Past in a click

Our window to the outside world today is majorly through the various media, chiefly electronic in which the contribution of Social Networking is nothing short of immense in shaping our perceptions, impressions and views on many global and local issues likewise - either directly or indirectly. It is incredible how much information is accessible on the press of mouse click or more popularly nowadays - the touch of a screen.

The coming of the Social Networking revolution signaled the beginning of the end for many small but significant activities that we were used to regularly doing up until then. In this write-up I will describe a few that completely changed the way we looked at life.

a) Life Decisions -  

In a recent conversation that I had with my grandparents, they were telling me how they had to write letters every single time to let their concerned one's know about the happenings in their lives; right from a birth, a death or a marriage in the family among many other things. Compare that to our parents' generation wherein telephone calls albeit of poor quality and scarce quantity were more commonplace.

Compare those two scenarios now to our generation - The Social Networking generation. Friendships are forged, varied relationships blossom, love flourishes, romantic messages are sent, jokes are shared, personal and professional bonds are made, even marriages are broadcast halfway across the world, baby births are congratulated and heck even deaths are announced on Social networking platforms - all at the click of a button and in the split of a second. 

Imagine our kids and grand kids skimming through our Facebook page a couple of decades down the line; pointing and laughing at knowing our every single story, goof up and our childish eccentricities in a jiffy. Whats worse is that, given that we were the first generation to benefit from the 'in thing' that was Social Networking and the fact that we took to it like fish to water - they could dig even deeper into our past. 

Here I take the liberty of stating that most Facebook users in India were not first timers in the Social Networking jungle but merely immigrants from Orkut which is practically every FB user's dark past. To think that I would get the shudders when my kid skims through my orkut page would be the least of my worries because I don't have the insulation of making my crazy adventures sound interesting and cool the way my parents did when they shared their teenage or childhood stories with me.

Sample this coversation - 30 years down the road when your kid reads a post on your FB wall that says - I`m through with you.

Your Kid: Were you dumped on FB when you were in college? Why? 

All you can probably come up with is - I was going to dump her as well just that she beat me to it because my internet was down. An ace lawyer would not be able to refute it for you because all your friends, relatives, classmates and even your Kamwali Bai would have liked and commented on that wall post in which you were ceremoniously dumped. Heck my parents would have been the first to comment LOL/ROFL on that fateful post.

So the moral of the story is - Make no mistakes, even if you do - Wipe out the evidence before someone gets their hands on it :P.  

b) Chronicling -

You notice the severity and magnitude of change in the last 30 years when your parents complain that they're not able to get in touch with people in their previous job or project whereas you are easily able to track down a complete stranger you met 15 minutes ago through a mutual contact and send that person an add request.

Gone is the era of Slam books, Yearbook photographs and photo albums chronicling the relationship and memories of your school or team. The change is so immense that unless a set of our photos or notes of a tour, experience or farewell are either digital or online we refuse to regard it as a valid life experience.

I am reminded of a time when film was still being used to click pictures and we would have to immediately develop it so that it could be printed and stacked safely in an album for future reminiscence. Compare that to the scenario we have now, clicking 1000's of pictures on our high definition cameras with no compulsion of printing, to be stored on our numerous hard drives or online photo albums and instantaneously forgotten, only to be remembered when we have to over write it with something else that is more valuable because of a database space crunch.

Social networking has effectively displaced diary and journal writing with Personal notes on social networking pages and online journals which has deprived us and the future from the joy of flipping through old and smelly paper journals and diaries adorned with fountain pen written verses and thoughts that stir up memories more effectively than any electronic media.

PS 1: Sooner or later, this( Below) is going to hold true unless we stay updated with the momentary 'In thing'.

            

   
PS 2: I`m guilty of some of the activities mentioned above as well - so let me not cry Wolf.

                


 

               

Your place or Mine?

Before you let your blessed mind run into overdrive, let me explain that the title; apart from being a shoddy pick up line most popularly used at shady bars by equally shady characters almost got me into a tiff with a couple of friends a few days ago. 

In what began as an innocent inquiry into where one could find the best Pav Bhaaji in India, blew out to a full fledged argument as to how one city(their own) is perennially better than any other in the country with the chief culprits being the big city folk who came to the fiery rescue of their respective namesakes.  

• The Mumbaikar proclaimed Mumbai to be his eternal love with the packed locals, the monsoon, home to Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood.
• A Delhiite claimed Delhi to be the best with honors like the National Capital, bustling markets, home to the leaders of the country, The Delhi Metro and being a potpourri of many cultures, languages and people. 
• A Kolkattan told us that they were home to the world's best Rasgulla's, fish, intellectuals, Sourav Ganguly and therefore staked claim to the best city.
• A Chennaiite proudly spoke at length about the Marina Beach, the educated cricket crazy crowd at Chepauk, the 'to die for' Sambar immersed Vada's and its adopted son MS Dhoni. 
• A Bangalorean boasted about the hill station like weather, numerous and more malls, bustling nightlife and how it is an absolute IT haven.

