86 - STAIRWAY TO THE STARS

Getting caught in a traffic jam everyday is the reality of life in Mumbai.  Trying to cope with the passivity of the situation, I have evolved a simple tactic.  One is to wear dark glasses and shut the eyes, and the second is to look at the same buildings daily and build up a connection among them.

Predominantly a Muslim area, there are at least five christian schools and four churches here, but it is the loudspeakers of the masjids that rule. Cigarette shops and liquor shops abound, with immunity, in spite of the proximity of at least five schools on this road.  The footpath is in a very sorry state too, and is used as a road for two wheelers.  It is almost safer to walk on the road.  This area is a shopping haven for children's outfits, with shops like Nabila, Baingans, Kiwis, Chickoos, Planet Kids etc.  All these shops encroach onto the footpath with their displays.  I wonder why the E ward authorities are blind to the menace.  Obviously a very hefty 'hafta' must be given by all.  The footpath is also blocked by the HP petrol pump which is now renovating a 'police chowky' next to its premise, which is also illegally blocking the pedestrian footpath,  but no one objects, and so it continues.  But when the footpath nears the Byculla Jail, then magically the entire length along the jail has a very clear footpath?  Across the road, the grand old American Express Bakery boasts 'we knead  your needs' but they blatantly block the broad footpath with large SUVs.  Who cares that school children too have to walk on the road?  No one.

As my bus inches along Nagpada,  it strikes me that it is an amalgamation of so many religious cultures.  Essentially a Muslim area, the corner has the JJ Parsee dharamshala at Bellasis road, which 'helps people of all castes and creeds with food, shelter and medicine'.  It is one hundred and fifty years old.   Hotel Sagar, owned by multimillionaire muslims is the star of the road.  Shops with names like Zamzam,  Tahoora,  Zahoora abound here.  Sweet whiffs of bakery products being baked invade the olfactory senses.   Then comes the St. Anthony's home and school for girls, run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, which also has boarders who are taken care of for free.    As the bus eases along, I always try to catch a glimpse of the lovely grotto dedicated to Mother Mary, just inside the main gate.  Quite a few prostitutes stand along the footpath, as this is also a redlight area of Mumbai.  This area is known as Nagpada or Bellasis Road or Boman Behram Marg, until the local MLA changes it to his own name as the chowk name board has already been named after him.  the self proclaimed 'famous' citizen Mr. Waris Pathan.  It would be credible if he would make sure that the footpaths are blocked for two wheelers and are safe for pedestrians.

The bus stop has the legend 'Alexander talkies and Maharashtra college'.  What a contradiction!  A theatre that became the bane of all locals, as it was reduced to screening B grade blue films, a drastic fall from its previous status. Started in 1931, by Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani, who was known as the 'father of talkie films' in Asia.  He had produced and screened the first talkie called Alam Ara in 1931,  besides countless silent films before that, the first indigenous colour film called Kisan Kanhaiya in 1937.  So it is an important historical landmark, which has now been taken over by a muslim religious foundation called Deeniyaat.     The Anjuman Islam school for girls is across the road, but the footpath in this area is used as parking space and school children walk on the road, braving the traffic.  Further on is the intricate dome of the Mehndi Masjid, almost strangled by the newer buildings.

All along the path that the bus moves towards Mumbai central,  the Imperial twin towers in the distance are like the North star, as though guiding the path of my bus.  Clearly visible from the Nagpada area too, the towering sixty floors built by Hafeez Contractor and the Shapoorji Pallonji Group are a treat to view.  A major bus stop is at the Orchid Centre mall, with the BEST depot across the road, a very shabby face on either side, except for the towering DB enclave of forty four floors in the background.  I have visited the mall recently and it was a very painful experience, with the tiny cubbyhole mobile accessories'  shops, and lots of packing material garbage along the entire corridor, plastic wrappings, nylon strings, thermocole packing,  on all the inner floors, and a very strong stink of unclean toilets that  all the sellers and buyers seem to be oblivious about.  It is as though the public that enters there,  expects  the shoddy environment.

