In my building lives a retired Govt official Mr. Madhavrao Patwardhan better known as Appa Patwardhan among friends. A social worker at heart, he is also a man with varied interests.
His main concern at the time of retirement was that he should not get mentally lethargic. He had seen many brilliant gentlemen who, after formal retirement, speedily went downhill in their physical health mainly due to the lack of mental occupation. To avoid this, he started taking up various new interests with a vengeance to stimulate his intellect and keep his brain ticking.
One of his first pursuits was “Astrology”. He took a formal 2 month course in this subject and also bought a few books on the subject. Having some interest in this subject myself, I found myself chatting with him asking him about my horoscope. I was quite impressed in the depth that he had acquired in the subject. There was also a keen sense of hunger to learn more.
I decided to google around the net and pulled out some literature which I thought would be of interest to him. He was exhilarated to see the new source of information. Of the various articles, he found one extremely interesting. This happened to be one from a website called boloji.com. At that stage, I did not give it much thought.
Appa did try his hand at the net, but being totally computer-illiterate was unable to make much headway.
During his next foray into intellectual expansion nearly a year later, he started getting interested in Buddhism. Once again it was me to the rescue. I supplied him with another set of articles and information. Appa was really impressed this time. Boloji had delivered once again.
By this time, Appa’s perseverance had yielded results and he had started getting the hang of surfing the net. Visiting cyber-cafes became a pastime in itself. With his spectrum of interests getting wider, Boloji.com seemed to hit home run each time, making it his favorite website. It was through his recommendation that this portal came into my consciousness.
The site
This is essentially a portal which has information and articles on a wide variety of topics. The articles are well classified according to different categories:
Heritage articles on topics of Architecture, astrology, ayurveda, cinema, culture, dances, fables, festivals, history, places and spirituality.
On Religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism
Society & Lifestyle issues such as family matters, health, parenting, perspective, recipes, society, teens, women.
On Literature, creative writings, book reviews, humor, memoirs, musings, photo essays, travelogues, etc.
But frankly that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Explore within and you will find a treasure house of information, Opinions and views.
For instance, when I was searching extensively for iuformation on Meditation, I found some very good articles on this site.
The Writers on the Site
Essentially the writers are those who are some authority on the subject. Unlike some other sites, where even junk can be posted, these articles are scrutinized by a team of editors and only then published. This ensures that there is some depth and quality in the writings.
Speed and Navigation
I have found the navigation quite user-friendly with all the categories very nicely titled and laid out. Speed is reasonably good.
Search Engine
To help you access specific subjects, the site has an in-built search engine powered by Google which can take you to a list of articles on the site, which has your topic of interest.
Recommendation
The site has recently been rechristened indianest.com, so do not be confused to see this name when you visit the site. Try visiting this at least once. I’m sure this will egg you on to find out about new subjects of interest which you may have never thought of earlier.
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