesha’s and Ovshake’s blog. Thank you!

I also know that a lot of you end up here while looking for “green veins in legs”

Now some more interesting findings. A whooping sixty-four percent of those who filled the survey said that they have never shared any post of mine with the others. Only 8.6% said that they have shared, and the rest responded “Sometimes.” I wonder, why?

Some more interesting findings. Forty-eight percent of those who said that they share said that they do so by email. In this day of quick information sharing using Facebook and Twitter, I had not expected emails to be the prime mode of sharing.

Now onto some interesting comments. There is a question where I ask you if you have any questions or comments for me. There was a time when I had a fancy pair of red shoes as my header. Those are my favorite shoes and I still wear them. Someone commented that it looked like wearing shoes inside a temple. It was hilarious. However, I thought more about it, it did seem like wearing shoes inside a temple. After much deliberation, I removed them and made my blog shoe-free.

Someone said that they don’t like that I have self-esteem and that I have become more stubborn over the years. I don’t know how true that is, but coming from people who mostly know a slice of my life though my own writings, I was definitely amused. What is wrong in having self-esteem?

It was also interesting that most of you said that you started reading me 10-12 years ago. There were very few of you who were recent readers. It does say a lot about the loyalty of readers. Thank you for that as well.

Some of you wanted to know my name, where I live and where I work. I have nothing against these questions, but over all these years, I have tried to maintain anonymity as much as I can. I never share my own posts. I know that people connect more to writers when they have seen their picture or know their name. However, I have shied away from revealing personal information to complete strangers. This was a deliberate decision after a string of harassment and internet bullying episodes I experienced long back. The internet can empower a lot of people with both good and bad intentions. One of you asked for a picture and I did share a picture, only to receive a hilarious response. The person said that they were expecting a much older blogger but I look much younger than what they thought.

One of you asked me a very interesting question. “In a world without work visas, what would you do?” I absolutely loved that question. If I haven’t already, I plan to blog about it sometime. If I have already done so, please remind me. With the amount of writing I do, my memory fails me at times.

One of you also asked if I have ever made friends through my blog and if I have met them. Plenty. Definitely has to be more than fifteen. Okay, maybe that is not a lot, but given the level of anonymity I maintain on my blog, I would think meeting fifteen people over the past twelve years is a lot.

A lot of you mentioned finding my blog through Munnu’s blog. He is one friend I am glad I met during my initial days of blogging. We used to be close friends, although I have no idea what he is up to these days.

For reasons not clear to me, I saw that my blog readership started declining sharply since May of this year. I do not know why it happened, and the numbers keep falling. That has made me wonder how worthy it is to put my time and energy into blogging. Reflecting about it has also made me realize that at the end of the day, I am writing for myself. I am aware that I do not do it that often, and if I could, I would write a little snippet at the end of every day before going to bed. However, no matter how infrequently I write and no matter how much readership decreases, this blog is my own personal nook that I enjoy hanging out at. Sometimes I read old posts, as old as a decade ago and fondly remember those times of my life. My family does not know about my blog, but maybe I could write it in my will so that they can read it if I pass before they do.

All that aside, thank you for reading the blog over the years and also to those who filled out the survey. I have recently added a few more features on the right so that it is easier to contact me and leave a feedback or comment for me one-on-one. So don’t hesitate to reach out in whatever way, by writing to me, commenting, sharing, and helping me keep my blog up and running. You could also tell me anything you would like me to write about, and if I feel enthused enough, I will do it. Some of you did not like a recent template I was using and I changed it after I realized that I do not like it as well. So yes, I do take comments and good feedback seriously. I have toyed with the idea of writing more about academia from a faculty’s point of view, since I am one now. But I also wonder how interesting that would be for readers not in academia. I am a compulsive story teller and I itch to tell stories about my life, things that I see and things that I find interesting. This blog is the longest commitment and longest long-term relationship I have had with anyone or anything.

sunshine 

Reading the reader

I have never looked at my email more eagerly, waiting for the readers to speak up. And they did. Not as many as I would have hoped, my hope being hundreds. But many spoke out their hearts, making me go “awwwww”. Here are some highlights.

1. Most of you have been reading my writings for more than five years, some close to ten years. I can see how just like reading, reading someone can become a habit.

