A Facebook Dilemma

Wanda Round, like 500 million people all over the world, is a Facebook addict. She visits her page first thing in the morning. So many exciting things must have happened during the night – so many “like it” signs, so many comments – they are more important than brushing teeth.  Of course, there are personal and household chores to attend to – she logs off in about an hour but needs to keep re-visiting her page for one-hour periods at approximately few-minute intervals throughout the day. This continues well past mid-night, till sleep – that unwelcome but necessary habit – intervenes.

In other words, her marriage consists of three entities – she, her husband, and her Facebook account, not necessarily in that order. A perfect ménage à trois, if ever there was one. Of course, there are the kids, but they were born in that primordial era when people looked at each other instead of at Facebook. Lucky for the kids, I must say. (There are rumours that kids are in short supply in this era of social networking…. But that merits an investigation..)

They say the average Facebook user has about 130 friends and I say they are lying. The average Facebook user would have a list of friends running from here to Timbuktoo, with more pouring in by the hour.  A spaghetti-style cobweb of people who never knew that the others existed, till the other day…..and now they are hopelessly entangled like flies in blobs of marmalade, in pursuit of commenting excellence…..for there is nothing else to do on Facebook except write comments on each other’s pages for no particular reason. Pretty much the IT equivalent of chewing gum.

The only variation to that activity is the changing of profile pictures and uploading some others. Comment, upload an album, change picture, comment again, change picture, comment, change picture again, upload another album, comment…. goes the cycle. Stringing your personal pictures on the Net. Like laundry.

 

Coming back to the original thread – Wanda Round was suddenly faced with a serious challenge to her equanimity. Not that she is known for her “equanimus” – the gentle ripples can be seen from afar – but it now had waves, or rather breakers with white foam crashing on the rocks. This was caused by two men who happened to be her Facebook friends.

For want of better names and in order to not get too personal, let us call them “Adam Sapple” and “Ben Dover”. Now, as things came to pass, Ben did something to annoy Adam, who immediately removed the fellow from his list of friends. It did not stop at that – Adam Sapple wanted all his friends to follow suit and quarantine Ben Dover. Pretty much like a kindergarten bully. And we are talking of middle aged blokes here, well past their mid-life crisis phase, with a penchant for chatting up other peoples’ wives. (The “Love thy neighbour” principle in the Bible – remember ?)

Quarantining Ben Dover as an isolated action would not have been too much of a problem if Ben’s wife, let’s call her “Betty Diddit” had not entered the scene. You see, Betty Diddit, also one of the 500 million we talked about earlier, suffers from a severe and chronic case of Like-it-itis. It is a Facebook-induced condition, where the “I like it” portion of the brain gets severely inflamed and sufferers go feverishly around the virtual world liking everything they see.

As things got unravelled, Betty Diddit is a great fan of Wanda Round. She is also a great fan of a great many other things, but that is another story. She likes everything Wanda does to her Facebook page, and don’t ask me why. If Wanda blocked Ben Dover, then the most likely reaction from Betty Diddit would go like this :

You blocked my husband ? I like it.

That means I should block you. (I like that too)

Now tell me, who likes to block an ardent fan ? Wanda Round thought about it till she got depressed. And did nothing. Betty Diddit was just too valuable to lose.

A few days later Adam Sapple found out that Wanda had still not blocked Ben Dover. He tried to bring up the subject and got a lecture from Wanda on how he should patch up with Ben. Though we are not privy to that conversation, we can very well imagine how it must have gone, having known Wanda Round and her ilk all these years… hauled over hot coals, would be putting it mildly…

The gist of the problem is that Adam Sapple and Ben Dover are still not talking to each other but are friends with Wanda Round, while Betty Diddit is engrossed in doing what she does best - liking things.

(What we do not know though, is whether Betty liked Adam Sapple too…..)

***

The latest update is that Wanda Round has moved to Google+ for the time being and planning for Twitter.

