Blogging on Facebook in Month of June '16

Coming to blog on my space here is becoming less nowadays because I have been blogging on Facebook more recently. Whatever I blog on Fb remains there only for few days and then it is swallowed up. I have decided that i should bring my status updates regularly on my blog here, so that I can re-visit whenever I wish.

some of my favourite FB status in month of June

Everybody is a celebrity on FB and why not?This is the platform where you can stand and advertise your self, vent your disappointments, share your talents and expect applause from your admirers...of course there are lurkers who will never leave their footprints (no like, no comment) on your page, they will quietly read your work, judge you from your posts, may even comment offline with your set of friends, taking your post as personal attacks when all you are doing is expressing your opinion....but then this is only a ‪#‎Facebook‬ a virtual platform....keep expressing ‪#‎WhatIsOnYourMind‬'

t started with one man..he had just come to rest at the foot path at the end of the lane. He stretched and leaned against the wall. The woman on the other side of wall gave him a glass of water and some stale bread. He was happy that people cared. The word spread..soon it became an everyday affair. sometimes alone and sometimes with his family and friends, who realised this was a friendly neighbourhood. Mats, utensils made their appearance and the comfort zone became so popular that the people increased. Over the period of five years..there are now around twenty people on this footpath..they cook, sleep and even sell drugs to young people. police have no power to vacate them...they disappear for few days but are back again..neighbours continue to give them blankets, water and food...soon...there will be sheltered tin houses.....the environment is filthy and unpleasant. There is nothing anybody can do..neither the people who live in this street nor the police... #BeggarMushroomingInMumbai

Yoga- a simple breathing exercise paving a road to better health but still not easy. How can one concentrate on yoga when the mind is filled with too much turmoil? Day to day activities, our interaction with people brings too much stress. Everything that we do/say/ react is used against us, so much so that we lose the freedom of speech, the thoughts lie wasted under breath and yoga goes for a royal toss...#Yogaday

For ppl to cooperate in our plan, we have first to win their trust. For that we must respect, understand and accept their shortcomings. Not everybody is perfect, actually nobody is- but every imperfect person has one quality that shines above everything else, invest on that good quality and win their trust‪#‎LifeLessons‬

If the word spills out before you could control, apologise..don't just keep mum‪#‎SlipperyTongue‬

I too want to exit from all the drama of who said what and why and all that negativity.. ‪#‎peace‬ ‪#‎pexit‬

Don't complain that watsapp is eating away the quality of time. It is NOT, if it is used moderately everyday(for a maximum of one hour only) to connect with family and friends in good times and in bad times. A cheerful emoji helps us understand that all is well..a message of help, or sorrow brings everybody together lightening up the spirit on days, when otherwise we would be trapped in solitude, suffering in silence till somebody noticed our absence and peeped into our homes to check on us......#watsapp

Why have ppl started copy-pasting messages? 
I believe that its because ppl are scared to express their own thoughts. They want to stay connected but are afraid of hurting ppl s sentiments. People have low tolerance to accept the truth, every FB message is taken as a taunt on a personal level and its always who said what and why..They have lost their sense of humor and cannot take a joke objectively..
so where is the freedom of expression?? 
Your own friends start judging u and might even go on silent mode...un-friending u just because you expressed what was on your mind..unless you are artistic and have talent to share..your opinions is all you have...but there too..u expect likes and comments on ur opinions or else u r annoyed that u get no feedback.....u share photographs of the good times u r having...ppl start calling u show-off n egoist...
so what is the alternate solution...Copy-Paste and be safe...... #CopyPaste

Conceited and cunning, she would avoid eye-contact. She could rant about herself for hours, shutting her eyelids, not caring if people listened or reacted..all she cared was approval of her favors while wearing an ego cap.‪#‎Malika_e_Aliya

In silence, mind plays dirty tricks making you imagine things that are impossible, worthless, depressing. Its only when you share your doubts (with people whom you trust) and try to explore the depth of truth that you begin to understand things. Speak up (if you must) because you value peace and solidarity more than anything else.....‪#‎JustSaying‬

So today it stopped raining after a continious heavy downpour for almost a week. The sky promises a dry weather, I could easily go down for a short walk, maybe stroll up to a superstore n pick up something I fancy..skim milk, maggie or simply roasted spicy peanuts. But laziness has set in...limbs too stiff to venture out of my comfort zone..I have created a cozy corner in my room, soft with piled up cushions, warm, fits perfectly around me...books around me loaded with stories of far away land...mobile and laptop within an easy reach..."lethargic" - I scold self and then curse the rain...showing my fist to sky n shouting "See what you have done to me..its all your fault" Rains have ruined me.....and the season has just begun..... #Rains

Santa Visited Me This Year

During my growing up years, every Christmas I wished that I were born a catholic, especially when I met my friends who showed me cabinets full of toys and beautiful range of dolls that Santa gifted them each year.

