I began keeping a diary when a cousin told me to write letters to myself, ‘so that you remember never to be such a dolt again’. It was sound advice, for all that it never worked, and I have never regretted taking it.  Besides, what in life matched the intensity of  ‘half agony, half hope’? Letters were clearly the path to love, and it was best to get practising.

So it was my first notebook was born.  In the twelve years since, my diary multiplied itself into 17 notebooks and countless folders, all sorted by subject and whimsy.  Last year, when I declared myself a writer, some of this copious chaos made its way online.  This year, I suspect it will unleash mayhem.  Hold on, etc. But not here. I have another blog! A “personal” one, heh. Welcome back, Nandini Ramachandran.

Back to bogey, I’m glad this blog has retained its low profile. I like that I can ramble on about boys and random reading and things on telly that get me in a tiff. I like that I haven’t had any scary spam and that my commenters only talk when they have stuff to say. People who’ve been with me from the beginning know that this blog’s journey has a long way to go.  I’ve barely scratched the surface of my arcana, and I promise to stumble slowly along heedless of the world’s spectacular lack of interest. Far in the future, a din-acolyte may even publish the selected ChaosBogey. That will be the day I turn over in my grave. Or, given my Hinduness, the day my ashes tremble violently with amusement as they swirl along the Ganga.

Well, anyway. Here be a poem. Courtesy a couple of Shelleys.

We rest;  a dream has power to poison sleep.

We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day.

We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;

It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free.

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but mutability!

This month, in said spirit,  I begin a few new experiments. My column on Bookslut- Mystic Myna- talks about classic prose. I started with Isaiah Berlin, that most tractable of philosophers. He was my first dip into the Russian Masters, and I’m quite seduced. Perhaps even enough to attempt Elif Batuman. Perhaps not. Berlin sent me off to Chekhov, with whom I began my other experiment, a reading blog on the website firstpost.in.

This project (hebdomad in my head) might become, if the stars align,  an all-week-round affair.  Tis currently at two posts a week.  The new blog will be as whimsical as bogey is (heh) organised, and was founded out of a selfish desire to escape bibliographies. I wanted a more diverse reading life, to be able to take risks, to wake up one morning and attempt Tolstoy. Or, I don’t know, an IL textbook.  And write about it. I shall hope to have enough craft to make this exciting, enough navigation to make it fruitful, and enough sense to make it feasible. On the whole, I expect to fail.

I’m currently at that heady, flexible stage of planning a writing project where anything’s game, so if anyone has ideas/advice/suggestions do write in. Any publishers who wish to send me (interesting) free books will be happily flogged; all friends who desire a touch of old fashioned nepotism are hereby granted the spotlight. We could even hold festivals!  I hope (and I am a fantasist) to grow hebdomad into a forum, a destination on the webs for the cyberati to gather and chatter. Do with it, dear reader, what you will.