Another blob of marmalade….

(Author’s note : The names are pure fiction… any link to any living person is an act of God)

Wanderlust...re-visited

This poem was discovered among my daughter’s diaries a few years ago when she was cleaning her room….. A scrap of aged, yellow paper, neatly folded into a rectangle, with her baby scrawl saying “Daddy poem” fell out of one of her numerous diaries and would have almost been swept away, had it not been for the scrawled label.

We opened it and there it was…. I had composed it a few months before our final exams in college….

When she was a little girl, our daughter had this habit of rummaging through Daddy’s and Mummy’s papers and stuff, and then store the things that caught her fancy, in her cupboard.  Good for her and for me, I must say.

Looking back, this was composed at a time when our final semester exams were almost upon us; some campus interviews had taken place, no one had yet landed any jobs, my study partner and I had not yet qualified for any of the interviews because of our marks. There was a pall of uncertainty hanging over everyone as we prepared to move out of college and begin a new chapter of our respective lives. After five years in college, many were in the mood to “just get out there” in order to re-live a whole new experience; to try and “do something”….

Wanderlust

 (composed – 16^th April 1981)

I hear the call of yonder wilds,

As if a siren song –

The haunting tune of the living free,

Their pulse of life so strong.

O ! Take from me this fettered freedom

And let me feel them all;

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

The breaking of the surf on rocks,

The salty smell o’ the breeze –

The seething foam and towering waves

Out in the stormy seas.

The cozy nests that sea-gulls build

In cracks in the high cliff wall;

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

The tinkle of the little bells

Of cattle homeward bound;

The gleeful sounds of boys at play

In the meadows all around.

The drone of bees in summertime,

The rustle of leaves in fall;

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

The solitary eagle in a turquoise dome,

The petrified waves of sand;

The garish beauty of cactus flowers

Adorning the desert land.

Braving fiery storms that blow,

Stand hills so proud and tall –

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

The bugle call o’ the early bird

Heralding the dawn of day;

The rustic tunes the farm girls sing

While loading their wagons with hay.

The beauty of the Indian summer

The rain-and-thunder squall;

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

The sparkling rivers of endless flow,

The fields of golden grain;

The fiery beauty of a lonely sunset

O’er a desolate plain.

Never was born an artist whose

Hand could paint it all –

I want not a hearth, I want not a home,

I want to see ‘em all !!

***

Epilogue

My childhood was full of long train journeys across the length and breadth of India with my parents and sister. I guess the long hours spent by the windows of trains as they sped through myriad landscapes find their reflection in the poem above.

Reading this poem after more than three decades of service, involving travels to many a distant land, and matching it with the events of my life during this period, I guess I had this wanderlust in me since childhood….

The thoughts of the sea and voyages were perhaps born out of the numerous stories I had read as a child; I had then never imagined even for once, the amount of air travel that I would undertake in the years to follow. (I am yet to set my foot on a ship, by the way…)

Wanderlust - revisited

(composed – 8^th Sep. 2015)

Night flights under starry skies,

Velvet, diamonds and fire-flies –

Pearls and gems laid out below

‘Tis the cities, as I watch them go;

But my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

Airport layovers – day and night,

People rushing to catch their flight;

Shops and cafes in fluorescent glow

Lovers and dreamers taking it “slow”;

But my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

Deep blue night o’er a sleeping land;

Blood-red dawn across desert sand –

Flying high with the sun so low

That quickly turns into a fiery glow;

But my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

Two-hour sunsets and four-hour nights;

Endless days on morning flights –

Over forests, plains and coasts we go

Over burning deserts and mountain snow;

But my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

The joy of visiting some place new

Is a privilege granted to very few;

A smile and a nod with eyes aglow,

People turn into friends from long ago –

But my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

All those people, everywhere

Similar thoughts and fears, they share;

Bound by their lives’ high and low

Does not matter which God they know.