The bus usually stops at the traffic signal at the Mumbai central chowk, and on the left is the Samudra bar and restaurant, with a poster boasting about a 'live orchestra',  and a very vigilant bouncer at its closed door.  The next building is the Nathani Heights, which will be the tallest building in India, with seventy two floors, when it is complete.  Along the footpath, vendors sell shoes, which has always intrigued me.  How do they access the stylish leather shoes?  Just before the bus goes over the railway lines below the bridge, I observe the 'night school and night junior college'.  And then the nostrils are invaded by the fishy stink of the tiny stalls that are along the descending slope towards Vasantrao Naik Chowk,  The chowk has a lovely triangular garden in the centre of the seven road junction here.  The pretty sight is spoilt by the derelict Ganga Jamuna theatres in the background.  What a waste of prime space.  Bhatia Hospital is the next landmark, with haphazardly parked cars, making the broad road into a bottleneck. 

I look forward to catch a glimpse of the sprawling Parsee owned bungalow just before Nana Chowk.  The congested Nana chowk with six roads forming the cross roads,  is as unsafe to walk as ever, with the huge skywalk leading just to this point, and therefore quite pointless to access.  The Gamdevi police chowky, is the next eyesore, with police bikes, jeeps, vans, double parked, blocking the road, as though it is their birthright to do as they please, because they are the police.  The police vans even block the opposite side access to the footpath,  a sad reflection on the indiscipline of 'rule makers' becoming 'rule breakers'.

So then why have I chosen the title 'Stairway to the Stars'?    Because in spite of all the melee, my daily route lets me observe the intermingling of the sane, the blatant and the dream makers, with so many religious groups, so closely intertwined, living in peace almost, with so many skyscrapers that have so many residents with their heads among the stars.

85 - ALL THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH.

A very quiet area, where only a few parked cars are the visible statements that people are around somewhere.  The traffic on the road is prolific of course.  And then I enter the Bombay City Eye Institute, and step into a very busy setup.

Luckily I have visited during the 'economy' time, so I will pay a subsidized fee, for my check up.  Everybody looks calm and relaxed.  Patients of all age groups are sitting on the seating along the walls,  tiny cabins have neat eye checkup machines, doctors donning a white coat are attending to individual patients in each of the small cubicles, and helpers in blue uniform are calling out names of persons who have to follow them to a particular point,  for a particular checkup.

I register myself.  Looking for an unoccupied seat, I walk around and note the labels on the cubicles.  There are eight rooms , then four more in a long corridor and the corridor parallel is the operation area, where footwear has been removed before entering.  Optometry, sonography, retina and uvea, perimetry and YAG laser, cornea and contact lenses, lensex OT, lasik OT, etc are the labels I noted down while waiting for my turn to be checked up.  All along the walls and the narrow corridors, seating has been provided, on which there were almost fifty persons in the various benches and chairs provided.  As a patient was called to any of the checkup cubicles, any standing person would quickly sit on the unoccupied place.  This 'musical chairs' game amused me and I too had to participate in it.

As I waited on a chair near a cubicle, I could hear the doctor's interaction with the patient.  'How much time do you spend on the PC?'  seemed to be the first question for every patient that entered.  But if she would ask 'How much time do you spend on the mobile screen?'  it would elicit a more popular response.  Anyway, I involuntarily became privy to the conversation as I waited.  The person worked on the PC from ten a.m.  to seven p.m.   The advice was 'Blink more often, do not stare at the PC for more than an hour, focus onto something at a different distance for two minutes'.   Advice that I too am grateful for.

Mine was a routine checkup advised by my diabetologist.  As I was called into the different cubicles, to check the lens, my spectacles, eye pressure, vision, the cornea, the retina,  etc, the common instructions were 'please put your chin on the support and rest your forehead onto the band'.  The reading room where the lenses are checked onto each person's eyes for near and far sightedness, had a screen which showed the alphabet as inverted mirror images, which were reflected onto a facing mirror, to be read.  I was enlightened about this,  that this creates twice the distance between the patient and the image display,  as the tiny cubicles do not have the length needed for correct diagnosis.  So now I am a bit wiser for having asked the reason for the mirrors.

Between tests, I had to walk around to find the unoccupied chair in the musical chairs' game, and I noted the displays about 'blade and bladeless cataract surgery',  the Hermann Grid by Ludimar Hermann that displayed lateral inhibition in 1870,  and another display titled 'turning the tables' illusion by Roger Shepard that displayed 'spatial relations'.  I found that information very interesting.

