Random Decade of a Demented Mind

I do not remember when I had come across Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind for the first time. It was perhaps Debipriya who had provided me with the URL. I remember being sceptic when I came across the name Greatbong: what kind of a name is that?

But I read; and got hooked. I cannot remember the exact post, but I get the odd feeling that it was Mithunism. Then came Gunda — the Legend, which was (as far as my knowledge goes) the reason behind the craze for Gunda in the second half of the previous decade. I am yet to come across a single blog post that had done the same.

Then I got to know that Greatbong is an engineer, which meant that we, students of science, the outcast in the realm of Indian English authors, all could write. Of course, we could not match his quality, but then, at least we could try to.

So I started my blog; because Greatbong had started his; and I kept writing; because Greatbong had.

We later became acquaintances and argued on miscellaneous topics, especially cricket, on social media; he is the author of two published (of which The Mine is one of the finest works in horror fiction in Indian literature) and one about-to-be-published book.*

*This will probably be "books". Things like this always confuse me.

But there is more to Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind than all that: the blog had been an integral part of my early 30s. Choose any event: India winning World Cup, my migration from Orkut to Facebook, my turning into a teetotaller, AK Hangal passing away, and Fardeen Khan leaving for Dubai. Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind has been there all along.

But more importantly, Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind had inspired me (among many would-be outcasts) to take up blogging. The fact that this blog — the one with the most innovative name in the history of blogosphere — exists is because Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind had taken off exactly a decade back.

Greatbong broke the monopoly. He set the trend. We merely followed suit. It all started with him. It is unfortunate that his first name rhymes with one of the most, er, talked-about quiz-masters in Kolkata.