And my home and hearth; they

Beckon me, wherever I go !!

***

A CULINARY JAUNT (or The Wrath of the Spices)

India is a diverse land with a huge variety of cuisines.  The range is mind-boggling, although only a handful of them have earned reputations across the world.

It is also the land that lends credence to the word “pure vegetarian”, in the sense that if you order “pure vegetarian” food, you will get “pure vegetarian” food… whatever that means, because I am yet to fathom what “impure vegetarian” food means.

And the range is mind-boggling… If one were to divide India into four regions – North, East, West & South, one could easily allocate fifty-odd dishes, unique to each region, at initial count !! But I am sure that list is much longer….

That is unlike many countries where they cannot think of such stuff. They would perhaps serve you “pure vegetarian” fried kang kong (water spinach) initially boiled in beef broth. Or only vegetables stir-fried in pork oil. They say it “adds to the taste”.  Then there are places where if you order vegetarian food you will get sea food – say, vegetables and lobster in a tasty concoction served in lobster shell…. The logic is simple…. Anything from the sea is “vegetarian” !!

Spicy food in any part of the world is MILD compared to the fare available in this country. Mexican food is hot in parts – but that is due to red chillies. One of my European friends, who came to India for the first time, spent two months here, tried the local cuisine, has promised never to tell anyone that he is OK with spicy food; the tastes here, as per him, are just too strong.

The only exception perhaps, is Thailand… I remember ordering a spicy soup in Bangkok once that made me cry and hit the roof, and thereafter never made the mistake of ordering the “hot” stuff there.

Indian vegetarian food, refined and evolved over centuries, is all about vegetables and spices, so much so that all you get to taste is spices in different combinations with vegetables struggling to make their presence felt. Sometimes they float in oil, like those poor creatures did after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill…. This is fairly uniform across the country’s restaurants. All those invasions of India down the centuries only served to add more spices to our cuisines. Some of them fit for military arsenals.

And then there are the non-vegetarian dishes with almost similar spice combinations. Kolkata, my  home town, permanently set amidst the ruins of development that resemble a war zone, has its own range of spices for meats and fish, and a vast array of sweets that explains why so many of us are diabetic. But then, here we use mostly green chillies and mustard…they sting, but do not render you speechless. Party fares here too, resemble the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, while the “float-eratti” could be anything from vegetables to meat and fish.

As you wander south, the spices and chillies get stronger – I think it has to do with the proximity with the equator. Two specific cuisines, those of Telegana and Chettinad deserve special mention… their spices and chillies are weapons-grade… (If you want to experience solar flares on earth, then that comes close). Restaurants that serve those cuisines should be located beside rivers, lakes and fire brigade stations. But they are not, and you are not forewarned, so beware !!

If you are visiting India and have escaped the wrath of the spices somehow, here is a word of caution; while travelling in India, learn to use water like the Indians, instead of toilet paper …..

Toilet papers are not made to withstand Indian chillies and spices… they could catch fire.

THE CITY

Back to the city after ten long years,

The city of fines and unknown fears.

Tall glass buildings that cast long shadows –

Manicured gardens, lawns and meadows.

Sun-kissed days and neon-lit nights;

Computer-controlled traffic lights.

Goodies in shops under bright white light –

The tourist and the shoppers’ delight.

Deep green trees on every side

Adding beauty to a timeless tide.

Wide, paved roads and glitzy malls;

With soul-less souls, like clockwork dolls.

- composed :4/June/2015

DEMENTIA

She was a small, frail, but proud woman.  They were two weeks away from their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary when she became a widow. Not that it was a surprise, she knew it was coming ever since he was diagnosed with cancer. He was pushing ninety and at his age, conventional cancer therapy was almost a no-no, he was put on palliative care, and in such care, he remained until his last breath.