One family with two girls, approximately seven and ten, were discussing how the school teacher would now have to give them the front bench, all the better to see the blackboard with, after the opthalmologist's  opinion and diagnosis.  One mother has brought a very small six month old baby for a checkup.  Another middle aged couple, where the husband was the patient, and had bandages on both his feet, intrigued my curiosity, and while playing the musical chairs game, we exchanged smiles and I ventured to ask how he had injured his feet.  Being a diabetic, the nerves in the legs had to be stimulated with a warm water soak daily, and by default, he soaked his feet into just boiled water, without realizing, until the damage was done. 

It is not easy to share intimate stories with strangers, and I am grateful to anyone who enlightens me about their personal experiences, so that I can be aware and better informed of such dangers.

As I am guided to the outgoing desk to collect my report, I spot two boards on the wall of the hospital.  One has a list of   'donors'  and the other, of   'advisories', and I recognised only the last name, that of Shiamak Davar.  The least likely person that I would have expected to find in the Bombay Eye Institute and Research Centre.  

84 - TO MARKET, TO MARKET, WITH A CLOTH BAG FOR SURE.

If you are buying vegetables from the market, you must carry your own bag.  It can be of paper, cloth or plastic.  But  you must have it on you,  unless you are a regular customer, and then the vendor will give you a carry bag that he will conjure up from the depths of the undercover 'galla'.

The quick thinking startup is that of stitching cloth bags and setting up shop at strategic places,  grocery stores, markets, etc.  Dorabjee strores in Pune sells cloth bags with their logo, for forty rupees each,  Reliance stores sell cloth bags with their logo for rupees forty and ninety each, Nature's Basket sells cloth bags with their logo for rupees ninety each.  So many shops have started this new product line, with something that has a timeless shelf life and excellent demand.

 Numerous establishments pack the products into paper bags with handles styled out of cords.  But these are viable only for light weight products, otherwise the customer has to carry the bag with both hands, one supporting the filled bag from below, otherwise the contents will soon be scattered through the paper and onto the ground.    Another invention is a 'bio green' bag, made of vegetable starch pellets and is completely bio degradable.  But that does not support large and heavy products that have to be carried from the sales' point to the home or place of re-distribution.  The large blue plastic bags are the most popular ones and are still used, and reused.  Crawford market is rife with 'plastic' bags.  Black garbage bags are also sold freely, whether they are bio degradable has to be taken at face value, on the word of the vendors.

The talcum powders, shampoos, conditioners, hand wash liquids, shaving creams,  are sold in plastic containers.  The refill packs of these are also sold in plastic bags.  Chocolate wrappers, snack wrappers, are all a type of plastic material.   Innumerable toys are manufactured with a type of plastic.  Innumerable footwear is made of plastic.  Raincoats, childrens' water bottles and snack boxes, are all made of plastic.  School books and school calendars are coated with plastic covers.  Everytime we write, we use a pen made of plastic.  Travel around the city and you will see blue plastic sheets used to cover roofs in so many places.  All electrical wires are coated in plastic,  it is a bad conductor of electricity, so it is quite indispensable.   Plastic is almost indispensable, and instead of banning its use, attention should be paid to recycle it effectively.

The worst culprits are the large cardboard chocolate gift boxes, mainly by Cadbury, which pack a variety of their products into moulded plastic containers and then pack these into a cardboard box.  The mobile phones which are packed with moulded plastic, to keep the product safe, are also environmental pollutants.   The thick, transparent, plastic strip curtains used to enclose shop entrances with AC installed.  Every toothbrush, most combs, goggles, are plastic.  Walk into any toy shop and you will see mostly plastic products.  The bucket and mug in my bathroom is plastic. The shower curtains and the pipes that connect the washing machine to the tap and the outlet, are plastic.    My Adhaar card, pan card, debit and credit card are all plastic coated.  Every photograph is on plastic paper, every roll binding is of plastic.

Plastic is a wonderful invention and it should be used and then recycled correctly.

83 - TRAVEL BUDDIES AND MORE GYAN

Every time I travel, from Pune to Mumbai, it is a two hour longer journey than the journey from Mumbai to Pune.  In order to get a sitting place in the general compartment, one has to be their at least two hours in advance, as the train that I travel by, is already on the station.  So the five and a half hour journey, becomes a seven and half hour ordeal.

