Ancient Indians : A small private community on the Internet
Once upon a time, a few years ago, I started blogging about Ancient Indians. It grew to many blogs and then again got condensed back into a few blogs, with the scope of anything Ancient and anything Indian but generally more to do with Ancient Indians.
While search engines and referrers have brought more than 4.5 lakhs visitors to this site looking for pictures and information, a few stayed on participating, commenting and encouraging.
Initially it was family who followed and later people I never met started joining in.
Saradambika, was one of the early members of the community. Manu Kaushik joined in a little later.
Then Lakshmi Prasanna and Radhika Kiranmayi who not only left me comments but came home and became friends and sort of family. Lakshmi actually came home and took care of me when I fell ill..!
Then a few of my fathers’ friends, distinguished professors, joined in for a bit. And I know for sure that one of my cousins, Srinivas and his wife Sailaja read this blog frequently. More recently I have Arjuni (Leila), drawn here by the fascination of meeting an Indian who loves Indra, and Sri Vasant, who kindly appreciates almost anything I write. Then there is Neeharika who has been a constant motivation for better organising this site - so that there won’t come a time, when even I can’t find what I want! 
There are 76 e-mail subscribers, who have opted to recieve a notification, anything I write something new. I am well aware that I have not acknowledged them all.
And suddenly I realised that though there are millions of people out there in the internet world, and lakhs who stop by for an instant, there are but tens of people who make reading this stuff and responding a part of their lives whenever they have time.
Ours is a rather a private little community in public view, rather like the people who sit under a banyan tree katte in the village centre, interesting only to themselves. The sort of privacy that you have only in a crowded place.
I am not much of a community builder, though I do make some friends. I guess such community builders are found on forums. When I was on facebook some of these folks befriended each other and are still friends even though I am no longer on fb presently.
But I am truly grateful for those who have become my friends over time and become a part of my effort.
Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula
