Virtual World

Have been planning to write something from last few days but exams have kept me busy- this does not mean i have been busy studying. Exam time means we have an official reason to call ourselves busy though we sleep more number of hours than usual, watch movies, spend time on facebook and update twitter messages.That's Mba for you where exams dont test your bookish knowledge but your ability to think on hand, apply what you learn in class & design strategies in 40 mins, thank god exams are designed this way and thanks to the way technology has evolved.

I can google any topic I want to refer,download ebooks, receive and send reference material via email, find out what my peers are upto through their status updates on FB, twitter,gtalk and all other social networking sites. It is amazing how technology has changed the way we access information,communicate ,  keep in touch with family & friends,the way we shop, in short it has changed the way we live. Our world has transformed into a Virtual World and I believe this is one of the most significant changes in our lives. A couple of years ago in situations when i wanted to share any kind of  news-good or bad, the first thing I would do is pick up the phone and call my loved ones and now what I do is update my status message on facebook and get instant response,earlier if I felt bored I would dial my friend's number and talk till he/she got bugged and now I sit and write blogs like this one the only similarity being I still continue to bug them ;). I would earlier spend my free time cooking, talking to mom, listening to stories told by my granny(Did not mind listening to the same story repeatedly as every time granny told a story she told it with the same passion), meditation-yoga and now all my time is spent reading ebooks,research articles, browsing websites,watching videos on you tube,writing and reading blogs and so on. This is the time where friends send wedding invites' on google groups, upload pictures of their newly born on social networking sites, constantly change their locations- from Bangalore India to San Hose, USA, guys and gals manage their long term relationships through skype or the likes. We are living in an age where we dont have to think how to kill or make best use of the time we have, there are hundreds of options available to do so and all options available only a touch away, this is the age when friends are not a phone call but a click away irrespective of  the actual physical distance between them.

While this advance in technology has been very convenient and comforting  for most of us saving a lot of time and money it has also changed our life to a large extent. I have come across several posts and status messages saying "300 friends on facebook but still nobody to talk to" and there have been instances when I have felt the same, times when i have felt the need of a friend but have managed to spend time on my virtual world instead. The environment around me has helped me believe that I live in a virtual world, a place where i have plenty of friends, a place where i spend all my time without being accountable to anyone, a place where i can define or redefine  my own world and my own happiness. What is to be pondered over is how long will this virtual world last, how is it going to affect the way we live and value relationships.

Flowing waters

Way back in 2006 during (after) the Christmas vacation I along with my family had got this very rare opportunity to visit the shores of Bay Of Bengal. Since the visit was a post Christmas and close to new year I expected a lot of tourists but there were not many people as the monstrous Tsunami had hit the waters only a couple of months before our visit. The damaged houses, shops, fallen trees and sad faces were a heartrending sight. After parking the car we all started walking towards the waters and the first thing I noticed was that the colour of the sand was almost black, I am not sure if it was naturally black or was it a post Tsunami effect. As we reached the waters I was awestruck with the vastness and the beauty of the sight, it was the biggest sea shore I had ever seen until then and something that would make one wonder about the creativity , power and beauty of nature or the Al Mighty. As soon as we reached the shore the first thing all my family members wanted to do was plunge into the water but i preferred sitting back and feel the cool breeze ,appreciate the exquisite beauty before i did so. So as everyone else walked into the water, I found a little place for myself and sat down.

A few seconds after i sat, i heard a voice saying “Are you scared of water?” I looked right and then left but there was no one, the voice then said “I am here, right behind you “. I turned back and saw , It was a guy sitting on a cement slab, wearing a black T shirt and cream coloured shorts, he was in his early twenties (I too was, back then ). Even before i could reply back to his question he came and sat next to me and repeated the question. Back then by nature i was quite comfortable talking to strangers as long as they did not look threatening (For some strange reasons I am very apprehensive talking to strangers now even if look like Brad Pitt) and hence replied back saying “No I am not scared of the sea” to which he then asked “Then why aren’t you going with your family” and when i replied back saying that i wanted to look at the sea and enjoy its beauty before getting into the water he smiled back and nodded his head. There are some faces which you can never forget for the good reasons though, and this guy had one such face, I don’t say that he was the most good looking guy I have ever seen but there was something very pleasant about him and his smile was like an icing on the cake  and no I did not have a crush on him. During the conversation i realized he belonged to the same city as me had come there with a group of friends who were screaming, shouting and playing pranks upon each other in the sea. While talking i started searching for sea shells in the sand and picked up a few, he had one big sea shell in his pocket and gave it to me saying its a gift, i reluctantly took it for it was too pretty to be denied. After a few minutes of silence he said “You know life is like flowing waters, it goes on until it hits the shore” , i thought it was too philosophical a statement and said nothing but yes for i did not want to get into a discussion about my perception of life with someone i met a couple of minutes ago. Before the conversation could go any further dad called out for me and I had to go, I went running into the waters and as a challenge all of us stared walking further into the water and there was a point where the water was at the level of my neck and one tide hit me so hard that mom started screaming with fear, believe you me it was a great experience , one of its life time. From the distance i could still see the guy sitting at the same place and when we returned back he wasn’t there. In the little conversation we had none of has had bothered to ask each other’s name, a little strange but this makes me remember the incident as an unusual experience.



“Life is like flowing waters, it goes on until it hits the shore” this statement which a couple of years ago seemed philosophical seems so true and relevant now. It made no sense to me then and today when I remembered the incident the same line looks so deep and meaningful. We humans as all other animals go through the different stages of life and at every stage we encounter varied experiences-some good, some not so good, some ugly and with each experience we gain or lose something, sometimes its a materialistic loss or gain and sometimes it is an immaterialist loss or gain but with every experience we learn something, we learn many things and with those learnings we try and make life better for self and our loved ones or should i say that we try and fit ourselves into the size and shape of life. In our day to day life we meet people, we make friends, we party, dine out together, watch movies, go on long drives, comment and crack jokes on friends, class mates, teachers, neighbours, play pranks, have group studies, try to copy in exams, be silent admirers of the most good looking guy/gal of the college, fall in love, celebrate on the smallest of occasions and what not and the same individual has a completely different life at a different stage-now we work(In some cases pretend to ), we work late hours trying to impress the boss, we seek sophisticated company, we watch movies but in multiplexes, we shop but in the city’s most happening malls, differentiate food as healthy or unhealthy, make investments which will give returns only after 15-20 years. After a few years the list changes again, the stages in life change but life goes on irrespective of what and how you want it to be and we move with the flow happily in some cases and adaptively in most of the cases.

On numerous occasions I have heard people saying “It is all about time , everything will be fine with time” but i personally feel some wounds never heal, some memories will last forever, some desires will always remain deep in the heart, its not that you stop feeling the pain, wanting things or dreaming big but you get used to things the way they are now, it is not about time but about the flow of life and the demands of this flow. The flow demands us to behave us in a certain way and whether we like it or not we have to abide by the rules of the flow and move with it until it reaches the shore for if we don’t we drown ,we become an outcast .

PS: I am not quite sure if the word waters in the title is grammatically correct but i thought it sounds better