Sitting in the stationary train, I observed that the water dispensing booth, boasting of rupees five per liter of chilled drinking water, is never in order.  I watch as potential customers come to the booth and are sent off because 'electricity is off'.  The usual vendors keep walking through the bogie and the platform, selling chikki, timepass fryums, shelled groundnuts, boiled whole groundnuts, hot vada pau, adrak walli chai, thanda pani and normal pani, shengdana laadu, garam samosa...     The aroma of the chillies with the vada pau permeates the air and arouses the appetitie.  It is a wonder that these vendors achieve sales by carrying around their heavy wares and manage to survive.  It seems like a lot of hard work for petty earnings.  And they are quite helpful too.  If a fan is not turning, on request anyone of the male vendors will lean up and give the fan a push,  if a drunkard is sitting in the ladies' compartment, on request, the male vendors will shoo him off,  or push open a window that is too stubborn to be pushed up by the lady passengers.  They even dispense currency change, if any passenger requests.  Most of the female vendors, carry a little hanging pouch around their waist for the cash and a mobile appears from time to time from the inners of their upper garment.  They check the time or converse with some family member.

The beggars' mafia and the drunkards that infest the platform and the train are the unwanted elements.  After the train moves on, it is the lack of garbage disposable facilities that bugs me.  Left, right and centre,  all the disposable paper cups, newspapers soiled with oily vadas and random biscuit wrappers, are  blatantly thrown out of the windows of the moving train,  with no qualms about abusing the greenery of the western ghats.  

As the train journey progresses, more and more people enter and crowd the limited space.  A four seat bench soon has six ladies trying to fit in, and the spaces between the seats and the aisle is taken over by desperate travelers, settling down onto the floor.  Young children are offered laps of accommodating lady passengers.  As I  made notes of these observations. the lady seated opposite me asked me what my profession was, and she  confided that she was a teacher too.  In fact, she had been promoted to be the  co-ordinator of the pre-primary section at her school, at the Rajasthani Sabha.   I soon found out that, they take parents and students together, when they go for a picnic or a field trip.  Another lady, travelling with her three year old, was also a teacher for the hearing and verbally disabled children at the 'Save the Children' at BKC.  She confided that the American School which is in their neighborhood, was quite helpful but not the Dirubhai Ambani School, which is also their neighbour. She also commented on the students who are from a lower middle class background, and so many of the students are siblings because there is no one to guide the parents about genetically passed on defects.  She said that most were progeny of close relatives inter marrying, which a particular community was prone to.

As we chatted and shared confidences, tempers were flaring among co-passengers just behind our seat.  This happens routinely.  Abuses  are hurled,  and the scene lends some 'timepass' for the other women.  A senior citizen travelling with her two teenage grand-daughters, told us that she had just visited her maternal village of Khedgao and was returning to her vegetable vending job at Sakinaka.  

She had changed two trains and was travelling since eight a.m.   The girl reading 'The Girl Who Knew Too Much',  was going back to her college on the eighteenth and nineteenth floors of the Stock Exchange building at Fort.    She was studying a two years Masters in Global Finance Marketing.  I was very surprised to know that there is a college in the stock exchange building.  The other lady confided that she had been an HR executive and had been with Atkins in Bangalore for five years, before taking a break to be with her baby in Lonavla.  She said that she had studied at Lonavla at the sprawling Sinhagad college campus there.   She had been to Pune for Ganpati darshan.  The last lady in our group, said that she lived with her husband and son at Talegaon, because the son was pursuing his medical degree at a college here, and she often visited Pune for shopping.

 As the train approached Lonavla, a water park adjacent to the tracks came into view, and was abandoned as always.  A vendor with a tokri full of small packets of sweets got in, and her sales pitch could shame any Television jingle.  She sang quite melodiously, 'adrak chee golee ghyaa,   khaasee khoklah  hoee jhatpath moklaah'.

After the train passes Khandala, the beautiful hills and valleys are as wonderful as always.  The far off hills have tiny streams of waterfalls leaping down into the deep valleys, they resemble the long white locks of an older Rapunzel.  Closer mountains that had waterfalls when it was raining heavily, are now not visible, but the sculpture that the force of water falling down has formed, due to erosion, is now visible, an intricate pattern where the soft rocks have worn off, leaving the harder rocks, along the vertical rock faces.

As I watch the hills and valleys, the train passes through tunnels, the wheels making screeching protests that are heightened within the confines of each tunnel,  making one break into goose bumps at the unearthly sounds.  Then I watch the rail tracks, undulating gracefully as the train passes over the connecting portions.  It seems as though someone is doodling along the path with the rail tracks.  

