Old classmate and rants on Social media

Today, out of the blue, a class mate of mine pinged me on Google Chat. As the normal chatters, we started with the mundane stuff of 'howz wrk' and so on. Conversation then moved to stuff about 'how is your wife' and then, suddenly we realized it was all so strange...

Here we were - class mates about 12-13 years back and discussing about wife and work while the last time, we were quibbling about marks and exams! It was rather comical. And it set me off on thinking..

Life had been so fast and confusing. Here I was studying in Pune - a shy boy with an awkward Hindi and now here I am - a 'consultant' working in Bangalore after having been a team lead in Hyderabad and London. Who on earth could have said that this is the path that I'd have taken?

When in Pune, I wanted to get back to Bangalore. Now when I am in Bangalore, I want to meet friends and be in Pune. It is a very strange paradox. Just when you feel you've achieved what you'd wished for, you wish you had the old thing back. The old job (which you weren't happy about), the old college (whose lecturers made life a living night mare), the old school (where you had to work so hard on some really boring subjects) and the list goes on. It's almost like you are moving ahead in time while mentally, you want life to go back something akin to 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'.

The other thing that sometimes feel so different is the concept of online friends. Its almost like I've won tens of hundreds of 'friends' on Orkut and Facebook sacrificing the few handful of friends that I really had. The job, the internet and bottomless race to get most 'links' on LinkedIn seems to have driven me to maintain the simple human bond of calling up an old friend and just chatting away about everything and nothing. Its almost like talking to friends has become so much context-specific like targeted ads on Google. You call, you ask what you want and you disconnect.

And then, there is marriage. With so much work, online personas and avtars to take care of, marriage takes a back seat during a work-week. So, you focus on wife and try to spend some time. Or as the Americans call, 'quality time' (I can almost feel a dashboard of reports ticking away, measuring each second). Before you can connect to what your spouse is really trying to say, the weekend is up and you are back to work and the Internet. Friends take a back seat.

I don't know if I wanted to crib or protest at the way the Web has taken over the world. But, today I got very irritated removed 'Buzz' from my Gmail. My email is for me to talk to my friends or friend or any one person that I want to talk to. I don't want someone to 'like' what I read or write. I don't want someone to 'share' it with others. My conversations are for me and the people I intend. I just want them to stay in touch. And delete it whenever we want. I don't want it to be etched on the 'Buzz' dashboard for all my followers and followers of followers' for that ephemeral period of time.

And of course, I want to make a resolution to spend more time connection with real people that I know rather than chasing the unseen and unheard of 'links' on LinkedIn!

But then of course, since I've written all this, I don't want it to be obscure. So I shall Blog !!!! :-)