The age of the global citizen...half my childhood buddies are all over the world...i know at least one person in every continent(maybe even antarctica..i wudn't be surprised) friendships made for life...with only a geographical barrier...bridged by something as technological as the internet.
Technology and relationships don't mix, like cold steel and heartfelt warmth maybe? Well, I'd beg to differ.
School friends, college friends, colleagues, friends' friends, a lot of alliances you would best forget but there are just as many that matter so much. My best friend in 6th grade who left for boarding school in Jaipur. Or another bestie who moved home to Kiwiland when i was 13. My first crush who has lived in Toronto since we were 10, but i got in touch with again 8 years later...all thanks to Facebook.
With such fast paced lives and with everyone in a different part of the world it's difficult to catch up for even a cursory drink, making the Boozemail application one of the largest used on Facebook. With newsfeeds giving you a play by play update on your friend's lives(which you can update the settings of to ignore lesser acquaintances, and bring your inner circle into the limelight) to building an entirely virtual social life for the simple reason that, having a real one that functions the same way, is plain impossible.
Facebook is what binds me to my old friends and actually helps me get closer to people I never got a chance to bond with earlier. You may realise that you and a casual friend may have similar interests from the groups you join, the applications you prefer, and a million other things considering Facebook is so customised you can read a person's personality just by visiting their profile page. for eg. Karun and I studied in the same class for 6 years in school, casual friends, but he only realised i was a fellow fan of The Doors when he read my status message. It simply said, 'Bianca is: stoned immaculate'
Friendships are born out of sticky situations, escapades, lurid stories brimful of laughter and tears. Getting caught for bunking maths class and playing basketball instead or talking about your dreams and your passion over a cup of coffee while watching a beautiful sunset cannot be recreated even with the best graphics. We bond through sharing good times and the not-so-good (rather horrible, horrendous and torturous) ones and this is not an emotion that transmits through an LCD screen. So when you think about it, Facebook is nothing close to the real thing, but it's one hell of a replacement when the real world is out of reach.
trembling....i realise how wrong we can be. we dislike, loathe, even hate without a second thought. i was told to keep faith that it was for the greater good. but reason overtook and clouded my immovable belief. they said they were good, they said they knew! it was pure solid proof, it happened before my eyes, i saw that last look of fear, of betrayal in those twinkling blue eyes, how could i be wrong? the rock i'd leaned on was gone, but did that mean i should have shed all that that very rock had taught me. mere childish rivalry had beguiled me and i was prey to prejudice. there were smoldering kinders of trust but i tried my best to extinguish them. now, m glad i never succeeded. i should have known, he loved her didn't he? but i feel the repercussions....its over, irrevocable....and i weep...
was reading the fountainhead(again) and dint finish it(again)...but had to give this excerpt a mention....right in the beginning, on pg. 16, is one of Roark's first bit of expression that gives u an insight into his "monstrous" ideas.
"Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important- what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right- so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand."
This got me thinking.
Why do I not accept my self-worth? Why must I deny my abilities and fake humility in order to be a good human being? Why do we thrive on acceptance? Why is there is a right and a wrong way of being offbeat? Why does the system get me down? Why is something cool and something else not? Why have I always been told that the competition is better than me? Why does the competition affect me? Why is it that when I know my purpose, suddenly I'm insane? and why is it that if realization of that purpose happens to bring me worldly success I'm eccentric, a genius?
You would probably say something redundant like, "man is a social animal." Well, is he?
Why do we make such general statements?
Why is everything so B&W???
Where do I put my shades of grey???
According to Wikipedia, “News is any new information or information on current events which is relayed by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.”
This definition is being taken in the very literal sense by the media which continues to spew out pointless crap and we lap it up like an IIT student would a law of Newton’s. Now, news is just an excuse to make money off the classifieds. The real issues aren’t even visible through this mist of pseudo-journalism. I apologize for not conjuring up a more novel example but let’s give a thought to how victories and defeats in cricket end up as first page news but no one gives a damn about the deterioration of our ecosystems.
During a lecture in 12th std Hindi a few months ago, the usual soporific state of the class was disturbed by a discussion by my professor. He told us that he was now afraid to let his 13 yr old daughter read the newspaper in fear that she would be influenced by wrong ideals and lose all the traditional Indian sensibilities instilled in her. Prof. Shukla then went on to say that, when he was young, parents encouraged their offspring to give great attention to the news material of those times. Those magazines had words of inspiration, speeches of motivation and articles of insight that helped the youth of the day base their life principles on.
But now, the entire scenario has taken a 180 degree flip. The mass media is now only a mouthpiece for bad tidings like murder, rape, fraud, fall-outs between families, partners of corporate firms and film stars turning into delinquents. Asking your child to read the newspaper is like asking them to play with fire.
The lighter sections of the paper now consist of a whole load of meaningless gossip that the paparazzi keep churning out. As I had discussed at work, try as I may to avoid the Hurley-Nayyar wedding fiasco, updates on their “amazing, celebrity lives” stare out at you from every news dailies. But the sky rocketing of interest rates of housing loans that is affecting the economy right from the monthly budget of the working youth to the entire nation’s course of banking is being ignored like a weak student in a class of geniuses. No one cares two hoots about the socio-economical progress of mankind.
Eventually it all boils down to us, the readers. We can’t blame the establishments for publishing futile information. Nobody asks us to accept that kind of reporting, we do it all of our own accord. Given a choice we would rather read about Jennifer Aniston’s next beau than the depleting ozone layer. We prefer the leisure sections full of cheesy humor and articles about how to understand the opposite sex. Reading how to cope with our senseless existence lures us against reading about the disintegration of our social system. So, we shall continue with our BTs, HTcafes and DNA After Hours, while the editions keep increasing in size with more and more supplements added to them day after day to persuade a different sect of readers into choosing their moronic ranting over others’. And as the papers pile up the only consolation is that we now earn more while selling off the old stacks every month.
