Year 11 - With a Little Help From My Friends

I feel old. No, seriously.
Godyears turns 11 on the 30th of November, 2015. And believe me, it is an insane feeling to realize I have been writing on this blog for over 3650 days. 

The overall blog stats continue to shock me more than anyone else.
Year 05* - 2 blogs, 322 posts, 0072702 page views.
Year 06 - 2 blogs, 361 posts, 100908 page views and 06 published stories.
Year 07 - 3 blogs, 432 posts, 143942 page views and 10 published stories.
Year 08 - 3 blogs, 499 posts, 291886 page views and 19 published stories.
Year 09 - 3 blogs, 601 posts, 573318 page views and 30 published stories.
Year 10 - 3 blogs, 686 posts, 1099368 page views and 36 published stories.

* - statistics at the completion of the particular year

This year of blogging was different though in so many ways.
I had told myself that I would stick to being a personal blog but I found I lost that personal voice somewhere along the way as I got caught up in contests and hashtags. There was so much I wanted to say and convey and yet I found my regular avenue of sending a message - via fictional stories in anthologies - fading with too many unreliable publishing houses coming to the fore and willing to publish anything if you paid them their fee.
Personally, I faced a few setbacks too in matters of the heart which again made me question the principles by which I stood by and whether they were outdated in today's world. 

I decided to leave the safety of a wonderful job and take a risk at a new place  because I felt I had done the best I could over there.

With the best doctor team I had the privilege to work and live beside in addition to
enjoying so many memorable after-work trips, often impromptu.

You have to be pretty blessed to get such a loving farewell speech from your surgeon!

There were health scares too in the family with issues of the heart and sudden emergency operations besides a (luckily) misdiagnosed cancer scare for Snoopy.

Sufficed to say, it was a tumultuous period and I think more than anyone else, I myself felt that I was letting myself down and yearned to voice my opinion once more and make a difference in people's lives like I felt I was doing in the years gone by.

On Going Viral

In the end, it took a video of young men beating up an old man - a doctor under whose care a patient had died - to unleash it all out. In the past, I had literally begged the public to not see doctors as monsters but instead give us a chance. But on that day, sitting in my hospital room, I told doctors why the traditional doctor-patient was dead in India and why they needed to be practical instead of idealistic.

I did not expect the world to change. But it did. And not just for me.
In the months since then, I have often wondered how it actually happened since by default, you never see doctors focusing on the social media aspect of things. But on that second fortnight in May 2015 they did, sharing this post in insane volumes from AIIMS to JIPMER with messages flooding my inbox on the raging debates going on inside operation theaters and IMA halls.

"Why I will never allow my child to become a doctor in India" crossed two lakh views in the blog in less than 10 days and I honestly cannot comment on how many more read it since it was shared on over a dozen websites and journals too, besides making it to NDTV, BBC and Scoopwhoop among others.

My 2015 Blog stats: Gee. I wonder in which month I wrote that post?

If I was stunned by the unwitting publicity (a radiologist actually woke me up at 6 am to inform me that I was on the front page of Deccan Chronicle), what astounded me was the reactions. In the end, more than a 1000 doctors commented across various social media sites besides the general public too. And when the dust had settled down, a friend and I actually sat down and counted the 'nays' and 'ayes' to the post. Over 75% had actually agreed with my controversial stand! That sadly is no victory for me because it only confirms the need for urgent change.

Deccan Chronicle, May 20, 2015. 5 days after the article went live.
Click the picture to read the full article

It did not surprise me that no one in charge or with the capacity to make a change within the system responded. What was heartening was that suddenly doctors had found their voices online. One of the factors that had angered me so much was that with so many flaws and failures in the system, no senior before me was ready to bell the cat. Since that month of May 2015, I have seen over two dozen articles by doctors finally standing up and challenging all that is wrong in the system and demanding that steps be taken to fix the rot before it was too late.

They finally realized that one voice could make a difference... and that voice could very well be theirs too, instead of just a chubby, blogger anaesthesiologist.
That is my victory.

