A goodbye and a hello !


A certain ‘she’ wrote a seemingly simple mail sometime back. Articulate and without much extravagance, she said that she could ‘sense’ that I was an ‘interesting’ person from whatever she read, but the blog ‘looked dated’. I went over her mail a couple of times. ‘Looks dated’ appeared six times in three paragraphs.

That was setting one energetic cat amidst all the sedentary pigeons. That something needed to be done was becoming evident. Given that this ‘she’ was a regular on the blog and generally had good intentions. Plus this wasn’t exactly the first time I was hearing this. Numerous friends had mentioned it. Many times over. Yet, this time, for some unknown reason, it was action time !

Furtive thought trains lead to ideas that were vacuously vapid or those that required an extravagance of time and money. (Both of which were are in perpetual short supply). If not any of those, whatever emerged from convoluted whorls of the brain, were ‘already taken’ !

Over time, laziness set in. The blog looked the way it always looked, while several attempts at ‘good posts’ came alive as temporal eccentricities! Readers kept coming and going. Ofcourse, some of you have stayed on, which I would like to believe is a function of arrangement of words here, although, I have a lurking feeling that it perhaps a consequence of alignment of my stars.

Either way, thank you!

Many other readers left comments like ‘ I read your blog, the pictures were nice’ which said quite a heapful on the quality of the writing. But life went on. The sun rose in the East and religiously went to the west. The Chinese were conquering the world. Scandal birth rate competed with rabbits’. The milk man was regular and late. Rentals were up. Work kept me occupied. Life was normal.

It was then, that yet another ‘he’ wrote rather plainly, that no matter what I thought of myself, I was no Scott Adams. To dramatise that further, quipped that having Dilbert as a profile picture was akin to having ‘your neighbours kid as your facebook picture’. That dramatisation hit the nail far and deep, not only for the muscle to quake but also the bone to ache.


My erstwhile profile picture

The silver lining though, was that he had presented a seemingly simple solution : Just change the profile picture. ok. First step to the solution. Ok ?

Voila !

Immediately ( a.k.a few weeks) a few precocious folks that are in the know of such cerebral matters were asked. Several ideas were tossed at a speed that was impossible to catch. Many went over the head and some went overboard.

‘If your blog carries your name, your photograph must be the mascot’ insisted most of them. I had to politely explain to them that the attempt was at reader ‘excitement’ and not readership extinction.

Blessed with a plain and forgettable face, bulges in wrong areas and recessionary trends in the rest, I could make a pretty picture in an ad for ‘this man transformed himself using our product’ with a before and after picture.

To spare you a long and laborious story, a new logo was to be created. That stood for ‘Kavis Musings’. Amongst the few options that came up, the missus rooted for this.


“It represents you. Your pictures. And your writing”.

It was stated differently though. Something along the lines of ‘Somekind of a loud mouth with an air of self anointed importance, and a wide eyed grin, waxing eloquence over seminal topics of global importance, that range from the way Trash Cans are designed to spelling mistakes in hoardings’. (And so on. You get the drift. Don’t you?)

Which when politely asked to explain, was eventually translated to : “It represents you. Your pictures. And your writing”. I quite agreed.

So there. That’s my new digital identity. Hopefully, you will like it. And continue to shower your tolerance and genorisity by coming back here.

Quite obviously you will see huge hoardings in your hometown announcing the change. Incase you don’t see those hoardings, please keep looking.

Ohh! I almost forgot. That was blog post number 500.

28 thoughts on “A goodbye and a hello !

  1. Sri says:

    Yes, your new “digital identity” looks good. Congrats for 500!!!!!!!!

  2. Macha says:

    welcome, brand Kavi.

  3. awww now i dont see the familiarity of seeing dilbert and remember you! but then again, change is good 🙂

    congratulations on the 500!

  4. He runs on,
    in the dark
    of the drizzling dawn
    each time,
    besting his
    personal best….

    Looking forward
    and
    virtually inhaling
    aromas
    of filter kapi,
    and a repast
    of idli
    fit for a marathon king….

