Blogging has been in Nepal for under a decade now and, although early references linked blogs with socio-political implications, contemporary blogs boast a dramatic shift in the range of activities in the blogs and those who post it.[break]
Pioneer blogger and journalist Dinesh Wagle (wagle.com.np) started blogging because he was discontent about not being able to express himself in the magazine where he was working. “The magazine, like all mainstream media, wasn´t interested in printing my feelings, frustrations, anger, happiness and sometime unnecessary blabbering. So I thought about creating a forum where I could write about those things,” he said.
And so October 1 of 2004 saw the birth of United We Blog (UWB). The “About” section on blog.com.np reads, “It began as a diary of the founding bloggers who posted their personal experiences of journalism and reporting.” As such, when the media was censored in 2005, the website claims that UWB “became the only source of independent news for the rest of the world.” UWB is still active today and has many contributors who post their views on the political situation of Nepal.
Picking up on the UWB´s open dialogue forum, a slew of blogging communities went online in the years that followed. In line with UWB´s vision, Equal Access Nepal launched meroreport.net. According to Rupendra Kayastha, web producer at meroreport.net, “Most news are one sided, with this there will be a two-way communication and news will come from people as well,” and so it calls out “citizen journalists” to contribute.
But blogs have now moved beyond politics and cover host of other topics and sometime even issues of personal interest. Sites like dhintang.com claim to be “an aggregator of Nepali blogs worth reading” and list blogs with Nepali authors/content. The list includes Nepali bloggers based in Nepal and abroad.
Pradeep Kumar Singh who founded Nepali Blogger (nepaliblogger.com) says, “Being with the London blogging community for years, I can understand how important blogging communities can be. I came up with Nepali Blogger mainly to develop it as a community.”
Other bloggers based abroad include “Maichang” (maichangmoved.wordpress.com) who prefers to be known by her blog id. Currently a student in America, she started blogging because she enjoyed writing and was encouraged by a friend to start a blog. “I write mostly about personal things, but once in a while I write about other things. I get my inspiration from people I meet, the discussions they have, reading news and other articles,” she says.
Prabesh Khatiwada (pkhatiwada.wordpress.com) is currently studying Genetic Engineering in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Khatiwada says writing is a passion and adds, “I have mostly written about spiritual things but I don´t want to confine myself. I try to write on other aspects specially literature, science and current affairs.”
Regardless of content or location, most bloggers, it seems, read international and Nepali blogs alike. Wildly popular Nepali bloggers are “Nepaliketi” (nepaliketi.net), “Guffadi” (guffadi.blogspot.com), and Lex Limbu (lexlimbu.com) to name a few.
Nepaliketi, who averaged around 2,600 hits this past January and has had visitors from over 66 countries, says her posts are influenced by her blog´s identity as a Nepali girl. She uses “Nepaliketi” for anonymity because, according to her, “If I wrote under my real name I´d get in trouble with aunts and fathers of friends, because everyone knows everyone. When I write as nepaliketi, I do not have to be cautious about who is going to judge me or my family or who is going to take it personally.”
With 4000 hits in the past month from 47 countries, Guffadi is another widely read Nepal based blogger. Although a lot of his posts are humorous take on the political situation in the country, his inspiration comes from various places.
“Sometimes from the news I read, sometimes the people I hang out with at local tea shops, just everyday observation about people and places,” he says. “I think blogs provide us news, views and reviews that we normally don´t see in the dailies. It´s the personal experience that makes it more enlightening.”
“From what I have seen and read, I am very impressed with the interests and thoughts of the coming generation of Nepali bloggers,” says another blogger, Pukurey (pukurey.wordpress.com). The popularity of blogging is clearly indicated by the statistics on Alexa.com, an online tool that provides free internet traffic stats and rankings et al. Alexa´s stats, as of yesterday, clearly show that wordpress.com and blogger.com, two blogging sites, are among the top 15 most visited in Nepal.
As to where this trend is headed, Wagle believes, “Blogging is just a medium to express. Since it´s a part of the Internet, as they get connected to the web, more and more Nepalis will start expressing themselves on wide ranging issues.”
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