The train approaches Ulhasnagar, which is as filthy as ever.  What a shame to see the littered Ulhas river and its plastic and cloth rags, clogging the banks.  But the local MLAs have the audacity to display large posters, wishing the public a 'happy ganeshostav'  with the ganpati picture in a tiny corner and the MLA's face featured larger than life.  Numerous such posters were visible along the next few stations.  Public buses also sported similar advertisements.  As Dadar approached, the vendors were selling headphones, books for children and toys.  As the train stopped at CST, the loud jingle of  'Badshah masala' welcomed all those alighting.

  

  

82 - BEING HUMAN . . .

Salman Khan's  clothes'  line of the 'being human' brand is very popular with a wide range of age groups.  Young school and college students sport the brand and so too middle aged persons.  But it is just for style,  not to support the spirit of it, as is obvious by the attitude of such persons.

I am a teacher and to be insulted by a stranger on Teachers' Day and that too on a public footpath, was a vicious blow to me.  Having been a teacher for the last twenty two years seems to have been so fruitless, because I could not even bring about a single change for the better, in spite of consistent efforts.

The footpath near my school is used like a road by two wheelers.  They ride over it and they park on it.  So many school children use this footpath, but the two wheeler riders are immune from any type of policing.  On this particular day, the footpath was teeming with students returning home and yet motorbikers were riding at high speed on the footpath because there was a traffic jam on the road.  I stopped a biker and told him that he should walk his bike and ride when he is back on the road.  After arguing for two minutes, he realized that I was adamant and that I would not let him pass, so   he complied.  Then another biker, sporting a 'being human' tee shirt,  came onto the footpath and without provocation began abusing me, with his mouth full of red paan spit.  He parked on the footpath and kept shouting against my stand with the previous biker.  I told him that he too was wrong to have ridden his bike onto the pavement, at which his tirade became louder and he started using foul language.  When I protested that he was the wrong doer and didn't deserve to wear a tee shirt saying 'being human', as he was being inhuman by abusing an older lady besides,  he shouted that I should keep my teaching for the school students inside the school premises only.  When I admonished him that hadn't he been taught manners and civic rules at school, during his youth, he mocked me by retaliating that he had been a student of the same school where I was teaching at present.  That was the last straw for me and I just felt so heart broken and could not argue with him anymore.

Just then a traffic policeman was walking on the road, and I approached him, hoping that he would intervene or at least tell off the rude 'being inhuman' person.  But the policeman walked off faster than me and I realized that he wanted to avoid confrontation.  I followed him till the end of the road where the main traffic signals at a cross road of six main roads stalled him.  I requested him as to why he had walked off from the scene of argument, and he said that 'yeh elaakah unkah hai, hum kuch naheeh kar sakteh'.  So I asked to know his name, but he covered his nameplate with his hand and hurried off into the traffic.

This proves that the police are quite incompetent to control thugs in this particular area, mostly because they are backed by political honchos of the same community.  Even the E ward municipal office has not bothered to fix bollards along the footpath, to keep two wheelers off the pavement. In fact the edges of the pavement have slopes for easy access to two wheelers to be able to speed onto the footpath.  Repeated reminders have not rendered effective action from the E ward office.  But they have taken extra precautions to fix a double row of bollards outside the gate of their own office premises, which is just across the corner.

Civics, as a subject, has been side lined in schools.  I think that it should be compulsory upto the tenth and it should involve students into the practical application of its tenets.  That and that only will lead to a better India.  Students should be made aware of how the machinery of a ward office works, so that they can use it to better the situation in their own residential areas.  They must be taught the power that can be wielded by the BMC if they wish to implement it or are prodded into doing so.

81 - BANKS AND MORE BANKS

If one changes jobs, then the salary account of the new establishment is opened in a different bank every time.  So you end up visiting different banks to keep the accounts updated.  It is better to have a passbook and to update that, so that you can keep track of all transactions, especially the random fines levied from time to time, GST, minimum balance fine, there is even a fine if your account is reduced from a 'lakhpati status' to a 'less than that status' without the client's sanction for either the promotion or the demotion.  Very often the banks treat the clients like dirt, and make us feel that they are doing a big personal favor whenever they process any incoming, outgoing, or updating of our money.

