It's been almost two years since a couple of friends suggested that I should blog on a regular basis. Me blog? Why? That was my standard response.
I didn't have the time, I would say. And even if I did, was there anything new or interesting in what I wanted to say? My blogging was a solution looking for a problem.
And then, in the wee hours of this morning, tossing around in my bed in a hotel next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the penny dropped.
I was awake because I was irritated. Just before going to bed around midnight, I had checked the Twitter page for @indiandiplomacy. There were a couple of really annoying tweets from an individual who wears his right wing, ultra nationalist ideology on his sleeve. I wanted to respond. And there was much that I could say by way of a response. But not in 144 characters. I needed the space to reason, to put my arguments across.
Eureka! The answer was to blog. In a way that what I wanted to say could become more accessible. Not just to the critics but also to others who were interested in a better understanding of foreign policy issues.
But that's what we were always trying to tell you, my evangelist friends would remind me. Didn't you get it?
Now I do. Thank you.
And yes, the answers to the friends, to the critics and to the habitually abusive sorts will hopefully start flowing soon.