Yes, I was greedy for gifts because I never received any, not even on my birthdays, nor any awards at school, nor from my family members who came from abroad. Gradually I lost interest in gifts and my expectations came to zero when I realized that I could afford to buy whatever I wish and didn’t have to depend on anybody to shower any gifts on me. Now, I have a rule for visitors that if they come to see me, they are not allowed to bring any gifts for me. Thank you.

Nevertheless, I was pleased when Santa visited me this year and dropped me a book. Okay, I admit there is neither a chimney in my house, nor an open window, but an unknown person sent me through post (what else) and I was surprised.

Do you believe in Santa? 

The one who is dressed in red with white moustache is a happy fat man who laughs ‘Ho Ho Ho’ but he is to get the children in good spirit.

My Santa is an unknown person, whom I have never met, a member of the group ‘Marathon Bloggers’ where bloggers decided to blog everyday during the month of December. A secret Santa was created in the group, sometime back where we were asked what we wanted this Christmas. I asked for ‘Good health’. 

My wish of ‘good health’ was to divert my attention from pain to cooking good food, in the form of a book called ‘Classic Tamil Brahmin Cuisine’ that had won a prestigious jury award in 2009. The book has collection of vegetarian dishes with extra tips on buying and preparation authored by Viji Varadaranjan and Padmini Nataranjan.

A beautiful handwritten note added at the inside cover revealed (through my handwriting analysis skills) that person who sent the book is a meticulous person with beautiful mind and thoughts. When she was selected to choose a gift for me, she visited my blogs to know my taste, such effort (I am so grateful to her) only those who care would do.

I have added her to my friends’ list on FaceBook and nurse a desire to meet her some time in future.

FaceBook is my virtual space where I find beautiful pearls and Meera Prasant is the new friend who shall remain in my circle.

Cheers to all my virtual friends……..

Literary Meeting with ‘Shakespeare and Company’ group

I visited Bangalore after 20 years this week-end. I remember Bangalore as a garden city with quaint bungalows and wide clean streets. Development has changed the entire city, with airport so far away that I was getting guilty pangs on having asked my family to spend two hours to fetch me from airport to the city. But then I do not understand the roads and would not be able to use public transport therefore had no choice but to depend on the residents of the city to transport me around through the fractured roads.

I went for four days, two days to meet-up the family whom I had not met for a long time and two days to meet the members of S&C community of writers whom I had never met. This is the writer's community with whom I have interacted on FaceBook and we regularly share writing skill and ideas. This would be fun group for people taking writing classes as well. All the informal knowledge is shared through fun and jest.

Pragya Thakur, the moderator of this group, was making the visit to Bangalore with her daughter, Anushka, and wanted to meet with the members of the group. The event was created on the FB and members were showing their interest in attending this event “Revels 2012’ Jaya Chandra offered to host the event at her villa at Whitefield, Gopu and JJ organized the event, arranging food, sound and logistics.

The meeting was in Bangalore and I live in Mumbai, so why did I decide to travel all the way to Bangalore to attend this event? 


I am not even a great writer who can proudly share about some extra-ordinary work with the rest of the group. But here was an opportunity to re-visit the place, meet the family who has grown older by 20 years and to meet my faceBook friends whom I had never met before but knew them only from their writings. 


 Friendship for me is complete only after I have met the people personally and interacted with them in real world and this was my only chance to meet the real people whose writings gave me so much happiness.

Confirming my attendance, I booked my air-ticket and hotel room but was still nervous of meeting the FB friends the first time. Through chat pages and phone calls, I exchanged dialogue with few of them so that I would be comfortable when I met them personally.

After spending two days with my family, at 2pm on 18^th Feb, I checked into my hotel room next to Pragya’s room, dumped my luggage and immediately ran to her room to meet her and her daughter, Anoshka. The two hours were spent enjoying JJ’s presence, Anoshka’s innocent chatter and dance, Pragya’s chat and songs.

