FACEBOOK, THE HAPPY WORLD....

Facebook is a happy world. While my friend Nidhi is having the time of her life with her friend Switty, my college mate Neelu is checking in at Café Coffee Day with “Yay! Girls Night Out” as the status. I click Like.

 

I move on to my cousin who has uploaded a photo of herself almost canoedeling with the ‘love of her lyf’ in a place that looks like Leh, thanks to the Yak that is innocently gawking at them in the background. Her tagline says “Thank you my Sonu for making my life so perfect. I LOV U” with picture courtesy given to some dejected soul. I click Like and comment “This is so perfect Sister! I am so happy for you.”  With a straight face and no emotion, I move on to the next.

Hey, look at this! My ex has updated his status “Bought my first Merc, a black beauty. Can’t wait to take my gorgeous wife for a ride in it.”  I wince, walk over to the fridge and take out a tub of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. I then return to the bed, gag myself with it as I move the cursor to update my facebook status.

“Awesome Saturday. Crazy!”

I shut down my laptop and sleep. The ice cream drips on my laptop.

I was unemployed for a whole one year after college. I did not sit for placements, reasons still unknown to me. All the law firms I applied to personally wanted those with experience. Here I was a National Law School graduate, unemployed. I was lost when my father declared that he sees a future Judge in me and I saw the prospect of preparing for Judicial service as the last straw to clutch on while drowning. I hated preparing for it, kept looking for jobs, got a few jobs, rejected them, got rejected and hated myself. But every time a distant relative asked my parents what I was doing with my life, they replied “Our daughter studied in the National Law University but did not sit for placements because she always wanted to give Judicial service a shot. She is now preparing for it.” The listener looked at me and said “Shabash beta…”, making a donkey feel like an intelligent dolphin, all the time cringing in the inside about the subtle reality. But he doesn’t need to know about all that. Does he? He goes home and tells his son how intelligent and competitive Mr. Anil’s daughter is.

Everyone on your facebook list is like that distant relative you told the selective truth to. You deleted the sour part and served him the dessert. He fell for it and got upset at the inefficiency of his child. Facebook is that last course of a buffet and everyone is served desserts. No one can be undisputedly and continuously happy. Fairytales are just enormously exaggerated reality.

Tina just uploaded a picture of her hand with a big chunky diamond ring and a tagline that says ‘On top of the world. Engaged to Mr. SO & SO’. She hides the scared heart that is trying to bury the rejections of the past, the lies that she have told him about her history and the future that is yet to unwrap itself.

You and I, get jealous of her. Self loathing mode initiated.

So, the next time someone shouts out their achievement on facebook or forces you gawk at the picture of them vacationing in Macau, be happy for them and move on realizing that behind all that celebratory hullabaloo and boastful jigs lies a reality as realistic, plain and challenging as yours and mine.

And with that I move on to update my status… “Made my first appearance as a lawyer in court. Feeling like Alan Shore.”

No one has to know about me calling the Male judge “Madam” and making a complete fool of myself.  Do they?

I guess Not.

P.S- The previous post was deleted because I felt disgusted by it.

P.P.S- Thank you for being a reader and a friend. I have something small planned up for you and me this 16^th. :)

THE RIGHT AGE...

 The concept of ‘The Right Age’ is a universal one. People might differ when it comes to race, caste, sex, religion but there is a thought that binds them together and that is this concept of ‘The Right Age’.

  

Even before the sperm got its head inside the egg and screamed ‘Ooh Baby!’, the life which might be born after 9 mths was forever marked with this concept of ‘The Right Age’. And once it falls out of its mother’s ‘You-Know-What’ into the dirty hands of this ugly world, the clock starts ticking. The wheel of the Right age starts moving.

The right age to start walking, the right age to start talking, the right age to chuck that breast milk and eat some sambar rice, the right age to go to kindergarten, the right age to hit the school and even the right age to have your first period (if you are a girl that is, or else something is very wrong). No, it does not stop there because right after all that you have the right age to join college, the right age to drink, the right age to have a job, the right age to marry, the right age to get laid, the right age to have a baby and then the right age to decide all the right ages for your child. It is like the bus in the movie ‘Speed’ which has to keep running in order to prevent itself from blowing up into a molten junk. It will only end with our death.

Now what if I decide to mess up with all of that? What if I decide to start walking a year later than expected or what if I play with the right age to have a drink or what if I want to prepone the right age for coitus and postpone the right age of marriage? What if I want no right age to have kids and what if I want no right age to do what I really want to do? What if I want my own set of ‘Right Ages’ made on the spot and untouched by what the society expects from me?

 I hear people say ‘This girl is 24. This is the right age to get married’. I want to genuinely ask these enlightened souls “I never knew that Moses stood on Mount Sinai and screamed out the 11^th commandment ‘Thou Shalt Enter Wedlock at Holy 24’. Please tell me more about it, will you? ”.

Society is like USA, while your little pitiful life is like a forlorn country trying to fight its own battles, have a sincere government and make the ends meet. Society bombs you down and beats your dreams, all the while thinking that only good is resulting out of this. Society is a confused leech, sticking to you and feeding on you, yet thinking that it is actually helping you. It is our fault actually.

So the next time someone tells you what the right age is for you, tell them that it is their right age to mind their own business. Next time you are told that now is the right time for some wedding show time, ask them whether they are the last descendants of the Mayans who were too concerned even about the right age to celebrate an Apocalypse. And if ever someone tells you that you should have some kids before those eggs stop hatching, tell them that you are as fertile as Halle Berry who is popping out a kid at the age of 47.

Because the right age is a personal aspect and unless you are a puppet, you will make your own choice.