of souls

Okay, I think it’s time I cleared out the cobwebs on this blog. How long has it been? Two? Three weeks?

I’ve been suffering from a bout of the crazies (which is when I turn into Crankenstein and snap at everything that moves and knock over everything that doesn’t) and thought it would be best to stay away, until I got an email a few days ago with the subject: “Anawnimiss” has been Selected as one of the top 15 Love and Relationship blogs in India.

I was obviously elated – but when the write-up finally appeared, I was underwhelmed to say the least. The post was very carelessly written, in an attempt to quickly summarize the last few posts I’ve written. See for yourself.

This anonymous female tries to explain a mother’s unconditional love for her daughter which looks like a rude behaviour to others, horrifying experience of driving on roads, unwanted advices of people to a pregnant girl, and the happiness spread in the home on the birth of a baby boy. If you want to read her experiences please come over to this blog.

Needless to say, the review doesn’t even begin to capture the essence of this blog, its soul.

And that brings me to the question that has been plaguing me for three days, bothering me enough to step out of the shadows – what is the essence of this blog? Where does its soul lie?

This moment, we own it!

Okay, I have some more news.

Last week, I was interviewed by Smart Indian Women. They asked me all sorts of questions, and to be honest, I was a teensy bit jittery. My palms were sweaty and my heart was beating really fast. I went blank for a couple of seconds. It was like my first interview all over again. Except that this one was via Google docs. I’m lousy at this stuff you know!

But now that it has been published, I’m feeling pretty darned good about myself. I almost sound intelligent! 😉

Of course you can read the interview where it was published, but if you’re just as lazy as me, maybe you want to just stay and read right here.

Tell me what you think!

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Thanks for taking the time to chat with SIW. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your blog.     

Well, let’s see. I’m a 32 year-old twice-married-once-divorced Indian woman who writes anonymously. You might cross paths with me on the streets of Delhi; you may even know me personally, but you’ll never know who I really am, and that’s the point of my blog.

My story could be any woman’s story. My name is really not important, so I choose to stay Anawnimiss.

What makes your blog so unique and why should people read it?          

I’ve been told on several occasions that I write well, and that my stories are very relatable – that my struggles are experiences that other people have had but were afraid to talk about. People always say that the fact that I stepped up to the challenges life threw at me gives them some kind of hope.

But I think I also give them something to laugh about – I can be really funny sometimes. I take a serious topic based on my experiences, and then twist the written word in a way that is melodramatic and comic at the same time.

I think that may be the reason why people keep coming back and that’s why my blog works for them.

How often do you blog?              

I’m an obsessive-compulsive blogger. I have a funny experience, I blog about it. Something goes wrong, I have to write. I read something I like or dislike, and I have to put my thoughts out there in the blogging universe.

I’m pretty regular. There are variations in frequency, of course – sometimes you’ll see posts on a daily basis, and sometimes I write one post a week.

But I do check in every day and respond to every single comment.

What has been your most successful blog post to date and what was it about?

The most popular blog post I’ve written so far is called “of nasty things, like sex and masturbation”, where I write about how people need to stop being shy of talking about sex and masturbation.

A close second is “of religion”, which touches upon two really sore topics – Hindu-Muslim marriages and gender bias.

What do you find most challenging about blogging?     

While being anonymous gives me the benefit of being able to write what I want, I sometimes find myself wondering if I’m giving too much away or being too obvious. Will someone be able to tell it’s me is a question that I have to ask every single time I interact with people.

That is the biggest challenge for me, personally.

Other than that, I also feel that there’s never enough time to interact. There are so many interesting bloggers out there with stories to tell, I can never find enough time to get to know them personally.

What are some of your favorite author blogs and why?               

I have over 60 blogs on my blogroll and I love them all. It’s a mix of personal blogs, travelogues, fashion, and creative writing blogs.

What are your favorite books that you would recommend SIW family?               

I read a lot, as much as three books a week sometimes, but at the very core I’m a Virginia Woolf fan. And I don’t mean just her books. I have read her diaries – all six volumes – three times.

What advice would you give to young women readers of SIW who want to follow a similar career path as you?              

Being an independent thinking individual is important for men and women alike, so my advice to young women would be the same as my advice to young men – focus on who you are right now. Be who you want to be and stop trying to become what everyone else wants you to become.

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of stories

She seems confused. She talks about women, then talks about adventure. She’s seduced people, almost cheated on her boyfriend, been in a live-in relationship, by her own admission. What kind of person puts stuff like that on the internet? I don’t get personal blogging anyway. Why not just stick to a topic and blog about that? What does it matter whether you tell your story or not? Who cares?

She’s talking incessantly about me, without even knowing that she’s talking about me. To her I’m Anawnimiss, the ‘ridiculously shameless blogger’.

It was amusing at first, to listen to someone I know talk about my blog without realizing it’s mine. But then words started to sting. And yet I was quiet for the longest time, nodding my head, which is so unlike me.

I wanted to tell her that my story matters. Every story matters, because stories never belong to any one person. There are hundreds of people, women and men, just like me, with stories just like mine. They are traveling, dancing, getting married, having children, yearning for change, just like me. There are women who are just like me, looking for answers, looking for love, and for independence. There’s a common thread in all our stories that binds us all in a sort of fabric that keeps us warm.

Instead, I say: I don’t know, maybe sharing gives her strength.

Yeah right. What is she, Batman? Let her come out in the open and declare her real identity. Then I’ll see how much strength she really has to tell the truth.

Okay, she didn’t really say Batman, but you know what I mean.

But she’s right, you know. I really ought to come out in the open some day. And you know what, I’d like to see the look on her face when I do.

of chronicles

You always thought your life should be chronicled.

Biography after uninspiring biography, and you are left wondering why their lives are more important than your own; you’ve had ups and downs too, and more downs than ups, to be fair.

But then you think of all the people whose biographies you’ve read and how

of futility of expression

We fought again. There was a screaming match, a whole lot of name calling, and crying. During that fight, I realized that I’m no good with words, especially when I’m in turmoil. I often say the wrong thing. Or the right thing the wrong way. I’m running in circles around what I want to say, and the harder I try the worse and more tangled my life becomes.