WHATS hAPPening

 

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.