I have been on blogger for over two years now, but believe it or not this is my very first post in the blogsphere (or is it blogosphere?). It took a long time coming only because of self-conceived, self-nurtured skewed notions of an 'online audience' which to me remained the cravings of individuals who have no 'real' life.

But what is real? Perceptions change. It is a time where online 'property' is sold for real money, a time when online social networking has united friends who were apart by miles and decades. I started reading blogs during the soccer world cup and it was the most obvious thing to do, to get real-time updates from real people, not just some sports reporters doing their routine job.

So not wanting to be left behind in this dynamic online universe speeding towards an ever-increasing complexity, I have entered the world of the blog. I want to start with is this short essay my dad had written long back on John Milton's Paradise Lost.

"Many critics have remarked that Satan is the real hero of the poem. This is because he is evil and the blandishments of evil are devious, changing and replete with attractiveness and subtlety. So the depiction of evil is multi-layered, changing, elusive, appealing to the senses and entertaining. Adam on the other hand is an archetypal man symbolic of Christ and other mythic heroes who follow the straight and narrow path. Goodness is plain and bland; it is not devious, changing and presented with a new mask for every occasion. As someone has said, albeit uncharitably, “goodness is barren; nothing grows form it”. It is for this reason that in all literature truly good heroes appear pallid and insipid compared to others who are wearing perfervid protean nature of the Trojan flamboyant chrysalis of evil like Iago in Shakespeare and Satan in Paradise Lost."