A political say

Blogging is definitely one phenomenon that has caught on with many people connected to the Internet. Even though there are many who commit blogicide, there are many others who persist in updating and maintaining their blogs on a daily basis. The Pakistani blogosphere is as diverse as it can get. There are blogs which are dedicated exclusively to one theme – cricket blogs, for instance or literary blogs. However, there is one form of blogging which is still the domain of very few people. And that type is political blogging.

Political blogging is something that has yet to catch up in this country. Of course, there are people who, within their general interest blog, dedicate a post or two to the current political happenings in the country, but by and large, the general public is hesitant to express its political views for everyone to read. And political affiliation is something very few will admit anyway.

In this scenario, Chowrangi (http://www.chowrangi.com) comes as a breath of fresh air. This is a general interest blog of course. There are posts pertaining to business, entertainment, society and lifestyle in general. But there are more posts dedicated to the politics and current happenings in the country than is usually found on the blogs on this type.

Chowrangi is a group blog. There is more than one person posting on the blog, which is definitely an advantage. Instead of a monotone in terms of both style and views, there is a diverse set of opinions on different matters and written in many different ways of course. It is very possible that you agree with one writer and disagree with another. And if you are interested in writing and contributing to this blog, you can of course be a part of it.

The content is categorised for the more choosy readers. Each post is written under a separate category so if you are only interested in posts pertaining to politics, you can select the appropriate link from the right hand side bar and be directed to all the posts which have been written on politics to date.

Another advantage is that each post has a separate page with only the first couple of paragraphs visible on the main page. This essentially means that if you are in a hurry and just want to skim through the posts of the last two days, you can do so in a glance by looking through the headings and introductions of the posts on the main page. And if you like one particular post and want to read it in detail simply follow the ‘continue reading’ link and you will be directed to the webpage dedicated to the contents of the entire post plus its comments. And of course, if you are an opinionated reader, do take out time to write out some comments.

Chowrangi is definitely a contradiction to all those who believe that worthwhile content cannot emerge from the local front. Yes, it is true that most of the local content in cyberspace pertains to either showbiz or mobile phone websites. But there is a lot of other content as well, most of which gets drowned in people’s daily fare of Google, Yahoo and Hotmail.