Friday, July 4, 2008

The Life and Lies of Orkutians

The social networking craze has caught up big time in India. With interesting add-ons, applications and options, they are catching the fancy of the users and I’m not just talking about the young crowd, even people in mid 30s and onwards use it frequently.

Orkut, Facebook, My Space- all these sites are a great way to find and connect with old school friends, relatives, colleagues, etc. Plus, it is used big time by users to project themselves as drool worthy people.

Wait, before you start thinking o gawd, she is eons late, let me tell you, I’m not here to talk about what these sites are, what they do, are they good for us or not. Since I’m an avid user of one such site (the most popular of them all) for long, so I thought of bringing forth a few interesting observations I made there over a period of time.

So here goes my list of some funny and weird observations about the various users of Orkut
(Note: I’m assuming you are aware of the tools, features and options of Orkut….if not, kindly log on and create your profile today!)


1. Hear Ye Hear Ye:
When people want to announce to the world they are seriously dating someone or are hitched, they promptly change their status to “committed” or “married”. Guess, it has sort of become a tradition for married people to change their status otherwise, they won’t be officially considered married! This update is generally followed by a string of congratulatory or curious scraps from people the user simply forgot to inform or didn’t consider worth informing or inviting!
Some people (read girls) even go to the length of adding their spouse’s surname to theirs (soon after marriage) or even better; add their husband’s full names to theirs, so much for the women’s liberation!


2. Getting Even:
If one wants to tell his ex-flame that he is seeing someone, it would be promptly reflected in his relationship status. To add insult to the injury, they would go ahead and put up a picture of them with their new crush/love.

3. Subtle and Not-so Subtle Indicators:
I’m feeling rebellious….bam comes an angry emoticon on my profile page. I wanna tell the world I belong to this state/community…I’ll join my state/group specific community. I’m dying to tell the world I belong to the in-crowd; I’ll join such communities to show off….

4. You’ve Got Friends?
One of the things that amaze me is how can people handle hundreds of online friends? I mean it’s ok to have 40, 50 or even 60 friends, but how can one have 800 friends?!!!! Does their list include: milkman, maid, dhobi, neighbor’s dog………

5. Fans Galore:
That’s a very interesting option in orkut. Generally, it’s up to people’s sweet will if they want to become someone’s fan. But at times people actually ask others to become theirs, so they can boast the number of fans they have!

6. Tested-monials:
Ditto for testimonials (thought it’s comparatively easier to become a fan than to write one ‘coz it requires more time n thought).

7. Swing Both Ways:
While it’s a person’s personal prerogative to choose to be straight or otherwise, I would like to share an interesting observation about a married guy I knew: under the section what is the purpose of joining the site, he mentioned: dating (ahem!), n listen to this: dating…men and women! Whoa!…..lady you’ve got yourself a philandering George Michael!

8. Married Men’s Dilemma:
At times you would find good n weird married men looking for some online “fun”. So they would be-friend a nice girl and the friendship would continue but then they would suddenly remember that their own sister, brother-in-law, in fact the entire family is on their friend’s list, so they promptly remove their unknown female friends after many apologies.

Other interesting observations:
As a loyal orkutian, I’m assisting in orkut’s continuous endeavor to make it more interesting and relevant; so I have some suggestions to make to broaden their friend’s category:

1. Have-to accept friends: Coz there are friends u accept the request of just so that you don’t break their heart!

2. Can’t be removed friends: There are some u had a tiff with but out of courtesy you don’t wipe them out.


3. Work friends: Then there are those who are your colleagues or at times (God forbid!) ur seniors who you can’t refuse…

4. I’m sorry non-friend: And at times you get a friend- request from a person who, even though u may not know him well…but would not have the heart to say no to him…so what do you do…….simple wait n wait till the that request vanishes…..


5. Pestering “friends”: Ummm, they re not exactly your friends-like those pestering ones who keep sending you the friend request even though I have rejected it a zillion (honey, I rejected the request, not you!!!!) times or there’s another sub-category, like this person I knew whom I removed from my list but had the nerve to send the request again….whew!

6. You-still- exist? friends: This is for those friends who have been in your list for long, but they haven’t written to you much. Probably too busy to add more friends eh?

Hope you had as much fun in reading it as I had writing it! Watch this space for more such stuff and don’t forget to leave your comments.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The Magic of Talking

Words have always been very important to me, almost therapeutic you can say. My work requires me to stay quiet and concentrate for a longer period of time and since I seldom indulge in talks these days (just in office, don’t think I’m the quiet sorts!), so I had sort of “forgotten” how much I love to talk and of course, write. A few minutes back I had a pleasant talk with one of my colleagues. I had come to submit a few documents to her, never thinking I would actually have more than 2 minutes of “official-courtesy” talk. After the submission was done, she suggested we should go for coffee, I agreed, thinking that it would be a good idea.

So, we settled down with a hot cup of CCD coffee and started talking. Since she is the (more) chirpy sorts, so she initiated. We talked general stuff but her positive vibrancy and enthusiasm was infectious, it had me hooked too. During the talks, it just hit me, albeit gently, that having that little spark of positivism burning inside you really works wonders. The usual mundane things and monotonous routine, the disappointments and so many negative aspects of your life vanish in thin air if you are positive within or come in contact with people who are teeming with positivity. There was nothing life-changing about the conversation, but her sheer enthusiasm and a positive persona taught me a precious lesson: don’t worry, be happy and keep talking:)