2. My only disappoint is, so many of you blatantly admitted that you read but never share my writings. Do share. Writing becomes a lot more fun when there are more readers.

3.  A heart-melting moment.

“[I was] worried when you didn’t write for 6 months or so. I secretly prayed that you are alright wherever you are.”

I never knew I had well-wishers I never knew about. J In 2016, I made a resolution to write more regularly. My blog was slowly dying, and I was constantly forgetting the little things that inspired me. So now, I trying to write at least a few times every week.

4. What do you not like about this blog?

“Chappals on the header!” someone said. 

I laughed and laughed and died laughing. I left them there because those are my favorite pair of shoes. I still wear them. It also gave me a feeling akin to taking your shoes off when you enter someone’s house, the blog metaphorically being my home.

5. Looks like my grandma stories are a hit!

6. Someone asked me a question which was very thoughtful.

“In a world without work visa issues, what would you be doing and where?”

I absolutely love this question. I have often contemplated about this myself. I’d love to write a post about it very soon. Thank you for asking me such a nice question.

7. “If we end up at same city some day, I would like to meet you.”

Me too. And given how much I travel, that could be sooner than you anticipate. J

8. “How do you manage writing this frequently with all the work and travel you do!!”

I even write in Bangla. Just not here. Maybe I should start posting some of those here. I have actually started enjoying writing in Bangla even more than English.

9. “Don't you miss companionship (like a romantic partner/husband/boyfriend)?” 

I have plenty of companionship. I know more people than I can comfortably handle. Not everything gets posted on the blog, so it is easier to develop a uni-dimensional view about the writer.

10. “Real name?”

sunshine, with a lower case s.

I’d really love it if you shared my writings more, especially because I am going to transition very soon and start writing more career-related posts. And do fill out the form if you haven’t. The link will always be on the right hand side. I have even included a “follow by email” and “contact form” option recently, so that it is easier to stay in touch.

Regarding the chappal/shoes, let me think some more. 

sunshine

Knowing my readers

My life is an open blog. However, I do not know most of my readers. I often check my blog stats that show interesting trends. Let me share some:

1. I have the highest number of readers from the US, followed by India and Germany. Given the huge population of India, I would have suspected India.

2. My most popular article is a one-paragraph review I wrote about the book: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. 

3. This month, I had audiences from Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, and Japan. I have no idea who they are.

4. One of the topmost things people are looking for when they land up on my blog is, "green vein on legs."

I would love to know more about who you are. So please take some time to fill out this form (link also on the right hand side of this page). All responses are optional, confidential, and anonymous. You also get to ask me one question in the survey, although I do not promise to reply. :) 

Thank you,

sunshine

A Personal Touch

Over the last few weeks, several people have sent me emails, asking me how am I doing, sending me links to jobs that might be a potential fit, listing institutions I could look into, or simply wishing me luck. And I have read all these emails and messages multiple times, smiling, and basking in the feeling of wonder. Many of you wrote that you have been reading me for years now, and never commented, until now. Some of you appreciated that in this age of twitter and Facebook, I still wrote long blogs. It was like suddenly discovering a mini treasure chest of friends who I did not know existed.

Thank you for every note and every comment you wrote for me. I am not very good at replying right away, but that is not an excuse. What amazes me is, even after sharing so little personal information, you have been interested to continue reading. I don’t think I would be very keen on reading someone whose name I did not know, but I might be wrong. I consciously try not to mention identifiers, names of people and universities and where I live and where I work and what color car I drive. Because when I started blogging back in 2005 (almost 9 years and going strong), I wanted to be this totally anonymous person on the web people did not know about. That way, I could write more freely without hesitation. I see many people on Facebook promoting their blogs (which is fine I guess if you do not want to be anonymous), and then going a step ahead and soliciting certain people from their friend’s list to read and comment. It makes me cringe, though it should not. To me, it is a self-selecting group of readers. Nothing wrong in that. It just makes me feel weird that people personally known to me are reading everything I write. It would be fine if I wrote movie reviews and restaurant reviews and fictional stories. Not otherwise.

However, those emails I received were lovely. And I want to genuinely know who you all are. Not because I am going through a crisis and looking for a job and could do with some much needed support. I just want to know who you all are. To me, it feels like I have been performing on stage all this while, the spotlights on me, while my readers sit in darkness watching the show.

