I'm about to celebrate the first anniversary of my association with Sulekha. Blogging with Sulekha has been a very enriching experience. I started blogging in 2001 with Blogspot. A couple of years later I switched allegiance to Indiatimes blogs in order to woo more Indian readers. I did get more readers but of a different 'generation'. Finally in the leisure of the last summer vacation I stumbled across Sulekha and discovered some of its mature bloggers and readers.  And now in the leisure of the present summer vacation I'm enjoying the luxury of taking a look at the past, which is perhaps the only immortal thing we have in our life.

There are many Sulekhites who are eminently memorable. Raj Arumugam comes to mind first of all. "There are two crucial aspects in life: positive thinking and oneness," says Raj in his profile on Sulekha. His writings bear witness to his positive thinking and his sense of oneness. What has fascinated me most is his view on seeing without judging.

see friend, while everything else prescribes to you
and leads to argument and division -
poetry is seeing directly

Those are Raj's lines. [http://rajarumugam.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/04/and-what-does-poetry-do.htm] And he writes precisely with that intention of showing us what he sees without passing verdict on it. He perceives the amazing variety of the smorgasbord that reality is with all its rich colours and flavours.

Raj reads and digests your blog thoroughly before making a comment on it. He also has a special talent for discovering something good even in the most banal-looking article. That's an admirable quality in a teacher. I hope to inculcate that quality in me.

Raghuram Ekambaram is another Sulekhite who fascinated me with the power of his convictions and the vastness of his knowledge. He is scientific to the core. Utterly logical. I should find myself at the opposite pole. I love literature (which is seldom concerned with logic) and find little charm in science except for its usefulness in understanding physical reality. I was a student of science (maths, to be more precise) once upon a time. But I was bowled over by literature. (What a shift it was from Calculus and Real Analysis to Camus and D H Lawrence!) Then what did I find so charming about Raghuram? People of deep convictions are very rare in today's world. Raghuram is one of those rare creatures, member of a vanishing tribe in today's world.

One who can make statements like, "You may call it (his spirituality) spiritual ignorance or arrogance. Amen to that", and "Am I bold enough? Yes. Am I an atheist? I am not sure. I am straddling atheism and agnosticism, but in my own way. I deal with the issue in a utilitarian sense. Of what use the concept of God is to me? Here is where I go blind" deserve a salute.

[A warning to Raghuram, however: As Shakespeare said there is something common to the poet, the lover and the lunatic - a wayward imagination. That imagination may make people like me look a little too incoherent at times to a man of science.]

DMR Sekhar captured my fancy with his short poems which have the quality of the Japanese haiku. Take this, for example:

raging fire [http://dmrsekhar.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/02/raging-fire.htm]

the truth will spread out

even if ye hide it

as if a raging fire

await a nightmare ye, liar.

Later on, DMR moved away from that beautiful form of self-expression to history. Eventually his blog pieces started becoming rare. He told me the reason. I hope he will overcome that problem and start giving us those brilliant short poems again.

D Sampath is a very gifted writer. Every line of his stories (or real life experiences, as he projects them to be) is a treat to the soul. They take you to his farms, home, kitchen, workplace, just anywhere and let you have a few hearty laughs. No wonder he has such a large number of fans. His writing enchants you.

Padmaja is a Sulekhite who caught my attention with her very generous comments on some of my blogs. A self-effacing person, ["I am one of those ordinary persons that you come across in your day-to-day life," confesses her profile statement] she writes beautiful poetry. The beauty of her lines is not confined to their rhythm and cadence; the feelings in them often carry a sublime quality.

Indu breezed into my world with a request for my contribution to her Page 3 column on women's day. Finally when her Page 3 came alive on the network I was flabbergasted by the patience and meticulousness she had put in to make the contributions from diverse sources read like a fluent, logical piece. Hats off to her tremendous potential.

There are many other Sulekhites whom I won't forget. Kamekish, for instance, is the first Sulekhite that I met personally. He was generous enough to accept my invitation as a judge for a national debate competition at my school. It was his constant preoccupation with contemporary matters that drew me to his blogs.

Dawn and Dew is a blogger who accepted my invitation and joined Sulekha. Some of her comments on my blogs have meant much to me. Binumuscat and Geekunnel have been generous with their comments on many of my articles. Binu writes with her pen dipped in her blood. No, blood doesn't always stand for revolution; it has much deeper hues. Gee's poems have a peculiar charm, the charm of simplicity and grace, realism and optimism.

Shajan is another very intelligent blogger at Sulekha. I find his obsession with science and religion worth paying attention to. Thomas Cherian's stories have realism coupled with interesting twists and turns.

This is not an exhaustive list of Sulekhites that I read. I just mentioned those who had some particular impact on me. There are two other bloggers who are not currently very active. One is Kayzzaman, whose poems are divine and earthy at the same time. They are not at all easy to understand, but are worth spending time on. Due to some personal reasons, he is unable to write much nowadays. My best wishes are with him. The other is Mr Raghunathan Kadangode, who too has withdrawn from Sulekha for personal reasons. Reading his elaborate writing that can digress with graceful elegance was a unique experience.

A final note: The number of blogs shown on my profile page is not correct. Since my Sulekha post page stopped opening after I had posted about 100 articles, I downloaded Windows Livewriter. Each article posted using Livewriter is counted as two by Sulekha for some mysterious reason. My actual contribution to Sulekha is much less than the number shown. About a score of them have been featured by Sulekha so far and I congratulate myself for that achievement. Thanks to Sulekha and to all the readers who have been patient with my ideas, some of which are not very orthodox. I do look forward to an even more creative engagement with Sulekha in the future.