Do you remember back in the 90's the biggest problem men had when it came to dating was that talking to women scared the daylights out of them men? I remembering coming across a dozen articles everyday where someone had a brilliant advice how to break the ice-which usually was go-fucking-TALK-to-them. These days those articles have disappeared. We don't need them anymore, we now have the Internet.
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When I think about AB, I always remember the curt reply he gave me when I asked him if the Microprocessor lecture was cancelled; "apparently", was all he said and walked away like I was some lowly creature and he some God. He acted like one. At least that is what we all thought and hated him for it. He was one of those college topper boys and had an air about him that made people feel awe or hatred about him. As for me, I found him weird. And when Apeksha lost a bet, I asked her to go ask AB out for some Pineapple Milk**. She did and he said a "No" that sounded more like "In your dreams woman". (Appppuu! I am gonna meet you soon!!!!Yay! :) Baby! And we'll dance to the Pungi song! Fun times await. Unless I die in a plane crash first :| )
Okay back to AB, I ran to the classroom, the ever late me, and true enough, the lecture was cancelled. And that's all the interaction I ever had with AB back in engineering college. Apart from throwing paper planes at him in the class when we got really bored and mean.
We graduated and went our different ways. Then one day Orkut came with the chat feature. Everyone on your Orkut list was added to your chat list on Gtalk. And suddenly, AB and I were chatting.
Today, not only do we chat regularly(I know, sorry for being tardy lately) and I must feature in his very small "girl friends" list, but also, I have come to understand him for the person he is and AB, sorry for throwing paper plans at you back in college :( You've been a darling of a friend, and one who's been always so, so practical! He's my "give-practical-unbiased" advice guy.
The whole point of this exercise was to tell you that the WWW has been really awesome, in bringing people together. I know so many awesome people, people I have never met, but yet who feature daily in my life, thanks to the WWW.
When I told my friends I was travelling alone all the way to Mysore to attend a friend's wedding, a friend I had known only on the Internet, every one of my friends thought I was crazy. But anyone who's been on the blogger and twitter has such friends and knows it's anything but crazy.
**We had the Aarey milk factory close to college which used to be one of our usual hangouts and the pineapple milk....simply yum!
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But as always, we have taken a good thing and turned it into a bad thing. In spite of having 1000 friends on FB, a thousand followers on Twitter, we are lonely and bored.
Boredom and loneliness is a problem today cause we choose to hide. And the WWW has given us that too. We choose to be lazy. We have lowered our standards and we are happy with it, cause not hiding and actually going and talking to people in person takes efforts, it means you can't be something you're not, you stand a chance of exposing your true self and you have to be vulnerable. It means we can go on pretending to be super humans in the online world and the real world doesn't matter anymore, cause look how many friends I have on FB! You can tweet about having a good time on twitter and post pictures you clicked last night with Katrina Kaif, but how many know that you're lonely? The WWW has given us that, a chance to be what we're not.
But why should we want to be something that we're not? Why are we so afraid? What do we have to hide? We have our BB busy status and we have the notorious invisible status on Gtalk. We have learnt to hide behind our FB walls and code life in our sly tweets. In a country of 1.2 billion people if you're lonely and bored, then the problem should be in you, no?
All you have to do is look up from your screen and at the people around you. So many interesting people, so many wonderful conversations await you. So many wonderful memories wilt and die, tired of waiting. I have a friend who's always busy on his BB, while I sit playing with my soup. I wonder if he'll miss these times when I waited for him and he was busy talking to people on his BB. And I see that happening everywhere. People enter clubs and restaurant in packs and then spread out in corners busy on their BB's. What's the POINT people? Retards.
When there's a person in flesh sitting from across you and you choose to talk to a machine instead, what times sweet lord! This is how these machines will take over us and this will be written as the beginning of the end of the human race. No, wait, I am not being dramatic here. You'll see! If you survive the talking-robot attack, that is.
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I am so exhausted that even the thought that today is the first day of my vacation doesn't excite me. Well, I still have to finish loads of work and pack!
But sigh, first travel of the year. God! I want more of these!!! I want more friends! I want to travel MORE! Argghh.
And God, if I don't get it in this life, I'll die and crib so much to you in heaven that you'll be forced to send me back to earth with the most awesome bunch of friends and loads and loads of awesome travel! Choose!
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And I am tired, I give up. Once I meet her, I am going to prostrate in front of her and tell her it's all in her hands now. She has to decide whether to revive or kill it. I am, tired.
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I want you to come and fold me into you arms and just let me be. Hold me tight and make me forget everything else. I am waiting, waiting, waiting :| Dude!
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I dreamt about you yesterday. You had written to me and you were telling me you were having some problems but now things are getting back on the track and you seemed happy writing to me, like you were not mad at me anymore. How are you sweetheart? Are you really so mad at me that you won't even talk to me?
You seemed happy in the dream. I hope you're so in real life too. I miss you, my Tarot lady.
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Look up from that screen and you'll notice the bare hill in front of your window, the blanket of purple flowers has disappeared and the wild grass has now turned brown, that summer has arrived and that it's time to go out and make new friends.
And while we're at it, I want to dance to
this song with my new friends.
And I want to lie on grass under the midnight sky and listen to
this song.