Once again this morning I was faced with what seems to be the bane of every girl’s existence- what should I wear today? I decided it was time to shop as all that I owned was probably last century. Not one to follow tiny ripples in the stream of fashion, I dragged one of my fashion-slave-friends along. She went on about how this was all the rage right now and how that was sooooo IN!!!!!!! By the end of the day I decided to go back to my basic grey denim capris and black top.
None of the clothes I’d seen had suited my individual style at all. That’s when my blatant idiocy struck me like a water balloon. I was looking for my unique taste in the very clothes which practically everyone was going crazy over… I can see where I had trouble. But then again don’t we do this with life too? We try and please everyone by doing what they like and expect personal happiness at the same time. This is why we’re so confused, with the world and within ourselves. We’re trying to gain acceptance from our peers, become the pride of our parents and conform to the norms of society, all the while wanting to leave a mark, make a distinct impression in the sands of time, full of footprints.
The reason we teens are misunderstood today, and always, is because of all this self-contradiction, all this internal conflict. We cry when we are alone, abuse our minds and bodies, all for some respite. We worry, we dramatize, we rant and we weep. If only we knew what we wanted out of ourselves, there would be no need for all of this. But if we did know what we wanted, we wouldn’t be human now, would we?
“Oh, why d’yu havta go n make things so complicated
I see the way ur actin’ like ur somebody else gets me frustrated
Life’s like this you
N you fall n u crawl n you break n you take whatcha get
And turn it into
Honesty and promise me I’m never gonna find you fake it…no, no, no…”
-Complicated, Avril Lavigne
I knew of a professor of English Literature who used to wash dishes to vent frustration. She had told us that she imagined each plate, bowl, spoon to be a face of one of the myriad mischief-makers of the class. And when she explained the poem, Two Tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost, to us, I realized that my habit of releasing pent up emotions on the last pages of my notebook wasn't exactly without reason. The poem begins with a man chopping wood to destress, I knew then that the pen was my axe. Over time this pen has turned into the keyboard of a Compaq Presario M2000 and my notebook into, well, still a notebook but a digital one. Everytime i have a particularly gratitude-worthy day or a moronically frustrating one I get myself some coffee and chocolate and let the juices flow. Everytime I learn from an especially stirring experience it's converted into a new page in my digital novel on life. The experience need not be a great loss like a death or a happiness like a new life into the world. I don't have them, not too often at least. What I mean by 'stirring' is slight turbulence in my equation with those around me. Sometimes the most subtle of things can teach you an invaluable truth which you failed to see while floating on clouds of happiness, your sight distorted by the mist that had settled on your judgement.
Blogging is free therapy...and with demands for psychiatric help skyrocketing, blogging is a relief to the economically challenged. Personally just writing down my troubles is such a weight off my head, it's like having spoken to Oprah about it. And the comments you get from anonymous well-wishers is another bonus. The "Blogopolitan" is a place where there's room for every intellectual, every moron, every terrorist and every zen aathma. 'Your opinions are your's and no one can change that' is the principle that the blogging world flourishes on.
Devdas drank himself to death to beat frustration, Hitler destroyed half the earth and Marilyn Monroe popped pills. I blog. Sweet addiction, isn't it.
Love sells. It’s as simple as that. If it didn’t we wouldn’t have so many jewelers selling diamonds on the anniversary gift concept. And guess what, it works! I mean I would never imagine a practical man like my father could buy my mom diamond earrings for their anniversary, but then again it was their 25th year and they love each other…so see what I mean, love sells because everyone seems to be so smitten by, well, love!
And now coming to Valentine’s Day, that fateful day in the middle of the shortest month, it can also be identified as the biggest brand for love, its byproducts being cards, gifts, and other moronic lil pink n red objects floating about like chaos (ref. to ancient Greece where it was believed that chaos was the mixed matter the Universe was made up of before the Big Bang).
Wait a minute, I hope you don’t think I’m another political party with an anti-love agenda, actually I’m quite mushy in my own right. What makes me queasy is the desperate search for a Valentine a week before Feb 14th. This has now resulted in a phenomenon known as “the friendly Valentine”. It starts with a Valentine‘less’ guy who just can’t seem to find a chick no matter how much Axe he sprays all day long. He then uses his devious mind to come up with a plan to save face- ask one of your best friends! They’ll never let you down. And even if they try to you can always say “yehi dosti, yehi pyaar???” Cheesy, I know, but works like a charm. Said best friend gets emotionally blackmailed and desperado has a date.
Another nauseating symptom of Valentine fever is overt displays of affection, a frantic search for the perfect gift with “to our eternal love” on the card. By the way, Webster’s just called, they’re changing the definition of eternal to “a time period equivalent to a month or in rare cases, a few more”.
Let’s get this straight, I don’t mean don’t celebrate your love or your “beautiful journey together”. All I mean is that when the axe falls on it, we shouldn’t find that the glue that held it all together was made of gift wrap paper and greeting cards. Valentine’s Day is not a competition for the best gift or the biggest bouquet. It’s a day to celebrate the fact that every time your special someone calls and that assigned ring tone rings, you feel that tingly feeling waking every part of you, or every time you walk together in the rain, you feel your senses coming alive. No corporate firm can package that and sell it to you in a box. The same way, you can’t buy love. So when are we going to stop trying?