Please send me an email at sunshinenjoy[at]gmail[dot]com if you’d like to say hi. I look forward to hearing from you.

sunshine

From virtual to real

In my almost-6 years of blogging, I have had the opportunity to meet some of my readers and fellow bloggers. For those I have not met, I have been able to talk to some of you over the telephone. The meetings are always special, and people are always very warm. What thrills me is the fact that there are people I didn’t know of, who take the time to read and appreciate what I write, and remember very minute details. While chatting, the topic usually comes to how did they discover my blog, and how did they manage to read it for so long. I have a good friend who was interviewing with Microsoft and hence asked if we could meet up over dinner. While chatting, we discovered that we have a dozen friends in common. There was another friend I met at the local bakery and talked to for hours, and discovered more friends in common. Last Christmas, I met another dear friend and fellow blogger. When I was at a conference last month, I had the opportunity to meet another reader friend of mine. The list is long.

When it comes to talking about my blog, everyone usually asks a unique question, and no two people have asked me the same question. It is interesting how people remember different posts, and certain things they read resonate and leave a lasting impression. Someone asked me my name, and it is then that I realized I had talked to that person without telling them my name. Someone else actually wanted to remember me as sunshine, and didn’t want to know my name. Someone had asked me if Baby Kalyani is real (yes, she is very real and an important person in my life). Someone else asked me what make and model was sunshine car. It is interesting how different posts, and different characters resonate with different people. People remembered G, Baby Kalyani, or my car from the posts. However, I was talking to another reader friend of mine, and this was a very interesting response. I asked my reader friend how it feels to communicate with a blogger in real time, talk to them, and see what they look like. I asked if it feels different to have a face to a name. My reader friend said, it is the same as meeting a person at a conference, whose papers you have been reading for a long time.

Being a PhD student myself, I loved this response, and this way of putting it.

sunshine

Who's, Why’s, and How’s

A quick word: Thank you all for writing to me; if it was not for the screwed up internet connection in the lab right now, I would have replied to all of you. Please leave me your email id because in some comments, it is impossible for me to find an email id to be able to write back to you. If your initial is "A" or "P" (I will not give out more details) and you have just commented, please let me know your email id, because I am unable to find one.

You can write to me at sunshinenjoy[at]gmail[dot]com

As a blogger with more than 5 years of blogging experience, the questions that always arouse my curiosity are- Who are my readers? How did they land up here? How long have they been reading me? What do they do in their life? Do they like what they read? What is it that they don’t like? What is it they wished they read?

Some of you comment once in a while, and I go back to your profiles to know you better. Some of you drop me an email every now and then, and I have become great friends with some of you that way. Some of you say a hi when you read something you resonate with. And some of you end up as anonymous readers. Yet whenever I go through my “Neocounter” (which is perhaps once every 30 minutes of my waking hours), I wonder who are these readers who left their footprints here. I know someone from Ann Arbor, Michigan, someone from North Carolina, and someone from Ohio drops by every now and then. And then there are people from Egypt, U.A.E., Belgium, and Spain who drop by as well. According to my blog, visitors from 158 countries have read me. Who are they and how did they end up here?

My blog is my comfort zone, where I write about anything and everything I want to. However, sometimes it feels like performing or lecturing in front of a room full of audience I cannot see, because the spotlights are on me. So if you feel comfortable enough and agree that what I am asking is reasonable, please drop me a line introducing yourself, and tell me how did you land up here and how long have you known me. You are welcome to write more if you want to. You can comment here, or you can write me an email. Whatever you write to me is strictly going to be confidential. Just come say a hi if you want to. Who knows, you might be the person who works in the adjacent lab and you haven’t yet figured out I am that person who takes the bus with you every morning.

sunshine

Five reasons I could never be a food blogger

Have you ever appreciated something, realizing you could never do that yourself even if you tried hard? No matter how much I love to write, I know I could never be a food blog writer. If I try hard, I “might” possibly succeed at romantic fiction, maybe articles like “100 things not to do when you are young and stupid”, or an article or two sometimes about a book I read or a movie I watched that no one else cared about, but never a food blog. I look at amazing food blogs I follow and go wow. I have a fair amount of childhood memories of flipping through the Bengali magazine “Sananda” (Aparna Sen was the editor then), getting straight to the “Rannabanna” section (the food section), which would keep me busy drooling for a while. However, the concept of publishing something you cook for others to see was not an option then. Now it is. Many of my friends successfully maintain food blogs and Facebook pages. It is a treat to go through them and drool. However, I cannot imagine myself having one. The reason? I’ll give you five, and let me know if they don’t seem good enough. I’ll then give you 50 more!

