‘Space- the final frontier…These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five years mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.’

 

–Introduction to Star Trek (television series) 1966 onwards, by Gene Roddenberry

 

Hello readers,

                    Many of you might know me- for my eccentric tastes and wild dramatic over-enthusiastic gestures. Some of you, who are reading me for the first time, will be able to gauge after reading few of my posts that a mad-hatter is indeed behind this gig.

So I take this opportunity, on my century, to proclaim this to the Whole World Wide Web that indeed I am mad, indeed I am eccentric, indeed I have a loosened screw up my head and to tell you honestly I am f***ing proud of being one because that what differentiates me from the drab, mundane world outside.

                    It has been two years indeed, my dear reader, that I started this blog. With an aim to make it big in the publishing world, I geared up, dead-set, jotting down my stories furiously as it popped up in my head and splayed it all on my blog for you to read. Oh, those dreams!! You might not be able to guess how lost in my sweet slumber, I dreamt up fame, winning Nobel-prizes for literature, wowing the whole world over, being extremely rich…

                   But something had to snap, someone had to get me out of my reverie. And that someone was no one. No one indeed was interested to read my blog, no mister, no one indeed gave a shit about my grandiose dreams and yearnings. Do you know what the easiest way to snub a writer is? You don’t read him. Even if he gives his hard work out for free, there are no takers. I was hurt. You know what the funny thing is- people close to me say that I write well, so it isn’t actually my indecipherable scroll which is to blame.

Maybe, I had to be god damn boring, I don’t know.

                  And here I am, a crushed soul slowly stitching back my bag of dreams, not ready to give up so soon. You see, I indeed discovered that you had to have those instant connects with your readers- so I added book and movie reviews, personal touches and tried to portray my aliens in a more heart rending light. Plus, I decided to stop chasing after firangis; after all they weren’t interested in an Indian’s take on the Alien World. It was then I decided that I start to terrorize my friends, blackmail them to read me!!!!!!

                 Oh Boy, I succeeded. Of course, they aren’t my hard core fans, but they do read me and grudgingly they have to admit that I have something. And indeed I had a new name- ‘The Dacoit of Facebook Valley.’

                  Many, many people (including some publishers) had asked me to change the name of my blog from ‘Shitandfarts’ to something else. They felt that it was downright embarrassing. But I was obstinate enough that if someone wanted to read my blog, keeping Shakespeare in mind, they would say ‘What’s in a name?’ But I soon discovered that they hadn’t read Shakespeare!! So catering to popular demand I have changed the name of my blog to iamalienman.wordpress.com (I am Alienman- which is actually true). And you must admit that ‘Alienman’ has got a sexy weird ring to it and you won’t be least embarrassed by it, if someone caught you reading me!

                  So I talked about a starship called ‘Enterprise’ in the beginning. ‘To explore strange worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations’- that indeed is my primary motto. I would maintain my required level of obstinacy, and keep this blog, primarily dedicated to aliens. In a way, this is indeed an enterprise, a temerarious venture out into unknown. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow- whether I would succeed or not indeed would be decided by the toss of a coin. But I believe that no one should say this tomorrow that I didn’t try.  On this very century, I take a pledge in front of you, no matter, that I don’t find you here when I need you the most, but you will always find me here whether you need me or not!!

                  So I part thee for few days (atmost!) with these four lines by a well known poet- which of course I have altered to suit my fancy…

The space is lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And light-years to go before I sleep,

And light-years to go before I sleep.

 

Yours truly,

Vismay Harani (a.k.a. Alienman)