The little girl in me

Somebody once told me “A South Indian parent’s love for their kid is directly proportional to his/her marks in Math and Science!!” I couldn’t agree more.

Studies was the focal point growing up. Mum would debar relatives from coming home during exam time (she still does). I remember sitting through dictation lessons with her. It was pure nightmare. I sucked at spelling and even after her herculean efforts I still do. Dad on the other hand is a different story. Unlike text book dad’s, he never had the patience to read to me or teach me. That was mum entirely. In a way, I thank my stars he didn’t teach me. I remember dreading Open-house days where he scrutinized the mathematics paper and knuckled me for every silly mistake. The evaluations ended with a standard line every year “do these sums 50 times, I’ll check by evening”. Needless to say such evenings never came. Patience level zilch!

Dads are known to be protective of daughters and daughters are known to be possessive. While we are that, we are also competitive. Dad was never known to play nice. His advice was always ‘play your cards close to your chest’. Even if it were a mere Rummy game, he played to win, by hook or by crook.

If dad was challenging, mum was encouraging. While dad made it impossible to win mum showed me fight is the only way out. ‘Go fight your own battle’ she once told me when I came crying home from a fight in school; ‘I don’t have time for them’. Blind faith was never propagated. There was more encouragement when I rejected an idea than when I meekly accepted one. ‘Question everything and accept only when you run out of questions’.

My fondest memory is being jolted awake on a school day morning with mummy’s repeated wake-up calls; and as she desperately tried to get me ready for school I would sneak away and groggily run full throttle in to the hall, to see daddy clad in a lungi hidden behind the huge news paper and rocking his knees back and forth in contemplation. I remember wriggling between the paper, snuggling up onto his overlarge tummy and steeling away few more minutes of blissful sleep while rocking to a rhythm similar to a train in motion. In that rhythm I found safety. I knew dad would not give me away to a frantically searching mum, even if it meant he had to drop me to school that day. ‘Late Kate’ he would then tease.

Social media... a virtual trip!

An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. But a mind preparing for CA final is Satan himself! Spending a year in CA imposed asylum brings with it extreme character deviations. If you are a CA final student and you have not experienced bouts of depression, incompetency, why-did-I-waste-my-life-doing-this and the likes; then you are in league with the Delhi University­-100% getter who even after acing his/her field feels compelled to change streams and aspires to become a Baniyaa. You geek… you!  

In this interim period of velaness while I awaited my exams, which I knew was going to suck, because it would be out of syllabus, theoretical, illogical and unexpected (but surprise surprise.. it was all of the above), I found myself scouting for things to do, to while away precious study time. During those days I developed a constant urge to crib about the syllabus, the course, my employers, classes, reference book authors and the rot. But there was no satisfaction reciting it to peers because they immediately responded with a new topic that I had not thought of cribbing about and thus igniting a vicious cycle.

Finally, I decided that I needed a new outlet that was A) affordable because let’s be realistic not all of us get paid on study leave… it’s a different matter that I never got paid my entire last year of work either (bonded labour for daddy dearest :P), B) socially engaging because even with my undying love for books, come study time I need a change of scenery and C) non constructive preferably tilting towards destructive ( I was studying, irrationality comes with the territory). Combining all three constraints my ultimate winner was… wait for it… Social Media i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Blogging etc. so thus began this insane and somewhat narcissistic journey towards virtual citizenship.

Social media comes with an implied agreement to lay open your life to the world at large. So as you prepare yourself for praise over an exceptionally captured picture portrait (pure fluke), you also steel yourself to the negativity of diverse opinions over impulsive statements. Social media brings the world closer but at times it also ends up being merely an opaque window-view of a person’s life. While it does ingenious things like gets you recent update and photos of a long lost second cousin whom you have never met, yet it takes away the aesthetics of a conversation when you have to use smileys to emote your expression. In fact the smiley addiction is just so preposterous that I don’t remember when was it last that I sent or received text, BBM etc without at least a J in it! Really, think about it almost everything even a factual status update is accompanied with aK!

Social media also sharpens your stalkerish instincts. I have never dreamt of knowing minute by minute whereabouts of people but thanks to the locator functions I can actually stalk an EX or crash a party! I am also privy to intimate daily activity like “had a bath”, “got a rick”, “off to bed” etc. that’s when I find it  extremely difficult to hold back a scathing remark but I have made it this far. Also I find it develops an insane desire to share your life constantly. “It’s a good pic… you should DP it” or “that’s a good line... I think I will make it my status” makes me want to hurl especially when I hear it from my own mouth. Yes, I admit this last year has made me quite a FB junkie. Not proud of it but some things in life are just meant to be… for better or for worse.

The irony of virtual citizenship lies in the fact that your friend in the UK will know more about your life than your mother.  Then again maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t know. Surely, 20 years ago looking into a metallic device (cell phone) and grinning to self would be called Insanity! But 20 years ago people did not have as many opinions as we do today. Facebook status changes hourly while Twitter timelines are refreshed by the minute.

 The age calls for it, the technology provides it, so who are we to deny it.