1. Lack of food vocabulary

I might have learnt 20,000 words when I was preparing for the GRE, but when it comes to food vocabulary, I find myself having the vocabulary of a 5 year old. I don’t even understand half the technical terms, that are not really culinary jargon but regular words. Simmer. Season. Croquettes. Couscous. Tortillas. Quesadillas. I don’t even recognize half the vegetables. Chives? Zucchini? Shallots? I could imagine myself confused in a grocery store looking for these vegetables for hours. I recognize what I grew up eating- potatoes (yeah Bengali people eat a lot of them), onions, spinach, and so on. It took me ages to find out that brinjal is eggplant and lady’s finger is okra. Then, I look at phrases and sentences and wonder if I could ever come up with words like these. “Remove with a slotted spoon.” Who the hell knew what a slotted spoon was? “Mix in a non-reactive mixing bowl.” I could never come up with the non-reactive word unless I took a course in culinary classes. “To a pot of water add the bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and peppercorn and bring to a rolling boil.” What exactly is a rolling boil? “Add a drizzle of oil or ghee. Add a lime wedge.” I like the words drizzle (and not “put”) and lime wedge (instead of “cut a piece of lime”).

2. I don’t know the art of culinary foreplay

I like most food blogs, not only because they put up extremely tempting pictures of good food (that I assume tastes as good as it looks), but also because food bloggers weave a story plot around why they cooked what they did. Who cares about how you make fried fish or baked chicken, you can find the recipe from any number of sources. What makes it interesting are the stories writers weave around their culinary experiences. Stories about how the in-laws were arriving and one had to impress them with their culinary exploits. Stories about how the rainy, romantic weather prompted someone to make hilsa curry. Stories about how there was chicken in the freezer and zucchini in the vegetable tray and you could either go to bed on an empty stomach or make zucchini chicken. If I wrote a food blog, my posts would look like the salt analysis tests you did in chemistry lab years ago. Take salt. Add hydrochloric acid. Check for effervescence. Look for a precipitate. Discard solution. Add more sulphuric acid till you felt nauseated with the smell of rotten eggs that could also be coming from the lunch box of your lab partner and not necessarily out of your test tube. Similarly, take fish. Cut with knife. Fry with oil. Use Burnol if you burn yourself while frying. If it turns out to be too salty, feed it to the neighbors. You see, I fail to weave stories around what I cook, mostly because most of my culinary expeditions are borne out of hunger pangs, and not out of fantasies of food associations and fancy food related stories. I am just too straight to the point. I don’t know the art of culinary foreplay.

3. Culinguistically challenged: Lack of imagination in coming up with food names

I am extremely unimaginative when it comes to thinking of names of dishes. Who knew a little alcohol mixed to lassi makes it a fanciful “lassi with a kick”? Or a lot of green vegetables added to kababs could make it hariyali kabab. I always wondered if chicken do pyaaza is made of 2 onions. Is “murg-e-bahar” called so because it is made of chicken and all the vegetables that were threatening to become bio-weapons in the fridge? “Kadhai chicken” is made in a kadhai, I get it, but so is every other kind of dish I cook. I have never cooked a “kadhai-less kofta” or “bin kadhai ke aloo”. My culinary expert friends would die of shame if I told them I thought shiitake mushrooms are pronounced shit-take mushrooms. I would be very uncomfortable sitting in French or Italian restaurants because I have no clue what they would serve me with promises of making me some “Petite sautee de courgettes a la Grecque” or “ Poco rosso di zucchini con limone et olio della Toscana”. Even if they gave me their simpler English version of “Caramelized zucchini medallions in a light citrus reduction”, it is far more complicated for me to decipher the contents compared to something like, say macher jhol, kosha mangsho, or shorshe chingri (shrimp cooked in mustard sauce). I like to keep names simple, and take them at face value. I can’t imagine getting lost in between the rezalas and the marsalas (which sound like bad words or “gaali”s anyway, no matter how good they taste). Sure, I can try coming up with fancy names if you insist, but I don’t think you are going to appreciate them. Trust me, nothing is going to whet you appetite if I called Maggi “White flour curlers”.

