WHATS hAPPening
People belonging to the 1980s and before have become testers
to the evolving technology that we all have seen over the last few years. There
was a time when the most IN thing was writing slam books and gifting greeting
cards on birthdays, friendship days and valentine days. The Archies and Satyams
were the only support system of those days. Somehow my generation saw the days
of taking up a type writing and short hand course, to getting accustomed to an
electronic type-writer, to the DOS on computer and then MS Office and now the
whole wide world of Internet. 2Gs to 3Gs and now 4Gs.
Almost 7 years before, people got blessed with a super
messenger called Whats App. From individual messages to group chats, from
pictures to videos and now from audio calling to video calling it has
everything. Long lost folks suddenly
started getting connected on Whats App. Any regular smart phone user may have
at least 5 – 8 various groups of which in 50% of the groups the person might be
an active participant and in the other 50% the person may ends up been a mute
spectator as it gets awkward to exit the group. While I would love writing down
the various types of members that exists in the group, but that I will park it
for a forthcoming blog. For now, would like to just ponder on the realism of
this wonderful messenger.
One of the favourite pass times is forwarding jokes of one
group to another. Now with the splurge in the number of groups it becomes
imperative to remember which type of jokes is to be shared in which group. I
have one group which is a school group, a pure boy’s group and by no ways can I
share the jokes of that group with a group that has family in it or some
elders. One wrong joke in the wrong
group and I may end up diluting whatever little credibility I would have
earned. One more challenge with the groups is that many groups would have
almost the same people barring 3 – 5 different names and by virtue of this
difference there is limitation to the conversations you would have on those
groups. OMG too much complication for a tool which may have been devised to
ease out communication.
I was chatting with one friend on this wonderful messenger
in the evening, that lasted for almost 15 – 20 mins and then this friend vanished
after typing three mysterious alphabets and that was BRB (be right back) and
after these 3 mysterious alphabets I wasn’t really sure how much time I was
supposed to wait as I was just not knowing whether this wonderful friend of
mine has gone in the neighbouring room to fetch his mobile charger and will be
right back or whether he has gone to the market to fetch vegetables and will be
right back or has gone to the Himalayas to get some herbs and will be right
back or whether he has gone to collect some craters from the moon and will be
right back. The next morning he messaged me saying that ‘sorry dude just got
stuck with something’. Again I had 2 thoughts, firstly did he really think I
was holding my phone the entire night waiting for him to be BE RIGHT BACK and
secondly what did he mean when he said that he got stuck with something
(fevistick, glue stick, fevicol and any other unknown adhesive) so hard that he
couldn’t even type few words saying that he can’t continue with the
conversation. Are we really growing insensitive towards each other?
I received a joke and thought of forwarding it on couple of
groups. I guess showing your presence on the group is one way of proving to
people that you are alive or else the next day may have rumours of your death. So
just to reassure that I am alive, I shared a joke with multiple groups and in
one of the groups a lady replied with 4 alphabets and those were ROFL (rolling
on floor laughing). Out of concern I messaged her one to one asking where she
was and she replied saying that I am waiting for the train to arrive at Dadar
Station and the station is over-crowded as usual. I kept wondering as to how
she would have rolled on the floor at Dadar station at peak hours after reading
my joke. People at times type LOLs and when you would see their face you may
see a constipated look. Do we really mean and do what we type.
We end up chatting on multiple chat windows at
the same time. On one window you maybe blasting someone, on another window you
may be expressing your love towards someone and at the same time in the third
window you maybe joking with someone. All varied emotions running parallel.
While I always felt that multitasking work was an IN thing but now it’s an
epitome where we multitask emotions. Amidst all this we don’t even realise what
our actual emotions are?
People don’t have time, hence now this wonderful messenger
has come to their rescue. They claim to be the best of friends but don’t manage
to meet each other. They claim to miss people but don’t even feel it important
to meet/call them. We all are migrating
into relations that would start on a chat and end on a call. Long live
technology.
