Earth Version 1.1

I was surrounded by smoke… Rather smog… I never knew chennai could have such a dense fog… Or have smokers in chennai gone into a smoking spree? I thought to myself looking around at the suddenly different chennai where my visibility was zero… I found a person walking towards my direction… It was a guy… errr… a handsome guy  Tall… definitely 6’3…well sculpted physique.. White tee shirt, blue jeans , a black leather jacket that hung casually around his shoulder…He was simple but majestic  I spoke to myself (but pretty loudly) “Am I in some Bollywood movie set?”… The dashing guy flashed his dimples with a smile and said “No dear… You are in heaven…  And am God”. I was dumbstruck…Is anybody fooling me? Is it really heaven? If so, am I dead? But how? Definitely its not God… I have seen God in photos and movies… This guy looks like a super model…So many such thoughts ran through my mind. The guy who claimed to be God replied… “Whoa! Hold on Hold on… Don’t think so fast… Am finding it difficult to read your mind… I am God… The people who were created by me can be fashion conscious but not the creator is it? Unfair yaar  Secondly, you are not dead.. I have just brought you here with a visiting visa… My secret agents told me that you bug people around with silly and crazy thoughts… I found that you are the perfect person to assist me in this task… As you know we are reaching the expiry date of Earth, 12/21/2012…so am planning to redesign all the default settings… The new design should be funky and cool… What say… Are you in?” I nodded still perplexed about what’s happening around me..

He took my hand and led me through the smogy clouds…Now we reached a place which looked more like the space lab in MIB movie… As soon as we entered, He tapped the floor with his shoe and a door opened… Seeing the amazement in my face, he answered “Its nothing much , its a frequency lock… The noise produced by tap of the shoe is recorded and the lock opens only if the frequency matches… Come, I’ll take you to the control room.” I just followed Him like a remote controlled car and we reached an open space…It was the best view of entire space…“You have always wanted to visit space right? Once we are done with our work, I’ll take you around personally…My word”  My joy knew no bounds, I was now slightly out of the initial shock and went on to say “Then lets start the design immediately na” He gave a charming laugh again and drew some pattern with his finger which got a huge screen in front of us with the image of earth… He pressed ctrl+c & ctrl+v and touched the ‘redesign’ button.. We were now having a duplicate copy of earth in front of us. He cleared his throat to get my attention and asked “So where do we start?”

“Hey first lets not have that 3/4th water and 1/4th land concept yaar… The 3/4 th water is mostly of no use… we’ll have 1/4th land, 1/2 portable drinking water and 1/4 th ocean water…. This half of portable water includes glaciers, rivers and rain water.” He interrupted me saying, “Marine life will be heavily affected if I change proportion !” “Hey chill, include some special features for the marine animals that can make it survive anywhere and everywhere.” I saw Him title the new Earth as Earth v1.1 (upgraded) and his fingers made the proportions that I told and with his index finger and thumb, He zoomed the 1/4th land portion…I now became confident and started adding “Lets make it very colourful… The trees shouldn’t be only shades of green… It could be purple, red, blue, pink and of all possible shades… Colourless water… No… Change it to blue. Sky is fine but I need 2 more moons… All the other planets have more moons… We have only one… This is cheating” He smiled and handed me a bar of cadbury’s silk “Btw…Can we have a tree called chocolate tree… Please Please Please” He grinned, “I expected it..Okay.. we will but its gonna be few… so you should protect it…Now tell me about the living creatures” I was now more than happy “All creatures should be small… It should never grow up… lion cubs, small monkeys, small cute dinos and all existing creatures but smaller version… This time make the humans mute and let other creatures speak.” “Hey you are a human too… why do you want it like that?” “We have spoken a lot and now whatever we talk puts us in unnecessary trouble… we have shouted slogans, given long speeches, made false promises… words which led to setting up of industries that caused pollution, words that made countries bomb against each other… Enough yaar… Lets not talk this time.” I could see he was happy with my explanation… I added “Lets have some instrumental song playing in the air continuously throughout the world… It would try making the atmosphere peaceful”. He jotted down all the points and said “You were indeed very helpful… Now letme drop you before your visa expires”.

I got up the next morning, saw the date… 20th Dec.. Wow what a nice dream… I took my mobile and found 2 new messages from 1 contact in wassup…

“Hope you reached safely… Thanks for your inputs and valuable time… It was fun designing with you… Awaiting the launch of our Earth v1.1 on 22nd Dec 2012.”

Next message:

You are invited to attend the launching ceremony of E v1.1 and a space tour with ME. Please treat this as my personal invitation and make your presence felt. Awaiting your confirmation.