4. "Present”ation: I have no future in it

When I see food pictures, I don’t just see the food. I marvel at how well food bloggers excel at “food modeling”. It seems it is not enough to place a dish of steaming hot pasta and take a picture. It is as bad as taking pictures of someone in their home clothes. You need to make them wear better clothes, take them to a scenic location, and then take pictures. Similarly the plate of steaming hot pasta should be accompanied by a flower pot whose flowers should be out of focus in the picture, but still visible enough. The bowl of fish curry should have to green chillies criss-crossed on it as garnishing. The chicken curry should be accompanied by the open pages of a food book again out of focus so that no one knows if you were reading about eggplants and cooking chicken. You need to use props- a recipe book, a glass of wine, a flower vase, a coffee mug, something to make your food look pretty. And just like you cannot make someone model for you wearing the same clothes everyday, you cannot use the same bowl, plate, or cutlery to take pictures of everything you cook. A deep-yellow curry should have a lighter plate in the background. A black bowl will background well against the white raita. Most of the food I cook looks yellow anyway, either because I put too much turmeric, or because my home has yellow lighting and I don’t know how to use my camera well. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t tried. I once made an omelet, put some tomato ketchup on it, and posted the pic on this blog when someone commented, “Hey it seems your omelet is wearing a red bandaid”. It cracked me up, but it told me a lot about my presentation skills. I figured if someone wanted to make an omelet, they could go to “n” number of great food blogs out there. They don’t need to come to sunshine blog.

5. If I cook and garnish and present and take pics and write blogs, when do I get to eat?

This is singlehandedly the most important reason why I could never write a food blog. I am just too busy waiting to hungrily pounce on the food, starting the process when I start cooking, munching on stuff, taking a ladle full of steaming soup even before it is done, picking up that piece of chicken straight from the cooking vessel and ending up with blisters on my tongue. Once my food is cooked and ready on the plate, chances are less that I will decorate it with flowers and fancy props to take pictures. Chances are more that I will pounce on it and finish every bit of it, licking my fingers, licking the bowl, and not stopping till I sensed that loud burp knocking the walls of my food pipe.

sunshine

Gone with the wind ??

I’m not depressed or suffering. I haven’t gained weight in the last few months (in fact I have lost some). The Europe trip is still on. Overall, everything is going great (well, kinda). Yet I had an unusually morbid thought today.

What would happen to my blog if I died?

Now the little bit of money and belongings I have can go to my family. I’d be sad to part with my car, but remember, I am dead, so theoretically I couldn’t be feeling sad. Anyone wanting to claim my wardrobe, books, and other stuff is welcome. But what happens to my blog?

Does it vanish after a while? Does it become a ghost blog? Does it stay for people to read in future? Does it become a nationally preserved historic site? Since most of my blog readers wouldn’t know I am dead, would Google make an official announcement on my blog that I am dead, and people shouldn’t expect posts in future? Now my blog has comment moderation, meaning any comment posted has to get approved by me first. So even if someone makes an announcement of my death, or posts a “May your soul RIP sunshine. We are glad there will not be any meaningless posts in future” comment, who is going to publish the comment? What exactly will happen to my blog when I am dead?

Now the future of my blog shouldn’t really matter to me once I am dead. But while I am alive, I think it does matter. Like I can decide the fate of my materialistic belongings, I would like to decide the fate of my blog, something I started and have nurtured for years. What I do about it or how I do it, I don’t really know.

Your thoughts?

sunshine

Feeling thankful

I am feeling thankful towards all my readers today. It’s not an impulsive feeling that pops up every time I eat something, neither it is a periodic thing that happens every time the sun and the moon are making a certain angle in the sky. However, I was thinking of the way my life has changed the last few months, and the way my blog readers have stood by me.