At 4pm, it was time to meet the rest of the group at the hotel lobby. One by one, as if on a ramp, each friend made her presence through the glass door, crinkling her eyes, recognizing me from the images she had known of my virtual profile pictures and my animated chat which now morphed into three-dimensional real person, to whom I stretched my heart, tied a knot and strengthened the friendship into my real world.

With transport meticulously arranged by Gopu and JJ, we drove in four cars, one behind another, making sure that nobody got lost. At the dot of 5pm, we were greeted by our gracious host, Jaya and Mahesh, who stood with open arms at the portico of their beautiful villa surrounded by greenery, the birds began to sing with the orchestra filling the wind.

The artistic interiors of the living room and the fragrance from Jaya’s kitchen of fritters cooking in hot oil made me feel so much at home. Although it was time to mingle and familiarize, the hunger pangs made me spend more time on munching and talking food. I stole some time to feast on dhal-kachories, potato bajiyas, cheesy popcorns, spicy wafers, crackers and strawberries till it was time to move out in the open space, on the chairs spread out on grassy patch, at the back of the villa. The presence of the mike and the spot lights spelled the seriousness of this meeting.

After the group photograph and the formal introduction, the event ‘Revel 2012’ began.

Maitreyee, the one blessed with the beauty and the brains, was the perfect one to start the reading session followed by Sushmita and then one by one, we heard the play of words by different writers as they read out their poetry and prose, so intelligently worded, flipping out from their scripts, filling the air with vivid images. I fumbled in my mind, not sure if I could share my mediocre work with this creative group. Twice I inserted my hand into my purse to extract my book and twice stuffed it back, not sure if I could share.

Suddenly the power went out. In darkness we sat, gazing up in the sky pointing out to constellation of stars, the Orion and its bright stars, the great bear and the seven stars, the little bear and the Polaris, we scanned the dark blue sky looking in all directions and at that very instant, there was a song…..Pragya started to sing…in the perfect stillness of the evening it was pleasant to the ears, soon everybody joined in, some softly and some loud, then Gopu commenced, enthralled us with his deep smooth voice, the memories of Kishore Kumar and Shamshad Begam Akhtar came alive along with other singers long forgotten, the chairs shifted in two groups and unplanned antakshri began.

Soon the lights came on, ankatshri game abandoned; we tracked our steps back to ‘Revel 2012’

Uma got her ipad and tried to include Ranjini (who was physically across seven seas but mentally with us) into the group through skype. But the bad interconnectivity gave us just a glimpse of her and tried as much as we could, I only managed to type a feeble “Hey”

With internet connected, Madhavan was able to extract his writings from his blog, and later he and Richa read ‘Dhaiya re dhaiya’ Richa and Revathi read their winning entries of ‘short stories competition’. By now, the phobia of reading my work was slowly fading, I plucked up enough courage, extracted my diary and my reading glasses from my handbag and waited for my turn to read my poems. I was happy I did because it felt good to share my work and I discovered it was not that bad after all.

As the evening progressed, the air thinned, it was getting chilly, I borrowed a shawl from Jaya, wrapped myself and sat cuddled, enjoying the reading and the off-handed hilarious one liners of Madhavan thrown in between the serious readings.

 Soon the theatre came alive with evocative reading of the play ‘Taming of the Shrew’ by Kirtana and JJ

Not wanting to disturb the neighbors, we decided to move back to the living room to continue the reading after dinner.


There was more reading to be heard of Suja reading her published stories, of Pragya sharing a creative writings, of Uma, Jaya, SeekerSought, Gopu, Gargi, Sangeeta and Shankari reading their stories, but the clock on the wall glared at us, showing us the lateness of the hour. The event had to be winded up in a jiffy but not before the announcement of the lucky winners (Anitha Murthy, Revathi Siva Kumar and Richa Dubey) of the ‘short story competition’  and taking home the prize.

It was a wonderful event, worth the long distance trip that I had covered from Mumbai to Bangalore to attend; I have acquired a new set of extended literary family that I hope to retain this friendship for long……

Muse over FB message 'Acceptance'

With twitter and facebook becoming a strong board for exchanging ideas and thoughts in this social media network, not all status messages are funny and light hearted, some are thought provoking too and force us to re-think on issues which could be just a passing phrase. One such message, that I copied on my page and then was pleased to see it on my friends’ page too was:

"My wish for 2010 is that people will understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease; children with disabilities are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE........93% of people won't copy and paste this, WILL YOU be one of the 7% that does and make this your status for at least a hour?”