Lots of love,

God

P.S. That’s my personal number… Make a note 

‘Social’ networks Vs ‘Unsocial’ humans

I was on leave this friday , thanks to the wonderful virus for showering its love over me by making my body temperature go high. One of my friends called me up on Sat and asked“Heard you are not well? Really?” I was completely dumbstruck with this question as I expected a ‘how are you?’ instead… After the initial shock I went on to reply sarcastically“Guess somebody needs a medical certificate there”  She didn’t know how to react, she gave a sheepish reply “You never updated it in FB yaar… So thought it must be a rumour.”

I was completely bowled out… When am not well, how will I be expected to post a status saying “Down with fever    “ (The number of gloomies that follow your status decides how serious you are) . The number of ‘get well soon’ comments / messages decide the number of people who ‘care’ for you.

Last week one of my aunts called my mom and while talking, has casually asked my mom whether she wished somebody’s someone’s daughter on her b’day… My mom immediately answered without any second thought “Aishu would have wished her in FB” I giggled and mumbled “Aishu  knows and wishes every Tom Dick and Harry in FB…  So much so that, even Obama was waiting for her FB wish upon winning the elections.”  When I was in my schooling, till my fifth class, I used to get very excited a week before my b’day. I used to get greeting cards and gifts in courier from my relatives living all over the country as well as outside too. I used to be thrilled to open each packet. I still have that collection of greeting cards very safe and it still brings a smile. But after wishes have become just wall posts, I really don’t remember going back in my timeline to re read the wishes that I got last year or the year before that 

My dad as well as mom, though both are not FB users promptly ask me to show the pics of their cousins who are my ‘friends’. The best part is even a fifty year old aunty becomes your ‘friend’ here  One aunty next door was showing me the pics of her grand daughter posted in FB by her daughter. She was passing comments like ‘Look how big she has become’ and stuffs… After seeing all the pics , I asked “Aunty, where is your daughter staying?” I expected her to say some foreign country, on the contrary, she replied ‘She stays at Besant Nagar’… I thought I misheard Banglore/Bankok and asked her again… Now she explained the address along with even the street address 

I am not against these social networking sites, as they say ‘we bring dear ones who are far, near’. Very true, no denial to it. It pulls away the people who are near, make them go far and then connects them virtually… Of course, getting them near.

BS (Before social network) : A mom, dad and son assemble for dinner where the son would have come to the table after playing out and would be scolded by the dad to wash his hands before he eats.

Now A.S. (After Social networks): The same family, dad, mom and son. Mom in kitchen, son in one room and dad in another… Mom invites for a group chat “@hubby & @son: Dinner ready”. Son updates his status as ‘off to dinner’ and dad changes his status from‘available’ to ‘busy’. Each reach dining room, nobody talks a word, dad keeps checking his blackberry, son with his Tab and mom seeing both of them. After dinner son updates status ‘Phew! Heavy dinner… Thanks mom’ Mom likes the post and dad comments ‘The rotis could have been better’ followed by a LOL

This could completely be an exaggeration but this is what we are heading to. There was a period when these social networking sites were used to connect the parents to their son in abroad. I remember that ad, where the son shows his new born through the web cam to his mom and dad. In turn, the old parents bless their grandson and the grandma is seen wiping her eyes with the pallu. It was so touching, but now the same scenario happening with son and parents who just stay 4 streets away is not really touching. The real socializing have become near zero with the entry of ‘social’ networks.

The news that a man was arrested when he was clicking pics at our Union minister, Chidambaram made me raise an eyebrow and when read more, it was found that he has this passion… you call it passion… errr… I don’t know… passion for taking pics with celebrities and updating the same as his profile pic just because he was ‘encouraged’ by the likes and comments he got when he did it for the first time. Another news that a lady divorced her husband as he refused to change his status from ‘single’ to ‘married’ brought more giggles from me but at the same time made me ponder too.

My cousin who is doing her 3rd year was online for long… when asked, she told me that she was waiting for her semester timetable to be put up. I was  She went on to explain, her professors will update the timetable and syllabus in a community in FB. In fact, while studying if she has doubts, she’ll update the question in the group . Either the professors or classmates will answer her query immediately. I could just reply ‘What an idea Sirji! India has developed so much’ 

Everything remains good till we overdo it. Same is the case with social networking sites. Saturation point has been reached. So, its upto us now to ensure that we are treating social networks as a part of ‘virtual’ world and that we are not making them an integral part of‘real world’ and our ‘real lives’.

PS: No social network was harmed or injured in the process of writing this post