On September 1st 2021, this small space in the internet celebrated its 7th year of existence. A small project started out as an escape from monotony, soon helped me take different paths in life, literally and figuratively. Slowly and steadily it was guiding me and re-routing me to different things which I had never even thought that I would pursue in life.
In certain odd ways this blog has become the place where I documented my experiments with life even though you can't really see any such experiments. But in my mind, I know that some of these journeys I have mentioned here have shaped me, taught me and introduced me a very different version of myself.
Initial days of blogging were full of excitement. Those were the day of learnings, experiments, virtual friendships, appreciation and more. Over the period of time, it made me do many interesting things and one among them was self-publishing a book. All those things cumulatively led me to land many opportunities which were not even in my wildest wish lists!
While travelling I've been offered jobs, business partnerships, paid gigs and more because of having this blog. No, I am not talking about sponsored posts and FAM trips and free trips and all that. I am talking about real world travel gigs that came to me where someone helped me or where I could help someone to create something valuable. All thanks to travel. But for making me travel and to be at the right place at the right time, I have to be thankful to this blog which constantly ignited the fire to seek new experiences and places.
Along with these opportunities, came the urge to earn from the blog, reach more people and to make it more search engine friendly and all these stuff, because almost everyone was doing it and people who had started during the same time I had started were reaping benefits. On a retrospection, going after such temptations would be one of the wrong decisions I have taken for this blog, along with not being consistent.
Gradually I became regularly irregular and all of sudden I started writing and posting to please the SEO gods. The combination of these things might have miffed off the last few regular readers of this space and they stopped coming. Then I realized I won't be able to go far without a little bit of appreciation and support. That is when I myself stopped coming back here.
One of the latest comments I have received here sums up my journey so far. Here I quote the comment that made me think
"I see you’ve made lots of changes to your site. I was trying to find a post with the famous pictures I remember so well … the beautiful angles and light that you used to capture … and figured this one promised pictures. Was not disappointed.
Am not too sure if many of your other posts are interviews or travel advisories? Just a thought … when I come to Trablogger I am looking for the exceptional photos you used to post. Will need to browse a bit more to stumble on them This was a quick hi.
Clearly I have changed over the years!!
Refreshing the notifications every 10 minutes to updating the plugins twice a year has been the two extremes of my journey over the 7 years.
Every year, around this time I'd come here and make those 'New Year' resolutions which lasts not more than a month. Here I am again, to make some more promises for the 7th year of blogging.
Like mentioned in the comment above, I think I should go back to my original idea of taking people on a virtual photo walk. So from now on, I will try to go back to the basics and remind myself why I started this blog in the first place. So if you are reading this, come join me for more virtual photo walks. Hopefully I will stick to the plan and post more, at least on this 7th year!
Thanks a lot for your support.