I saw this message on many of my friends’ pages and someone even argued saying that “Just by copying and pasting are people going to change the attitude? No offence to your friends who have already copied and pasted it, they may have done it because they are among those few people who understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease......”

My reply to that comment was: “yes! Attitudes do change with the wind. .specially by those who believe in the message and pass it on....and unfurl those soft pebbles off the hard rock...

But the page that really caught my attention was when someone commented:

“Wait a minute... I'm pretty sure that people with disabilities ARE looking for a cure... No one willingly accepts that they are disabled when there is a readily available cure out there that can make them "not disabled."

He found it difficult to accept the fact that handicap people can be accepted in this society as productive member of the society if they are allowed to perform the task to their best of their ability.

He argued that “You can’t accept someone who is disabled as a productive member of society when you still have to watch over them and make sure that they don’t fall and/or jump in whatever they need assistance. If that’s the case then there is no full acceptance, only fake acceptance that will make these disabled people feel a false sense of security of their place in society. And to be honest, if I was disabled and wanted people to treat me with respect, the same respect they treat everyone person, and you were patronizing me in this way and treating me as if I was less of a person then I would hate it. Your saying that disabled people want to be treated like everyone else.. well you can’t treat them only half way, because they still aren’t equal, and never will be. It’s all or none. I’m afraid.”

Actually I would hate it too....but that is where my point was, I meant to say that either the people are patronizing the disabled too much or ignoring them completely and both ways it hurts the differently-abled person.

Society just cannot see the talent beyond the handicap at a first glance, a differently-abled person has to prove their capability from time to time, they have to prove that they are capable of performing as perfectly as any normal person , and there is no need to sweat over them if they are able to deliver....independently....every disabled person can also be the productive member of the society, if he is allowed to follow the profession in which he excels and in which he has faith in, but the society never allows him to forget his handicap.

Every individual should be able to decide when they need to be over-protective and patronizing and when they should just accept them and let them perform to their fullest ability and in every case, acceptance in important because they are not freaks.

And he was confused as to where does one draw the line?

What gives anyone the right to tell one person that they fully capable of working on their own and another that they cannot be trusted to be on their own and must be supervised? He argued that when people say that "We wish that society would accept disabled people as being productive members of society, there isn't a special clause that states: " this only applies to people who are able to function independently, with out supervision, everyone else isn't fully accepted as fully functional and must be watched and cared for."

And he wondered as to what happens to those who don’t meet those specific criteria? Are never to be accepted as part of society and considered the useless ones who have no place in the society?

“ I know it seems harsh,’ he continued, “ but if they cannot be accepted as productive members of society then what are they? Or do we reevaluate what that criterion is so they can be accepted? But what about the people left over from that? Who are not accepted after that second evaluation of who is productive and who isn’t?

It’s an endless cycle that will never end.” he concluded

And I am left wondering whether the society will ever wear the cap of acceptance…ever……

Facebook's colorful drama

Friday morning, while brushing teeth, I checked the mail on my facebook, and the chain mail from three of my friends, with a subject line ‘Cause’, caught my attention, it read:


‘We're playing a little game where every woman on Facebook will type the colour of the bra she is wearing today, (on your status) just the actual colour, nothing else. Forward this to women ONLY and let's see if the men can work out what our game is. Its also to raise the awareness of breast cancer’.

The mail was from my three dear friends and I couldn't ignore it (neva). I was hesitant at first, not wanting to disclose something in an open forum such as FB, but pretending to be on a beach made thing easier and my FB status flashed ‘Sky blue’ while warbling 'Girls just wanna have funn'....

Not sure whether it spread the breast cancer awareness, but it was very, very entertaining. Some of the colors flashed on my friend’s status were hard to believe. Dark purple? Deep red? Hawaian green? Electric blue? Leopard skin, nude? (were they all at the beach???) Teasers!! Interesting though!!. I started making a list of the colors to look for on my next shopping trip.

What was entertaining was the curiosity of men who were perplexed. Reading the updated message on color by one woman would not have bothered them but reading the same message on all the women made them uncomfortable. They squirmed and wriggled, longing to know the secret behind the colors. While they tried to decode the colors, women were having a field day, amused by their innocent comments. The status message such as “What a colorful day”,’ What’s with a women in black, white, yellow’ We cross-posted on our friend’s status teasing each other, with 'smiley', 'grin', 'ha-ha' as comments which made them curious even more, till some spy peeped into his spouse’s inbox to know the secret.

