The things we do!

It’s been almost a year since I graduated from college and the memories are very vivid. I miss those times, when I used to sit in class and stare endlessly out of the window, with nothing to do but think of newer ways to kill time. I made some of the best people during the four years I was there. I was talking to a close friend of mine – Chuckie – who’s now in Sydney, doing her masters. We spoke on the phone for nearly an hour and she begged me to put up a blog about the good old days and I couldn’t turn her down.

There was a lot of things we did back then that got us into all kinds of trouble – we used to skip class and sit in the library, cooking up excuses to get drunk and even writing insanely obnoxious poems about the teachers! We were inseparable – but I think it’s more an attribute to my magnetic personality than anything! – and we  did most of the crazy things we planned on doing.

Once, I think we almost turned the whole class into a circus because of a fight we had. We started throwing accusations at each other and pretty soon, it was a proper brawl and had to broken up by the head of the department, who just couldn’t believe that we were almost 23!

Everything apart, I think that friendship is a bond that takes a long time to break, and sometimes, it doesn’t. I was blessed with some of the best people in the world during those four years and I am proud to say that we are all still best of friends. Distance can make it tough to keep in touch, but then, that’s a bad excuse not to. Right?

The Online Predator…

I have a profile on Orkut, MySpace and Facebook, though I hardly use the latter two at all. Social networking is a good thing, from my point of view, and I’ve found some real nice friends through them. Recently, I read a blog on wordpress (I won’t mention the name because I’m going to slander the author now!) and I was impressed by the thoughts expressed by her. Her language was simple and her articles were quite good. And to my surprise, I found a link to her profile on Orkut on her blog. I was intrigued. People aren’t normally this open about themselves on a blog. (I found another blog where the author had put up his phone number on the blog, but I’ll comment on one stupidity at a time!)

So, I visited her profile on Orkut and sent her a friend request with a message saying that I liked her blog, and didn’t think of it again. I send out friend requests all the time and I don’t bother to see if they’ve been accepted or not. And I generally am very picky about whom I add as friends.

Two days later, I got an email from this girl and I was quite literally, shocked. Here’s what she said, verbatim:

“you’re the one who wanted to add me right? how do you know me? i’m sorry but i’m not on orkut to make friends, especially with someone much older than i’m. i would prefer if you didn’t visit my wordpress and if you continued don’t tell me. honestly, i may seem like the rudest person right now. but i have gone
through way too much on orkut and i people like yourself make me even more weary of online predators. to add to all of this, in the new age of technology and shit, many of you are taking advantage of online social sites and befriending people you don’t know. stop giving our race a bad name and keep to yourself. tell everyone else, share some wisdom. “

There were a million different replies going through my mind at this point and not all of them were polite. She didn’t want to make friends with someone much older than herself, apparently! Last time I checked, I was barely able to feed myself and was making gaga-googoo sounds from my crib. When did I become “old”?? And the fact that she used the phrase “technology and shit” told me volumes about her knowledge of something called a computer.

She called me an Online Predator! I’d like to think that as a new height I’ve scaled in the past few years. She wanted me to share the “wisdom” of her message to “people like myself,” stalking the internet for young girls to harass. Give me a break, lady! I so badly wanted to say, “If you want our race to improve, then you should shut that trap of yours soon because you’re a prime candidate for population control!”

So, I drafted a reply as decently as I could manage and sent it to her and blocked her from my profile. Here’s what I wrote, verbatim:

“Wisdom comes in many forms, one of which happens to be a grave insecurity about oneself. People start blogs and social network profiles for a reasons – true, many a time, the intention may not be pure, but most of the time, its to address their insecurities. I have been called many names before, but an online predator, hmmm, thats a first. I would greatly appreciate you not voicing a generalized opinion about people without knowing them at all. I guess a true blogger would not have responded in the way you did, but then, its not my place to judge you. From your response, I can make out that you’re socially challenged. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you ought to visit the mall often; I’ve heard they’re giving lives away cheap. Don’t bother replying back. Have a great, online-predator-free life ahead… Goodbye ”

Get a life, woman! People aren’t all bad and not everyone out to make fun of you and harass you and get in your pants! Jeez!

Another small bit of unfriendly advice to this paranoid girl: Don’t even try to wage a battle of words with me; the only thing that’s bigger than my ego is my vocabulary!

A better place…

Eight months of my life have been a blur. I vaguely remember being happy for some time, and I distinctly remember pain. There had been moments of self-pity and loathing, but I can’t be sure. It’s all a haze. There was also something akin to love. I think I’m sure of this. Bits and pieces of memory float in and out of my head – people, places, sounds, instances, thoughts, actions, voices – but none that I can be sure of.

It’s like being awoken from a coma. Things are clear now, but the last thing I remember clearly is looking down from the window of an airplane, 10,000 feet up in the sky and watching my home through a haze of tears and clouds. After that, it’s been more or less blurry completely. Things have been done, words have been said, books have been written and prayers have been sent, but I still don’t quite remember much.

This time round, though, the tears hesitate to come. Pragmatic voices hold them back. Relax, they say. You’re going to a better place.

The Daisy Network…

One more happy hour to endure. Ok, I know this can be a bit confusing. I’ll try to be clear. There’s a group of people, scattered around the world, and struggling to find a cure for the world’s problems. They call themselves the Daisy Network. The main aim of this organization is to ensure that everyone in the world can live without fear and lead a happy satisfied life. They’re heavily biased against violence and they would do anything to help out a fellow man.

Now, I know that there are a lot of other organizations like this one, but how good are they really? Peace comes not from the outside, but from within. We should recognize the fact that once we achieve an inner peace of mind, we can achieve anything.

The logic is made nauseatingly clear in The Alchemist. Coelho, in his painstakingly clear and simple narration, brings such joy to the reader. When we want something really bad, the whole universe conspires to get it for us. whatever it may be that we might want. Even one hour of peace.

One more happy hour…

The Storyteller…

What’s so special about having a blog? Is it the “cool” factor – “Ooh, look at me, I blog, so I’m a blogger!”?

Is it the fact that having a blog allows us to meet new people everyday, read their thoughts, views and opinions and comment on them? Do chicks dig bloggers? Or does sitting in our rooms, when the sun’s bright and the birds are calling out,  and punching out random thoughts into an online journal, a pack of cigarettes handy and an open pack of chips get us high?

For me, personally, I think its more to do with the fact that I’ve been cursed with an insatiable desire to write, to tell stories through the keyboard, that makes me blog daily and twice on Sundays. I do it religiously, and I don’t really get bothered when I open my dashboard and see that there have been no new recent visitors. It’s just the fact that I’m sure that someday someone will read these lines and think, “Hmmm, he sounds nice enough…”

But then again, thats not all. I think, for everyone who blogs, its that innermost desire to tell their story out to the world thats making them write it. There’s a storyteller in everyone of us. We need to just let him/her out and express those desires, explore those plots and give life to those characters trapped in our imagination.

Blogging isn’t enough. We need much more. But then, maybe this is just me.