Fourth Blogmeet Portrays the Mosaic that is Nepal

The fourth Nepali bloggers' meet that took place today was historic in every sense of the word. There were unprecedented numbers of bloggers (total 23, six of them female; no gender bias ladies!); they ranged from an eighteen-year-old Deelip Khanal to Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, retired Director General of Survey Department of Nepal; Rajendra Biswakarma represented the Dalit community while there was Mohammad Tajim (a Muslim) and Salik Shah who is an ardent flag bearer of Madhesi issues. But, it was the common thread of blogging that brought us all together. Hey, something's happening? Are you watching?

We also took some critical decisions. The most important was the formation of working committee that will eventually form a formal structure of BLOGAN. Giving up the tradition of nominating others, we nominated ourselves, after all blogging is an unconventional tool. So, I proposed myself as a member of the working committee, and so did KP Dhungana, Ghanashyam Ojha, Tapas Thapa, Avinashi Paudel, RP Dahal, Bishnu Dhakal, Rajendra Biswakarma, and Mohammad Tajim. Ujjwal proposed to Umesh to which he consented. Others few cited personal reason for being unable to be the part of the working committee. Nevertheless, they expressed their commitment and solidarity to the cause.

Talking about cause, Sujana questioned: What is the mission of BLOGAN? For what are we being united? I tried to answer it there. But, Sujana, here's the detail answer: This is the time of advocacy and raising your voices. If you speak alone, you'll hardly get audiences. But, if it is a collective voice, then it will definitely grab attention. Why attention, you may ask. Because, as a nation we are lagging behind in many aspects. Our voices as bloggers, as a nation and South Asians get subdued in the cacophony of powerful nations. Internet, blog to be more specific, provides us such forum. In April Movement, we showed to the world what we are capable of. The blog played vital role in disseminating the infos. Now, you may ask, why info? King stepped down because of the protests in the streets. No, the information has very important power in today's world. You must have noticed Nepali Diaspora's role in the movement. So, is blogs'. We msut to show the world that we are vying for change.

KP took the responsibility to coordinate the book on blogging that will be published with the support from Freedom Forum. All the bloggers will contribute a piece on their experience of blogging while I am going to write history of blogging in Nepal. The book will be bilingual (both Nepali and English texts as per bloggers' advantage over language).

Though, there were many caveats about forming BLOGAN and its registration in CDO Office (Ghanashyamji was doubtful that this will lead to the corruption and deviation from our primary goal ie blogging), we finally agreed to give it a shot. Power obviously corrupts people, but if we fear that beforehand and do nothing–just sitting idle–we will also miss the boat.

I opined that we will not stick to BLOGAN forever; it's just a forum and as Ujjwal said we will graduate from it, some other bloggers will replace us. There is a talk of 1st generation and second generation of bloggers. Some have just started blogging while some like the trail blazing bloggers Dinesh Wagle, Umesh Shretha, Ujjwal and later KP and I have already blogged for more than two years. It was interesting to meet new bloggers (It in fact always is).

Buddhi Naran Shrestha shared some enlightening ideas; as a former bureaucrat he knows how the system works. Most of the participants were vocal and we ended the historic meeting with sweet cups of tea and the usual snapshots.

Related Blogs:
On Second Blogmeet
On Third Blogmeet