Facebooked

In the past few months of joblessness, if there’s one thing that I’ve been regular with, other than sleeping for long hours, it is giving Facebook quality time from my limited remaining hours of the day, managing to login there about 10 times daily! Whenever I’d open my Internet browser thinking of something interesting to do, after a few vague and unsuccessful attempts to reach an engaging website, I’d inevitably start typing facebook.com. I actually realised today that even if I had nothing to do there, I’d just go because I feel I have to. It’d satiate some unknown urge within me and even if I have to torture my eyes to go through countless Farmville or Mafia Wars activity feeds on my homepage, I’d do it, cursing their hundreds of users as I scroll down to look for ‘meaningful’ activity.

But while I religiously keep doing this every single day, occasionally a modest 3-letter word rings in my head: WHY? Just why am I doing this? Is it just me? And the earnest response from within is: NO! Backed by figures, there are millions of users around the world doing the same thing. Then follows a string of questions: Why is everyone doing this? Why is there this need to spend hours of our day staying logged on to a social networking website when clearly we could be doing something more meaningful with our lives? Why is it important to comment on somebody’s pictures? Why is it that we even end up commenting on certain status messages that talk about how some acquaintance is feeling? Why is it that we want to check out what groups the others are a part of or what/who they become a fan of?

To all this, I could just think of one rationale: we have a need to ‘connect’. An unsaid desire to know what the others are doing and making them know how our life is treating us. I’ve always believed that every human in this world is connected in some unknown way. A heart speaks to another, even without words or gestures. And a way to acknowledge this connection is to communicate. And that’s what we try to do, directly or indirectly, by writing status messages and waiting to receive comments from all those who get to read it, by playing random games with or against others, by posting our pictures and checking others’, by sending birthday or anniversary greetings, by joining interest groups, by sharing reviews about a movie that we watched or a restaurant that we ate at or a place that we visited or an experience that we were a part of! All this, just to ‘communicate’! To reach out and keep that unknown connection alive and to nurture it by feeding it with little doses of ‘Facebook Indulgence’ to replete its hunger.

P.S. By the time I finished writing this post, I’d checked my e-mail thrice to see if there were any new mails from Facebook! Good job, Mark Zuckerberg! :)

I Found Happiness

Nothing compares to catching up with a dear friend after months and reliving the old times.

Nothing compares to meeting new people and making friends.

Nothing compares to singing karaoke non-stop for hours.

Nothing compares to eating the poori-chana-halwa combo.

Nothing compares to a long drive back home at 3 am, listening to ‘Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison’.

Nothing compares to being the "only one in the queue" at the CNG filling station.

Nothing compares to having a fun filled evening in an otherwise stale phase of life.

Never Know

It’s raining outside
And inside of him as well
The raindrops knocking at the glass window
Of his temporal existence they tell

The clothes and the curtains dampened
Likewise, his spirits too
The sky turning grey
Enough to restrict his vision to a foot or two

The sight of a kid on the street
Dancing merrily in the rain
Reminds him of his cherished childhood days
The time he can’t regain

The puddles on the road
With the paper boats afloat
The washed green trees
And their fallen yellow leaves

The peacock’s crested head
And its large fanlike tail
The earthworms from the sand
That slithered on the garden rail

A smile crosses his face
As he remembers the life that was
As distant as it is now from him
He savoured the little trip to the past

The present wasn’t so pleasant
All the planning fell apart
Not that he could do much about it
Bad luck played a big part

It consoled him for a while
To know that he’s not alone
There were hundreds of other mortals
Fighting the same battle on their own

He wished he knew the end
To this pain and distraught
To the annoyance of being a victim
Of circumstance and not his fault

He looked out in the grey
In a hope to find an answer
A vibrant rainbow appeared at the horizon
And the smile returned; this time it was wider!

She came. We talked. She conquered!

Words were few but the feelings grew
And I wanted the night to get longer
The time would oppose, but a connection arose
And it only became stronger

But she had to go back to where she belonged
Too much at stake, she didn’t wanna be wrong
“Whenever I sing, she’ll listen”, she said
Her words etched in my heart, never will I forget!