Welcome to Gauravonomics! Subscribe to my RSS feed in a feed reader or by e-mail and you'll never miss my posts on marketing, technology and social media.
Jai Arjun Singh is a New Delhi-based freelance writer/ journalist/ blogger. Jai works part-time with the Business Standard newspaper, blogs at Jabberwock and is mainly known for his erudite reviews of books and movies.
I have already written about why I love Jai’s blog -
- Nobody else writes as prolifically or as beautifully about books and movies as him.
- His interviews are more personal and insightful than any other I have read on desi blogs.
- He manages to make even his rants read like literature.
Jai, I felt, was the perfect person to start off the ‘Desi Blogging Cafe’ interview series because he is the perfect example of the desi A-list blogger/ journalist, a species you’ll often come across at ‘Desi Blogging Cafe’.
Q. When and why did you start blogging? Has the reason why you blog changed over time?
A. I started in September 2004. Initially I thought I would use it mainly as an online “storehouse” for some of my published articles and reviews, for easy access and reference. But over time that function changed: I found myself increasingly writing fresh things purely for the blog, whether in the form of personal posts, general observations or notes about books, films etc.
Q. What do you blog about? Has the focus of your blog changed over time?
A. At least 50-60 per cent of my posts are about books and films, but I write about anything that I want to write about - as long as I’m comfortable putting it up on a public forum. I don’t think the focus has changed much - in fact there hasn’t ever really been a “focus” to begin with!
Q. How do you think people describe your blog to others who don’t read it? How would you like them to describe it?
A. Can’t really say, but some friends tell me (perhaps half-jokingly) that they describe my blog to others as “erudite”, which is a bit embarrassing. How I’d like them to describe it - “funny”. One thing that’s sometimes frustrating is that my sense of humour (such as it is) often slips under people’s radars. It happens all the time that I write something in a facetious or tongue-in-cheek vein and readers take it at face value and send in solemn comments.
Quick Reader Poll: Jai’s blog is (a) funny, (b) erudite, (c) both, or (d) neither? Let Jai know what you think, in the comments section below! My answer is (c), by the way, although I did end up describing him as ‘erudite’ above. 
Q. How do you think people describe you to others who don’t know you? How would you like them to describe you?
A. Can’t answer the first question. Would like to be described as 1) being funny and 2) being very inclusive - having a very wide range of tastes and an openness towards all sorts of things/ genres. I’m always puzzled by (and a bit envious of) people who can fill the “About Me” field in a questionnaire or a profile - it seems to me you are only restricting yourself by doing that. But on some level it’s good to be so certain of who you are, I guess!
I have struggled with the depth versus breadth question myself, both on my blog and in my life and always find myself returning to the ‘T’ shape theory. The best skill sets are a mix of a little knowledge about a lot of things - the horizontal bar - and a lot of knowledge about a few things - the vertical bar (enthusiasm for everything and expertise in a narrow niche). Jai’s skill in dissecting a book or a movie, or his taste in literature or film, is clearly the vertical bar in his Jabberwock ‘T’.
Q. Is your online persona different from your real self?
A. Not in the sense of having a conscious alter-ego self (for instance, though I use the name Jabberwock, it’s just incidental - the blog has never been themed around Jabberwocky or Lewis Carroll, I wouldn’t have the imagination to do something like that). But I do strongly believe - and I’ve blogged about this at length - that a person’s writing is just a very small part of what that person is. All of us are much more complicated, much more inconsistent people in our daily lives than our writing would suggest. So in that sense, yes, there is bound to be a disconnect between the online persona and the “real self”.
Q. How important is your blog to you? In what ways? Why?
A. Very important. I feel quite proprietorial about it and much of the writing that I’m happiest/most satisfied with is up on the blog - in fact, a lot of it has even been written exclusively for the blog and published nowhere else.
