A short history of the Indian Blogosphere

DesiPundit has an interesting endeavor going on right now where they've asked for blogger contributions in 4 categories -

• An intro to blogging
• How to start blogging NOW!
• Useful blog tools
• State of the Indian Blogosphere

Now the first 3 (as has been pointed out in the many comments to the post) are more or less just-google-it- it-already-exists kind of things. The last one looks interesting for sure, though I was thinking more along the lines of doing a kinda-sorta short history of the Indian blogosphere as we now know it. So help me out here fellow bloggers and readers, just off the top of my head -

• Which was the very first Indian blog you read?
• If you blog, what (Indian) blog inspired you to start blogging yourself?
  
• What were some of the popular Indian blogs you used to read that no longer exist?
• When did the Blog Mela begin?
  
• Anything else that's relevant