His brothers are asking FinelyChopped for a birthday treat
“FinelyChopped is an adult today…Happy 18th,” read the WhatsApp message from my friend Kashi this morning. I had no idea that it was FinelyChopped’s birthday. I sleepily looked at my phone to check the date – 7th October. Sheesh, I had forgotten. Kashi never does.
I spent last evening uploading videos from my latest documentary series on Mumbai – North East in Mumbai – on my Instagram and other social channels. I would have spent the time blogging 18 years ago.Coincidentally I did think of the blog last night when I read the book, “Best American Food Writing 2022,” before going to sleep. I read a couple of pieces. It struck me that the style in both was anecdotal, detailed, in-the-moment, and long-form. Attributes that I would use for my blog posts of yore. This was till Instagram became the world’s, and my, primary social media channel. I shifted my writing to the Gram from the blog. Instagram calls for brevity, and my writing began to reflect that. I primarily write on my phone, which further stresses the need to keep things crisp. I write on the blog first. Today had to be an exception given the occasion. I am writing the post on my new MacBook Air. I traded in my earlier MacBook Pro, and the young staff at the Apple Store in BKC went out of their way to convince me that the MacBook Air was all I needed as a writer. I appreciated the fact that they did not upsell.
I must clarify something. The term “blogger” today has an entirely different connotation from what it had when I started in 2007. Blogging was new then. It was a hobby, rather than a professional enterprise. It consisted of writing long-form entries on a website-like format. Blogger and WordPress were the two platforms in vogue. It gained popularity internationally before reaching India.
I was in market research when I started blogging. You could term it a side hustle in today’s lingo, unless that refers to a money-making endeavour. This was not that. I became a professional writer around 2012/2013. That’s when I began writing my book, The Travelling Belly, and wrote columns for publications such as Femina, NDTV Food, The Indian Express, and The Times of India, among others. Writing became my ‘main hustle,’ and blogging felt like a part of that. That’s when my zest for blogging began to reduce. Writing did not seem like a way to relax or switch off when that was what one did all day…and on the same subject. That is also when social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram became popular. One had to be on these to stay relevant. That took further time away from blogging. Visual storytelling took precedence, followed by the age of video. Social media became professional. Online publications emerged that commissioned articles on food; the space/ demand for freeform personal narratives reduced.
I blog sporadically now. At times, I take pieces from my Instagram account and copy and paste them on the blog. That is when the difference between the two becomes apparent. Long copywriting on blogs calls for more discipline than on Instagram.
Why don’t I set all that aside and write on the blog?
Ego. The idea of putting something out is that you want people to read it. Anyone who says that they aren’t is lying.
There have been times when the fact that I have not blogged in a while has weighed heavily on me, till I realised that storytelling lies at the heart of what I do, regardless of the medium. Times change, and one must adapt to them.
Many of the terms that I used in this post – MacBook, social media platforms, photo or video posts, side hustle to gig (if I have used the terms right) – did not exist in my world when I began blogging 18 years back, but guess what, FinelyChopped the blog is not going anywhere. I owe it so much. Starting with living life on my own terms.
Ending, as always, with a thank you to K, who started the blog and is its mom.