There are some readers who now know me personally. They have taken me out for lunches, have patiently listened to all that I had to rant, have offered help, have called me during my times of intense depression to make sure I felt supported, and have done more. I soon forgot I know them through my blog. It felt I had always known them as my good friends.

And then there are people who don’t know me, who haven’t seen me, but the only connection they have with me is through my blog. They have sent me wonderful emails and encouraging comments. They have encouraged me to write. They have made suggestions about how to present things to make my blog look better. They have provided me with their email ids and phone numbers, asking me to get in touch if I ever needed anything. They have felt sad when I lost my job, and have rejoiced when I got PhD admits from multiple schools. They have made me feel as supported as my close friends from US and India have made me feel.

So without making it a long “thank you rant” and boring you to sleep, I want to thank each and everyone of you for being there. I don’t know most of you, but do drop me a line and say a hi whenever you want to. If you happen to live in Kolkata (or anywhere I live in future) and would like to say hi, please let me know. And please please send me an email if you want to remain in touch. The tech challenged person that I am, I have found it impossible to cruise through your webpage and find your email ids to send you a thank you reply (which is the least I can do). It’s a shortcoming I apologize for.

I look forward to knowing you all, and continue writing about things you will enjoy reading.

Thank you.

sunshine

Out-Numbered

I just realized that the increasing numbers in my car odometer give me as much joy and satisfaction as the increasing number on my blogometer. For both record how much I have come along and have traveled in my journey.

Often I compare driving and blogging as two feats, two achievements I have. A driver for 5 months and a blogger for a little less than 5 years, both were started with a lot of skepticism, during times of personal crisis. While I have driven for about 8,000 miles, I have had some 3/10^th of a million viewers . Of course these numbers are in approximation, but to me they symbolize personal growth and experience gained in life.

sunshine

Happy Birth Day Baby

July 17th, my blog turned four. Back in 2005 when I started writing, I didn’t know how my blog would change my life, and stick with me through my changed life. People have come and gone, I’ve changed jobs and locations, but if there is one thing I’ve held dear, it is the collage of various memories I have documented through my blog. I’ve always believed it is great to pen down at least one post at the end of the day, something that changed your life, something that made you think. This is an ideal situation of course, writing 30 blog posts a month, given that the last few months, I haven’t crossed the single digit number of posts. But the desire to blog more frequently still remains. Wishing my blog a very happy birthday. We have grown up together over the last few years, and I hope the partnership and the bonding continues.

sunshine

Supper With Sunshine

Monday mornings are lazy mornings, with the weekend lethargy still suffused into you and the mind not being able to clear up despite consuming galloons of coffee. On a dreary such Monday morning, I switched on my office computer, not expecting a lot of fun during the week ahead. As I punched in my password, I looked far out of the window, hoping for a rainbow, a snowfall, or something remarkable to happen. Talking about remarkableness, the password clicked, and I told myself like I always do – “You’ve got mail”.

Skimming through the email subject lines brought my attention to a certain email that forms the basis of this post. A few lines of introduction about the person, and I was wondering does this guy need feedback about his GRE preparation, or is writing about the list of schools he has selected, and seeks my opinion even though his specialization is something totally different like robotics (I often get such emails)? A few more lines and I was wondering does this guy need a favor from someone big shot I know? An extremely respectful but lengthy email got me thinking while skimming through- “What does this guy want after all?”

Well, it seems that he is a regular reader of my blog, is visiting town for some official work, and wanted to meet up. Meet up fine, but to ensure credibility so that I do not misunderstand his honest efforts as that of someone wanting to make franship, he had the foresight to send me his resume, website, his research interests, picture galleries, and a couple more details. The only things missing were names of references I could call up and verify the existence of the reader. Phew ! So much for a meeting.

My readers know that I have never met a blog reader except that one time when we ended up becoming inseparable buddies, and we proudly continue to do so. Otherwise, I have never met any of my readers in person, not as a rule, but more because no one has asked me to. So influenced by Koffee with Karan, will there be supper with sunshine? Will sunshine agree to meet this reader who is visiting her city? Will the reader treat her as a blog writer, or will be able to see beyond her writings as a human in flesh and blood? Will he come with preconceived notions and half formed expectations, wanting to find such and such thing in the person whose writings he is familiar with? Or can they meet as two individuals, and not as a blogger and a reader?

Time will say.

sunshine