What had gone wrong? Well, the Indian government had apparently given a list of sites to internet service providers (ISPs) in India to ban. Some of these were Blogspot blogs. The ISPs went and banned the entire Blogspot domain.

Naturally, there was a hue and cry about this. Bloggers came together and set up a wiki and a public-access email group. Many Indian bloggers are journalists, and they got to work on getting the mainstream media to work on the matter. Some are lawyers, and they got down to preparing a public interest litigation. Others filed Right to Information applications. The technology experts among us publicised ways to get around the ban. And many, many bloggers voiced their protest.

Well, I’m glad to inform you that we won. The government got rattled by the negative publicity, and ordered the ISPs to block only those sites on their list, and not entire domains. Slowly, the ISPs have started restoring access to the blocked domains. All seems well for now.

There were two issues in all this. One, the technological ineptitude on the part of the ISPs. Two, the censorship involved, for even the handful of sites on the government list should not have been blocked. And had the government felt a strong need for those sites to have been blocked, it should have been transparent in the matter, and stated their reasons clearly.

The first battle seems to have been won. (I could be wrong, of course, but I hope not.) The second remains a longer-term fight, and one that many bloggers will continue.

And no, this was not a post about Mumbai, or at least about Mumbai alone. But there is one tenuous connection I can find: Mumbai is a city that I’ve always thought gives people the freedom to be themselves, a metropolis in the true sense of the term. And blogs give us the same freedom. The bloggers on Mumbai Metblogs care about that freedom, thus, doubly. And we will not give up this fight.

Typically at such meetings, many separate conversations take place all at once, so my description of the proceedings would be as incomplete as a someone describing Andheri and thinking he’s encapsulated Mumbai. Nevertheless, Andheri was fun. Some bloggy things were discussed, such as maximising Google referrals and moderating comments, neither of which interested me much. Non-bloggy things were also discussed — a battle over reservations took part at the other end of the table (though everyone seemed to be against them) and that conversation mysteriously turned to matters of men and women, with the word ‘virginity’ much bandied about. I strained my ears, but young Gera, whose absence of hair made up for my unruly abundance, kept me distracted with tales of perl and camera lenses and public goods.

There were four ladies present, which is as good a turnout as I’ve seen at any blog meet, and they all possessed immense charm. Evenstar and Ideasmith began a campaign to try to get me to untie my ponytail, though, because they wanted to see if I look like The Undertaker with my hair unleashed. Immensely dangerous behaviour, and I made a mental note to be wary of them in future. What would they have asked for next, I wonder, had I acceded to their undoubtedly erotic request.

I had to leave early — just three hours after it all got underway — but not before it was decided that the next meeting shall be at Juhu. One of the gentlemen present proposed that we meet either at Powai or at Powai, but I’m glad to say we managed to overrule him. (He lives in Powai, or in Powai.) Sakshi has promised many freebies at the next blog meet, but none of them is a free laptop, which will no doubt upset Anupam, a huge fan of IIPM. (I kid, I kid; he holds them in almost as much disdain as the Times of India, and I agree with him on both counts.)

And ah, did I mention that Akshay was scheduled to take pictures of the Ramsay Brothers after the meet? The horror!

I’d love to write more about each of the people who came, but the best introduction to them is through their blogs, and I recommend you instantly check them all out. And if you are in Mumbai, and either read or write blogs, come for the next meet. Watch this space.

Today, Mumbai’s players no longer fill the Indian cricket team: the current squad to Pakistan has three men from Mumbai, but only one of them, Sachin Tendulkar, has been a regular over the last decade. They’re still one of the top Ranji sides, but they do not dominate any more. Whatever happened to them? Why did cricket decline in Mumbai? Well, my postulation is that Mumbai’s dominance of Indian cricket was affected, in a bittersweet way, by India’s economic development. Let me explain.

India’s part-liberalisation in 1991 played a huge part in Indian cricket’s rise and Mumbai cricket’s decline. There are two aspects to this: one, Mumbai’s relative decline as a cricketing power; and two, its decline in absolute terms as well.

One of the consequences of economic development was that people in the large Indian cities gradually became more prosperous through the 1990s, and more avenues of entertainment and passing time opened up for them. In the 1970s, Indians looked mainly to Bollywood and cricket for spending their leisure time. In the 1990s, the choices expanded for those in the big cities. You could spend your free time hanging out at a mall, playing pool, gaming at a cyber cafe, watching satellite television, and suchlike. None of these choices could come close to threatening cricket’s appeal on their own, but all of them together did. Add to that the fact that middle-class kids in the suburbs normally faced a long commute early in the morning to play cricket in any of the traditional Mumbai nurseries, such as Shivaji Park, and the options that existed in their suburbs itself became more valuable.

Now, while this was happening, the small towns of India got exposed to cricket in a bigger way than before. Satellite TV beamed most international games into their homes, with expert commentary from the best pundits in the world, and got exposed to values a growing generation would internalise: of fitness standards, running between wickets, fielding, and so on. As India’s middle class expanded, kids in these smaller towns also gained the means to take the game, whose aspirational value grew and grew, more seriously. A large number of India’s 21st-century stars — Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and so on — are from smaller towns,

Thus, in absolute terms, Mumbai cricket declined because Mumbai kids suddenly had more options of spending their time, and the opportunity costs of playing cricket rose. And in relative terms, the small towns of India, exposed to cricket but not containing the plethora of choices the bigger cities had, asserted themselves, and Mumbai’s lustre diminished in comparison.

Of course, a trend like Mumbai cricket’s decline can never be explained with a couple of cut-and-dry reasons, because a lot of other factors play their part. For example, once cricket became big commercial property, the amount of international cricket that was played increased drastically, and big-league players no longer had time to play domestic cricket. In the ’60s and ’70s, Mumbai’s top stars would routinely play the Kanga League, alongside upcoming youngsters. Today, they don’t have the time to do so, and the strength of the tournament is thus reduced, as is its attractiveness to young players. What was once so accessible now seems far away, and there are many other things to do.

Of course, this post may just be premature. All it takes is a couple of exciting young stars, an old warhorse or two, and a great new team could build around them. But I think that the best days of Mumbai cricket are behind it. Looking at the processes that have led to it, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Let a thousands small towns bloom.