She bid a silent farewell to the body of her companion of more than half a century as the hearse left the house on his final journey. Some close relatives kept her company while her son and other family members performed the last rites for her husband at the crematorium. But she did not cry.  All she said was, “He’s gone.” Then kept quiet.

A few months earlier, when he had been hospitalized for the first time, and she had gone to visit him, he had told her to get used to living with her son. She found that paradigm shift too hard to digest. The proud woman that she was, she had, till then, always fiercely held on to her will to stay in her own house, away from the children and grandchildren, live life on her own terms, and have periodic meetings with the family.

There comes a time in a person’s life, when living alone is impossible, and one has to have a support system built around oneself. Her son tried to build one around her; after her husband passed away, and she had to come and live with him and his family in the apartment in the city. He hired a couple of nurses to take care of her night and day. She resented them – saying her “bouma” (daughter-in-law) and grandchildren were good enough company. But he insisted, and the nurses continued.

She hobbled around the apartment with a walker and spent her days reading books and newspapers, and sometimes, when perhaps, her memories came flooding back, heaved a sigh, and kept on reading. Her grandchildren always made her smile; she would recite Sanskrit slokas – slokas that her son had heard from childhood… most of them extolled the virtues of being a mother, some talked about righteousness, while the rest were about mundane everyday events.

Her short-term memory began to fail. She would have lunch and then ask for it again, vehemently arguing that she was yet to eat. By and by people noticed that she would keep reading the same page in a book or news item over and over again, throughout the day, and if that piece of information caught her fancy, kept telling it to everyone in the house. Over time, her long-term memory too, began playing tricks. One day she said that she had seen snowfall – in an area where no snow had ever fallen in history. When her son said that it was not possible, she retorted that it was before he was born.

At the prayer meeting on the first anniversary of his father’s death, she attended the ceremony and asked her son, “Is it one year already ? You must be joking… check your calendar.” When people explained that one year had indeed passed, she said, “I thought he was still in hospital.”

One day her son asked her, “Do you remember Dad always saying that he built the house in the suburbs so that the grandchildren would have a place to play ?” She responded by saying that she wanted to visit that house in the suburbs once again, where she had spent the last thirty years. That weekend they all trooped down to the place, and then emerged a crisis of sorts when she steadfastly refused to leave. “You can take my dead body out,” was her firm reply. No amount of requests, pleading, threats was working. Her son and his family had to leave her there that night, with the caretaker’s family for company.

The next morning came a desperate phone call from the caretaker; he and his wife simply could not make her eat, or sleep the previous night, and given her frail health, things could get serious. Her son took leave from office, and went down to the house – she had to be physically carried to the car and brought back to the city. Curses flowed freely – she cursed her son for the abomination, and said she never thought this day would ever come…she said she would write a letter to the world telling them of the “torture” she was being subjected to by him.

Back in the apartment, she once again entered into a shell, reading newspapers, watching the birds on the trees around, and uttering the slokas…. Her memory went from bad to worse… she would go into the toilet in the morning and forget to come out… over time the nurses had to prevent her from locking the door from inside, and sometimes they had to physically carry her out after the morning’s ablutions.

He talked to the doctor who was attending on her, asking if a few days in hospital would improve things. His response was a clear “no”, and he stressed on the point that dementia patients should not be put in hospitals.

And then she started falling over, sometimes on her back, sometimes on her face, even with a walker around her. One such fall was particularly bad; her face remained swollen for days.

“Do you remember Dad ?”, he asked her one day with great trepidation.

“Well, I am angry that he left me and went away, the only good thing is that it has not been for long, just a few days.” This was more than four years after his death.

Six weeks before her eighty-third birthday, she woke up one morning and said she was not feeling well. She asked her son to check her blood pressure, as she was moved to a chair beside the bed. And, while he was doing so, she passed away, silently. Just like that. Sitting on the chair. Small, frail, but proud, as she always had been.

***

Dementia, to my mind, is perhaps as much a curse as a blessing in disguise.

***