The #1000Speak Initiative by Bloggers across the World

Away from the medical field, I found my voice too in the #1000Speak initiative started worldwide by bloggers. The idea was to counter the pain and heartache of the world by focusing on compassion and love. Every month we wrote on various aspects of compassion and it was heartening to do this and make people have hope again. Because in the end, without hope, you really cannot carry on.

My own posts in #1000Speak included:

• The World is Not a Bad Place (which was the most popular and even made me cry before I published it because of the sheer overwhelming volume of kindness that I found in the world when I searched.)
• The Canine's Guide to Nurturing Humanity (where the true kings of compassion - the dogs - took over the blog)
• Do Not Lose Sight of Who You are Meant to be (My take on 'Bullying')
• Trust Others to Listen to You (on 'Listening')
• I can see all that you tell her (A Blogadda winner of the 'Tangy Tuesday' Best Blog of the week pick)
• The 'Letters of Love' initiative (where we try to bring hope to children orphaned by the Syria crisis.)

I failed the #100HappyDays challenge and almost quit social media during some trying times before decided to restart my journey of happiness from Day 1. And as I explained in the blog post, once more my world changed in the 100 days of chasing happiness. I honestly intend to make it a yearly challenge now and I sincerely hope you too will do so.

Fun Blogger Moments of Year 10 

Among the highlights of the last year that blogging brought to me, I would have to specifically point to the following:

1. The Blogger Trip to Goa to test out the new Renault Lodgy (not to mention all the fun we had over there.) P.S. I even made it two of Renault's official videos!


2. Being among the select few to be driving the Land Rover at insane angles in Kerala's first LandRoverExperience.

Purely a coincidence that the vehicle is tilting towards the direction 
I am sitting in and is no reflection on any recent weight gain. I repeat, no reflection at all!
Image: LandRoverIndia

3. Attending WIN'15 - the Blogger Awards Ceremony which was just overflowing with happiness and joy.

'Some people just don't know how to use chopsticks!' 
Look at that girl using a single stick as though
it is a straw! Naturally, I use the more traditional 'hands-free' approach.

4. Meeting friends old and new - as a doctor, that is a lot more tougher to achieve than you can imagine.

5. All those interviews! From BBC to Indian Express, everyone wanted a piece of me... which is not something I can say normally! But I still think my most hard hitting interview was with Docplexus.

6. Adding my mom's homemade recipes to the blog now means that I have to compete not just with Snoopy but also my mother to write something that gets more likes and comments than their posts! Yeesh! Talk about competition at home!

So what was the take away of Year 10?

It is something that I have not really focused on directly but is a common strain in all the highlights I have just spoken about.

The honest truth is that I could not have done any of this by myself. Every happy and eventful moment that made up Year 10 was happy because you - the readers, friends and fellows bloggers - chose to be a part of it and show me my opinion and presence was valued. Whenever I was low or doubted myself, someone always appeared to remind me that I mattered.

And I think that is what keeps us all going through rough moments in life... knowing that we matter to somebody. That somebody is affected positively by our presence in their lives. That motivates us not just to hold on but to strive to be something better.

What would you think if I sang out of tune

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song

And I'll try not to sing out of key

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends.

- Joe Cocker

(You can listen to the mesmerizing full song here)

I know I want to become better. And I am grateful that so many people walk by this blog - have walked by this blog for ten years - and read what I had to say. The old guard from 2005 is all but gone now save a few faces and I feel distinctly old when I see that none of them blog anymore. But I am grateful for their presence when they were there, boosting my morale and ego with their positive comments just as the new young Turks of the blogosphere astound me with their writing skills and inspire me to up my game.
Above all else, I am happy that I can call them all my friends. 

Every year, I would end the anniversary post with a picture of an upcoming event in which I am involved but this time around, I honestly don't know myself what Year 11 of Godyears will bring. But I know I will be around, doing my best to make your day brighter and make you laugh and yes, occasionally even ponder.
And I want to thank you for your friendship, online or off, that made me and this blog evolve into what we are today.

Considering the post is about saying Thank you,

It makes sense to connect this post to Corinne & Vidya Sury's

November Gratitude Circle bloghop – Thanksgiving Special.

Click their links for more gratitude posts.