The first and third Saturdays of the month are just 'bank' days.  Overheard someone say that all Saturdays will be off days for banks soon, one of the conditions to be put forward during the strike next week.  My suggestion is that let banks close on all Saturdays and Wednesdays, and have working hours on Sundays.  I am sure that lots of people would support the decision.  On working days, it is quite impossible to visit a bank, as all are working in their own offices etc., maybe business persons can do bank transactions at all times, but office workers cannot.

Most of the banks that I have visited have a very constricted entrance.  It is almost as though we have to squeeze through.  The Bank of India at many branches, has a very constricted entrance.  The Central Bank at Fountain is the most beautiful and 'spacy' bank, if only the plastic flower pots would disappear.  Citibank is unwelcoming and cold-shoulders all visitors.  Clients are treated like low mortals by the high and mighty bankers here.

 So  often,  banks decorate the premises during divali, and the decorations are left on till August, with a very friendly Santa claus poster declaring merry Christmas among the mini divali lanterns, all dusty and forlorn.  But I suppose, the officers are too busy to remove the old decorations, as observed, the security guards are also involved in helping clients update passbooks in the vendor machines and generally guiding all and sundry, as to which  transaction will be done where and by whom within the bank.  One security guard made it his 'duty' to take the passbooks of every customer and put it into the passbook printer, even those who did not want him to do so.  And then he was giving advice to each person, to put the extra cash in FD or mediclaim etc.  So it seems that the security guard has an insider's information to the bank balance of each visitor.

The Bank of India is very tardy in resolving issues of customers.  Very often I have been witness to someone flaring up and abusing the bank personnel loudly.  Today, a senior citizen with her adult son lost their tempers because it was the umpteenth time that they had been asked to visit the branch and the needful had not been done, some transfer of the late husband of the party.  It seems that the son had to accompany the mother each time and be absent from his job during those times, and yet the transfer was deferred on and on since 3 months.  Listening to the expletives exploding from the young man, I could only side with him, as I have been in his shoes so often and not have had the guts to explode.  Banks can frustrate us and make tempers flare so so easily and  justifiably.

At the Axis bank branch that I visited, another customer was angry too and rightly so,  it seems.  Very often the bank will absolve itself of a particular  unsolved problem,  by pointing out that the person in charge is on leave,  or that the KYC  details have to be renewed, etc etc and all this is done in whispered tones, which is so so irritating too.  Here the client had been promised that some foreign transfer of eight thousand dollars would be completed and even after paying rupees eight thousand for the service, the transfer was not done and the gentleman was very very angry, as it had prevented the admission etc etc of some institute abroad for his family member.  The person was quizzed about 'who was the officer?'  'can you tell us the time and the number of the request.'   It is always the same story, banks do not complete the request and then behave like quiz masters or question the client as though they are sleuths of some sort and we are at their mercy.

'Signatures are not matching',     
'KYC has to be renewed',   
'All signatories must be present and sign  in front of us',
'Come back after a week, internet is not working',
'Who did you speak with on the phone?  What is the name of the person and which department?'
'Come back after a month, the person in charge is on leave',
'The Aadhar card name and the pan card has discrepancies of the father's name etc',
'The printer is out of order',
'The ATM is out of order',
'The statement cannot be issued,  you must visit the other branch'.
'Even if you do not use the card, the account will be deducted, or give an application to the section in charge.'
'You have been assigned a financial assistant automatically, the charges for that are deducted automatically.'
'Your account has been classified as dormant, you cannot do transactions unless it is activated, give an application.'
'You must not only put in money, you must withdraw too, or the account will become dormant'.
'The instructions for the deductions have come from the head office, we cannot do anything here.'
'A magnifying glass is available on request.'  And this is pinned on a notice board that is eight feet high!  Perhaps binoculars should be made available too.

All these petty excuses to avoid processing simple requests like updating a passbook or to withdraw a teeny tiny amount, makes us go 'out of order'  too. 

80 - WHY INDIBLOGGER?

I started to write blogs because I wanted to win prizes that were offered on a site called Indiblogger.  But for them to add me to their directory, I had to have at least twenty blogs. So I made it my mission to complete the magical number.  But after getting into Indiblogger, I felt the opposite of 'empowered', not sure what the exact word is. 

This site gives a rating in numerals, has a dashboard and a forum to post ideas or any topics that we would want other indibloggers to comment upon.  That was my understanding, but I was wrong of course.  And it is a very   strictly censored site,  but certain persons who run it, although that is not too clear.

What is clear is that 'no animals were harmed during the process' and I too can boast of the same thing.