It’s become important at a professional level too, though I never imagined it would happen that way and I certainly didn’t plan it. Most of the job offers or assignments I’ve got in the past couple of years came about because of editors having read and liked the blog (as opposed to seeing something I had written for an official publication). My standing in the journalism/ freelance-writer market went up as the blog became popular.
Jai’s blog has no Google Adsense, although he does use some Amazon Affiliate links. Jai’s blog, then, is a perfect example of how to earn money because of your blog rather than from it.
Q. What have you learnt from blogging?
A. It’s been a valuable forum to keep up the practice of writing regularly, and one tends to improve with practice - I hope I have. Also, watching the diversity of voices and opinions in the blogosphere, one gets a good sense of how many completely different perspectives there can be on an issue and how those perspectives can be equally well-articulated/argued. Helps one appreciate life’s rich pageant - and on a more cynical note, it helps one appreciate that people are never going to truly understand one another!
Q. What are you highest and lowest blogging moments? Why?
A. Difficult to say, but speaking offhand:
Highest - when someone whose tastes I respect says something nice about one of my posts. Or when I meet a well-known author and they say they’ve “read me” (it’s happened a few times).
Lowest - some of the nasty comments/ trolling, though that sort of thing rarely affects me now - used to earlier.
Q. Which are your three favorite posts? Why?
A. *Groan*. There’s absolutely no way I can pick just three - if I do they would have changed within a few hours. But here’s an attempt:
1. This one I wrote very early on about my cat Sandy: I’m a little embarrassed by it now - it’s very raw and transparent, was written at a time when hardly anyone was reading the blog and I probably wouldn’t be able to do a post like it now. But it still holds up on some level.
2. This review of The Mistress of Spices: One of those very rare cases where I managed to sink my fangs into a film that I hated and wrote a cheerfully, unapologetically snarky piece on it.
3. And since this “three favourite posts” thing just isn’t working, here’s a randomly chosen one about my experience with NRIs in London.
Q. How many blogs do you read? If you were to read only one blog, which one would it be? Why?
A. Not too many. I have around 125 blogs on my Bloglines subscription list but I rush through most of the updates and only stop for a closer look when I find a post interesting. I hardly ever visit a blog directly unless it’s to leave a comment.
One blog - probably Scott Adams. I love his sense of humour and his absurdist approach to life, and it’s vastly entertaining to read some of the hate-comments he gets.
Scott Adams is one of my favorites too. And, Jai does take humour rather seriously.
Q. If you were to think of one question I should have asked you, what would it be? What would your answer be?
A. Question: “Do you write directly on the Blogger compose page?” Answer: Never, not even for the one-line posts. Always on MS Word first, then read the post through 2-3 times before transferring and publishing it!
Thank you, Jai!
Jammy Rajan from ‘Ouch My Toe!’ is next up on ‘Desi Blogging Cafe’. Do walk in tomorrow for more virtual coffee and real conversation!
Comments (5)
This is an awesome section. There are some pretty cool desi bloggers about there and its nice to get to know more about their real life personas.
Hey Santosh. I’m really hoping this works out well. Thanks.
Great work! I am a fan of jabberwock and is the first blog I linked to. I think he is one of the very few bloggers who look at things as they are, and amazingly, can write in exactly the same way. This is a luxory I can’t afford!
:P
A nice section, keep it going.
Adi Crazy
Seems you don’t have any work on your hands and a lazy guy. That is why you are interviewing idiotic bloggers and publishing them. Do some constructive work man. This is just time waste and very boring. By the way who is Jai Arjun Sing?
All of us are much more complicated, much more inconsistent
people in our daily lives than our writing would suggest. So in
that sense, yes, there is bound to be a disconnect between the
online persona and the “real self”.
Well said, Jai.
Trackback/Pingback (1)
[…] you read these ‘Desi Blogging Cafe’ interviews with your favorite bloggers: Jai Arjun Singh, Jammy Rajan. Share This Related Posts: Desi Blogging Cafe: Jammy Rajan from Ouch My Toe!, Desi […]