IANS

Mumbai, Jun 2: After actors Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan, it is now the turn of ace director Ram Gopal Varma to be bitten by the blog bug.

Blogging is fun, says Varma, who had sworn he would never blog. "But blogging sounded like so much fun. It sounded like a very naughty activity," Varma, who started his blog site rgvzoomin.com this week, told IANS.

"Besides, everyone who is worth anything these days is blogging. I couldn't be left out, could I?" reasons the man who loves to do the unpredictable.

Varma admits he was influenced by Amitabh. In fact, the mega star urged the director to take the plunge.

"At first I laughed off the very thought of starting my own blog. I kept wondering how Amitji would sustain the blog on a day-to-day basis. Then I saw how passionately devoted he was to it. I grew interested," said Varma, who is set to release his "Sarkar Raj" June 6.

The political thriller features Amitabh along with his son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.

However, Varma makes it very clear that his intentions and purpose for starting a blog are very different from the Big B.

"The Big B's big blog is a full on day-to-day affair. He talks about his day-to-day activities. I think he basically sees it as a platform to express his thoughts unhampered and to communicate his thoughts with his audience. I won't be going to rgvzoomin.com every day.

"I've neither the urge to tell the world what I'm doing with my private space nor the time or patience. And catch me carrying a laptop to my set to indulge my mental blog. I lose my cellphone every month. I'd have to spend a fortune buying new laptops."

Here, then is the blog's raison d'etre for Varma.

"It's to express my thoughts on my films. For instance, everyone thought 'Nishabd' was based on 'Lolita' when it was not. If I had my blog at that time, I could've explained why it wasn't 'Lolita'. At the moment I'm taken up with 'Sarkar Raj'. So I've started by sharing my thoughts on 'Sarkar Raj'. Next, I'll start discussing my other new film 'Contract'."

Does the presence of the print medium now become redundant for Varma?

"Not at all. I'll be carrying on a conversation with myself on the blog. The process of thought expression becomes very different when questions are thrown at you. I don't see my blog as a substitute for interviews. And I think my calculated quotable quotes would go to waste if I were to put them on my blog."

How often will Varma visit his blog?

"Certainly not every day. I'll have someone to monitor the inputs and if I think a query needs to be answered, I'll do so."