This brings me to 2 questions:-

1. Does it even make sense to compare cities as different as apples and oranges with the same scale? 
2. On what basis does one proclaim one city to be better than any other?

On close introspection one notices that it ultimately boils down to the fact that one city is preferred over another simply for the reason that one has lived in a city X for a significant number of years whereas one has toured, stayed or simply passed through another city Y for a considerably lesser time frame. To brand the said city Y and its dwellers with a short and narrow sighted judgement seems flawed on the face of it to me as it flouts the basic tenet of coexistence - To each his/her own.

It is said that the answers are right in front of you - its just a matter of asking the right questions. Lo and behold, it struck me how trivial the discussion was; the end objectives hardly justified the means for we hardly got any concrete answers but got to hear plentiful complaints about our favorite cities in the bargain.

Ultimately, Isn't home defined by where the heart is and not the City we reside in?  

PS: I found it difficult to take sides in the aforementioned argument because I've stayed in far too many to be able to pick just the one and defend it like my life depended on it.                

 

       





      

Striking Terror

Pre Script - SARCASM AHEAD

The threat of Terrorism is a very frightful, dark and palpable reality post 9/11. It is as if this random date in history was chosen to change the global perception of terrorism; not that this was the first ever terrorist hit to go down because there were many that did and in scary proportions too - right from the Nazi Gas chambers in Auschwitz and Riga during World War 2 in the 1940's to the Kenyan Embassy bombings in 1998. That said, the events that took place on the morning of the 11th of September 2001 would stay etched in the pages of history books for time immemorial.

As we look deeper into the viewing glass - one realizes that there are different dimensions to this concept of terrorism.  I will list a few other forms of terrorism which are worth noting.

Audio Terrorism -

If you thought that terrorism just involved a bunch of fanatic dudes bent on blowing people and things up - you're sadly mistaken. Audio terrorism is a silent killer which occupies the ranks of Diabetes and Heart disease. It is a very potent and effective form of terrorism impacting a large majority of people on the planet who listen to some form of audio either on their phones, music players, radios, TV's or computers.

Chief proponents of this form of terrorism include Himmesh Reshmaiyya, Justin Bieber, Rebecca Black to name a few; for their repeated and relentless attacks on the civilian majority in the guise of pursuit of musical  glory causing many a splitting headache, torn eardrum and pushing people to pulling the hair out of their heads after listening to their songs. Side effects include temporary loss of sanity and humming the aforementioned artists' songs which come across as sounding like screeching noises produced by horny cats.  

Cine Terrorism -

Giving the extremists and terrorists a run for their money is the new age brand of Cine Terrorists. They're effectiveness is more far fetched owing to the fact that they are able to reach larger audiences in shorter intervals of time with their movies leading to absolute carnage of the viewers sanity.  

How else can you justify the mindless waste of money on movies like Ra-One or 7 Khoon Maaf or Agent Vinod? The producers must have had some agenda in mind right? Turns out by unleashing DEADLY scripts and movies like these, they hope to give their audiences a taste of the BOREDOM TO DEATH treatment which I believe is the modern day version of the Gas chamber because that's all movies these days seem to contain - Hot gas.   

The next time you come out alive and miraculously sane from such a movie - make sure to demand a bottle of cough syrup and an aspirin at the ticket counter so that you can drink it and take a nap when you get home. This is the least they can do for you considering you've paid the full price for a ticket and gotten a mind blowing headache in return; after all there are certain things called Human Rights you know.

News Terrorism -

The mainstream media contributes as passively to terrorism as the terrorists themselves. The mushrooming in the number of  private news channels in English, Hindi and many regional languages has given rise to a situation wherein the content of many such channels is nothing but of trashy.

At this point, a specific mention must be made of the many Senior anchors who try sounding suave and elegant but end up having a screaming contest with their panelists and co anchors and in the process weird their viewers out.   

Its hard not to resort to name calling but of the many jokers around - The Sansani guy stands out like a sore thumb. His anchoring on the show was something a cousin and I would watch religiously just to laugh like maniacs at the end of a rough day. His incessant screaming of the turn of phrases was something that the mother detested utterly because the show used to air late into the night and I used to get a earful for disturbing the peace and quiet, if this isn't terrorism I don't know what is.   

Here's a spoof on him

 


PS 1: Now that you have been sufficiently warned about the other forms of terrorism, make sure you spread the word; who knows your small act may actually save a life.

PS 2: No Terrorists were harmed in the making of this post.