Share, magar aaraam se…

You know how it is—people log into Facebook for different reasons. To find old and new friends. To socialise with total strangers and find dates. To find out what’s happening in people’s lives without anyone knowing how close to being a stalker you are. To show off your happy lives. To moan your sad lives. Blah blah and more blah.

But I am sure there are friends that really get your goat with their irksome sharing habits. Here are some of my observations of people who come online only to:

Share life advice: Smile, be happy, love your family, forget your sorrows, tread the path of life with hope, look forward to good things in life, life is a blessing, respect your life, ra ra ra. You get so tired reading it that any picture with a sun in the horizon and a road going right into it makes you want to quickly scroll down so you don’t accidently learn a new lesson about, well, LIFE!

Declare their love: I love you is passé. Hearts, forlorn lover girl (usually a sad looking blonde teenager girl), flowers, park benches, and candy sweet wordings—You are my life (AGAIN!!!), my heart beats only for you, thank god you are in my life (I can’t do this anymore), I am committed to you, my life would be meaningless without your love, why did you break my heart (I think I can finally forgive Annu Mallik)… I know you love your boyfriend, fiancé, husband, wife, whatever. I do too. But please, this Fb PDA is just insufferable.

Display their piousness: This one needs special mention. There are FBites who live just so that they can spread the word of God. He will come to redeem you, Don’t lose hope in him, Share this picture and you will blessed for life, He will never let go of your hand (Good he won’t, or I’d thrash you). The worse—it all comes in a barrage; like ten photographs in one go and you’re ready to unfriend your pious friend for good.

Show off their anatomies: I am fed up, and I can say this again, FED UP, of looking at the close up shots of your eyes, your nose, your lips, your hair, your whatever the bloody f***, just get off my page you narcissist. I’d appreciate your lovely DP or that amazing cover photo, ‘like’ it and even comment on it if it really moves me; but please—I don’t want to see (again and again and again) how lovely (or so you think OBVIOUSLY) your anatomy is. Spare me the entertainment.

Share pictures of really, really sick people: I welcome your compassion behind the ‘share’, but seriously, if you think Fb is going to offer $1 for every share to the baby with the heart outside his body or the lady with the burnt face, you need a reality check. Creating awareness is one thing; causing emotional distress on an enjoyable platform like Fb is not cool, man, not cool at all.

Voice your “mammoth” opinions: Fb is sure a democratic platform for opinion sharing (although a lot of people in India don’t think so). But when your opinion about the turn of events in a political scene, a major sporting event or a religious event spans three paragraphs and has obscure words that one has to look up the dictionary to understand, it means just one thing—you are showing off, buddy. There is a reason why the “Share how you are feeling today” status bar is just one line. Try to be concise. Or better still, turn to blogger.com. Please.

Family photos, pictures and messages about get-togethers and parties with friends, travel plans and excitements, even those awkward amateur pictures are fun! Of course, in the end, to each his own. After all, every post offers some sort of entertainment to someone. The ‘Likes’ say it all…

Letters from the past

Letters…they open up a world long-gone; they take you back to a time and place you once lived in. They reveal the person you once were; and who even you may have long-forgotten.

I was quite an avid letter-writer. Having been a fauji kid, I moved town every 2-3 years; which meant making new friends, and leaving old ones behind. But I fervently wrote letters to my friends, and for many years, kept in touch with them. Until the internet came along and the art & science of letter-writing fell out of the scope of my life.

Recently, while chatting with Kasturi, my childhood friend, who is now in Cochin, she opened one of the boxes lying close by and took out a bunch of letters—letters I had written to her; first from Calcutta and then from Trichy. We were the ‘bestest’ of friends in school and hence my letters to her spoke about everything under the sun; from studies, movies, parents, new and old friends, gossips, and of course, boys! From the hard time I was having with cramming for board exams to how the dance parties were fun/boring depending on the amount of attention I could garner from the opposite sex. 

I particularly had a hearty laugh at this one anecdote I had written: “This time, at the Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, I danced with a lot of boys (because Rashmi had not come)!” Rashmi, fyi, was our classmate, who was and still is one of the prettiest girls we had ever seen. @Rashmi: I loved you nevertheless, babe!!! :)

Other stuff these letters had: silly, obscene limericks, adult jokes, songs, sketches, et all! They were not just letters. There were canvasses of my life! I could actually imagine myself, plonked on my bed, scribbling ardently or secretly penning out these letters during a boring economics lecture in school.

Reading out excerpts from them was like going back in time. So many beautiful memories. And as I stood there, sharing that nostalgic moment with my friend, I wondered…why did we stop writing letters? Why don’t we have time for them anymore? And despite emails and facebook and all the photo-sharing we do, why doesn’t it feel as good as letters did?

All said and done, those days are never going to come back. At least I am thankful for having been a part of a generation that used to write letters and has now moved on to becoming tech savvy. I am glad I wasn’t born directly into this mad world of smartphones and tablet computers. Yes, that does make me seem older. But then, I am not complaining… :)