    As a welcome “toran”
    of your 500,
    flutters in welcome,
    what a fitting logo
    to usher in
    great progress :

    Little pointy
    milk bubbles
    in a
    creamy payasam,
    with saffron strands,
    slivers of almonds
    and raisins
    eyeing you…..
    brilliance
    of a sunny morning,
    as she softly stirs some
    into a silver katori
    for you….

    Happy 500Th !

  5. manuscrypts says:

    congrats! on the new look and the number 🙂

  6. Insignia says:

    Kavi has a new mascot. Every important even has to have a mascot. Your each post is an event. So here it is; nice!

    Congrats on your 500. Oh my!! 500!! Thats like..You are a Blog Master 🙂

  7. Niru says:

    Looks like a sunny PacMan with a crown ready to take on the world.

    Congratulation Kavi!

    Niru

  8. Congratulations Bro! Love the logo. The K and M message is loud and clear and very creative.

    I am sure this is just another start.

    Proud of you!

  9. Swatantra says:

    Congrats Kavi!!

    Very nice logo.. very creative i must say.. Great going..

  10. Neha says:

    I belong to a category that prefers the same old things, set up, look and such..for me, Kavi’s Musings is and will always be the Dilbert pic.. the new look is nice too..maybe it will take me some time to get used to it, but I think I will get used to it 🙂

    congratulations for 5ooth post..that’s something!! 🙂

  11. Wow! 500th post! Congratulations!

    Dilbert has become synonymous with Kavi, in my mind! But I love the look, too. No doubt we’ll get used to it! 🙂

  12. it is not just the words that make people come read stuff in this space of yours. It is the imagery of a world that the words conjure!

    and what a world that is!

    keep it up Kavi.

    your profile logo looks cool.

    🙂

  13. Priya says:

    It looks energetic, bright and happy fela’ indeed. Congrats on you 500th post.

  14. aativas says:

    Celebration 500 nonstop!

  15. Aparna says:

    I think I belong to the minority. To me the words speak for eloquently than pictures and sometimes I never even notice the accompanying photos in some blogs that I read. Your blog, with or without Dilbert, will still be just as great.
    Congratulations on the 500th. That is one amazing feat. I have not even hit 100 and it seems I’ve been blogging forever!

  16. great going! 500! and the logo is good! 🙂

  17. Nice new logo. The new character has an aura around it.

    Just like its author.

    Congrats for 500th post. [I however beg to submit that ‘expressions’, posts as they are called, like honeymoons should not be counted, but just enjoyed!]

    Vivek

  18. new profile picture or the old one…the posts and their quality is intact and the readers are stuck to this place 🙂

    The new one conceptually looks good 🙂

    Congratulations on reaching 500th post 🙂 Looking forward to more 🙂

  19. Pearl says:

    Ah, but I come from the words, not the pictures!

    Pearl

  20. great logo and congrats on completing 500 posts! 🙂

  21. radha says:

    Congratulations on the 500th post and the new identity. Old or new, regular visitors like me, will be here anyway. But the missus should have the last word. Good luck.

  22. Jeevan says:

    Kavi, the last one was easily indicating you, but sometime we need change as we go deep into something to discover a new phase. Your profile picture does anything before your writing? 🙂 Keep going Kavi!

  23. cyber gipsy says:

    Heart congratulations. 500 th blog post is not a joke ! It needs tremendous motivation. It’s like Tendulkar carrying on !
    Aitel changed it’s Logo, too. So did you. Good change, in these digitally disenfranchised times, like 2G sprectrum scam !

  24. Aleta says:

    Me personally? I didn’t think you needed an identity change. I like your blog the way it is 🙂 Sometimes it’s fun to change the profile picture or something on the blog, but let it be when you wish it to be and not when a fellow blogger speaks up. Enjoy your blog – it’s your’s to do so!

    That said – I think the picture is fun and cheerful 🙂

  25. Jeanne says:

    This is my first visit, but I like both your words and your new icon.

    On the other hand, I haven’t changed my layout since day 1 and I have a raisin for an icon.

    So there you go.

  26. SSQuo says:

    I like it! Simple, but effective. Love how the letter K is personified…am a sucker for injecting life into inanimate/intangible items. Congrats!

  27. Girish says:

    Congrats Kavi on reaching this milestone!!! Keep going!!

  28. Congrats! 🙂

    Nice new change. 🙂

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