We knew that somebody has finally cracked the code when we read, “All plans to keep Facebook safe for the whole family are going bust” followed by ” Police in Iran are cracking down on Facebook activism today. Once their true colours are revealed, the guilty will not be let off the hook.” hmmn!

As the day progressed, more and more men discovered the secret and they played along, posting wittier messages and counter messages that only few understood, till some clumsy spoiler spilled the beans.

FB got flooded with drool…..

Men went back to the messages to get the drift. They fantasized, Googled for bra-images to match the colors, tweeted, how do they get excited by just the color of a garment?? come on, it's just a garment of support for 'do bichare, bina sahare...'

Then started the series of messages that spelled their fantasies, and I lost interest when jokes went too far and the messages started to get uglier and embarrassing…….ekdum nonsenshence.....

Ye kya ho raha hai??????

I have changed my profession, have started farming….

I have just one plant at home that was gifted to me by my sister, a bamboo plant. My sister promised me that it would bring me luck, I am not sure whether its’ magic is working on me., but yes, it is out there, near my main door, growing healthily. But I cannot take credit of this healthy plant because I am so damn lazy that I cannot take care of plants. I am too lazy to even go to fetch water for myself, so how do I find strength to go and water the plants? The task of watering the plant is handed over to my maid, who dutifully waters and tends to the plant whenever she thinks it is time to do so. But that does not mean that I do not like plants, actually, I love plants, especially those flowering trees that line up the road in my lane. I love the fragrance and the colors that brighten up my days, its' freshness and the greenery and I sometimes wish I were not so lazy, then, may be I would probably tend a garden too. Now-a-days, all I like is sitting in front of this computer and reading and writing. I enjoy meeting my friends on face book, reading their status and playing scrabble with them, there are links that my friends direct me to visit and I go to those links to read what they find it interesting, and now, my friend sents me a potted plant on face book. Wow! thats kewl! isn't it? It’s true that I cannot do the break breaking job of tending a garden, but this virtual farm town on the face book is something different, and quite a blessing indeed. Now I have become a farmer, I buy land, plough fields, plant seed, and harvest the ripe fruits and crops and sell the produce. sometimes I store them because I am too lazy to go to market and sometimes I hire help during harvesting. Its loads of fun and I am quite enjoying it. I even visit my friend’s farm and look after their farm when they are busy and I am not feeling too weak. hahaaha! In two days I have learnt to grow grapes, potatoes, I have some animals in my farms too and now is in process of putting fence around animals because otherwise they keep escaping and walking all over the fields. I will even buy a farm house. When I am rich with lots of trees and enough stock of fruits and vegetables, I will be able to invite some friends to come and spend few days on my farm. No need to rent a car, or buy fuel to reach my farm, it is just a click away, now that is what I would call a ‘Mouse Potato’ huh??

Invisible soulmates on facebook

Face is potholed by too many pokes Of friends and families of every nook Vampires’ fights, somersaulting quizzes Dearest friends’ shadows, hugs and looks I enjoy playing Lexulous, and visiting links, Love reading their notes from their profile winks Many summers ago, on a lazy day like this Like a couch potato I would just gape at a book

I am on face book and am loving it....

Lately I have got addicted to facebook. I was so reluctant to come on line on this kind of social network, when I was invited for the first time......I had refused many invitations that said you have been tagged, and there are so many invitations all the time to join different groups, but I landed on this world of social network when the curiosity got the better of me....and now am addicted...n am loving it... I love it for its applications. I love to play scrabble, 'just three words' stories, and exchanging those smilies with my friends on the facebook. Then it is nice to meet so many people online, talk to them, through our compu-screen. It is amazing that computer sits there in my bedroom all the time and minute I put it on, I am kind of looking out of the window, and staring at the world. And imagine, I sold the painting on line. I put it up in the marketplace on facebook and it was appreciated. I created a group for my school of mentally challenged and am so glad that that I have formed my own group of people who really care. Actually there are so many groups and more groups keep adding each day. There is group on Bandra and they have announced the car-free day every two months, then one family member is getting married in Jan and they have formed a group, inviting and putting all the information and pictures in their group, there are groups for social cause, groups for poetry lovers, group for food lovers, for magazine subscribers, almost everyday, a new group is being formed and invitations keep flooding your page. Without leaving the comfort of your home, and getting stuck in the constipated traffic, you are there, amidst your friends, enjoying and savoring the friendship of fun loving people. Yep, I am glad I am having a great time……see you there…..