Celebrating Friendship and Chocolate day!!

On Friday, when I entered the school, I was in for a surprise. The children were in festive mood, some of them singing into the mike while others dancing to the music. Group of children sat on the floor to enjoy the show while most of the other children were excitedly greeting each other ‘Happy Friendship day’

Now you may wonder if all children understand the meaning of ‘Friendship day’ especially if they are mentally challenged, It’s true they may not understand the word ‘friendship’ but every child understands the meaning of chocolate and teachers had cleverly named the day as 'friendship and chocolate day'.

After the singing and dancing session, each child was given a packet containing assorted sweets and some friendship bands and they were asked to tie the band on the wrist of their friends. Soon the children popped the first sweet into their own mouth and then went about tying friendship band to their friends' wrist and exchanging sweets.

After they were done with the friends of their choice, some of them came to the staff room to put the band over their favorite teacher’s wrist. Soon our wrist were covered with many colored bands and we had collected so many sweets.

When this child came to my side and tied one friendship band on my wrist, I exchanged sweets with him and he bend down to touch my feet…..

Such sweet kids who know neither to hate nor do they judge their friends, when we smile they smile, we exchange chocolates, they accept it with gratitude and become our friends.

Comfort Zone

During my visits to one of the blogs, I came across the woes of the blogger who complained that worldclass T3 is built to welcome the visitors of Common Wealth Games and he was wondering why the station like VT, which handles more than 2 million commuters are given a raw deal.

He then spoke of a lady who was picking up the garbage with two pieces of cardboard and was not even given a something better to pick up the trash.

This sets me thinking. Some people are used to doing things which is most convenient for them and giving them something better is not going to make any difference to them, they might discard that fancy better stuff or even sell them off and continue to do what they are comfortable.

Don’t believe it?

I have this fruit seller who visits me regularly, climbing up two floors to give me his service. The other day he came to sell apples. I wanted half kilo but he had no 500gms-weight. He weighed one kilo apples and then distributed equally into two plates of the scale to give me my half kilo.

Clever!!

But silly me, I asked to buy half-kilo-weight to avoid this problem and he said it cost Rs40. I gave him money to buy one, thinking it will be nice if he had a proper way to measure his fruits.

The next time he visited me, I asked him if he had bought one, he still hadn’t. He said he had not yet found time to go to purchase it.

It has been four months now and he has still not bought it. He is comfortable weighing the fruits the way he is used to.

I want my money back. I feel cheated.

And since, I ask him whenever he knocks on my door, he has stopped visiting me. No more door service for me. Haaha!!

Can we import Europeans luck to India?

kyon ki european enjoy too much of Aish..haahaa!!!

such luxurious trains winding through hills

Wah! What a taxi maan? I would like a ride too, hope people don't have to cross the road to go to their destination

No climbing stair to catch a train, no warm weather to sweat and soak

bus..aish hi aish!!!!

kya kismat pahi hai gore log ne...hahaa!!

Memories of an another day

Doctor says I need to walk but I am lazy, always too lazy, and have various reasons for not going out for a walk…endless reasons…grin*....sometimes I have to push myself to walk in order to remain in good health.

And now-a-day I have some excuse too…It’s raining and the roads are slippery…hahaaha*.. I know, its not a good reason and on my way back home from my class of web-designing, I force myself to walk one-way.. it’s 20 minutes walk ....plus I save some auto fare…heeheehe (No, I am not chingoos…don’t get ideas) but this walking through these streets with pollution everywhere, is not healthy, I know, but it is a walk. Right?

So today I decided to walk and it was jeopardized once again. Heavy showers again with strong winds that blew my umbrella clockwise, giving it a nice dancing swirl and folded on the wrong side..(*how embarrassing*), soaking me in rain. I looked for an auto and got into one that was waiting at a signal.

"Get in fast” said the driver, “I am scared, today is 26th July”.

"So what about 26th July? Huh?" I said

“You don't remember 26th July? Every time it rains heavily, I am reminded of that horrible day when the water had touched my chin as I waded through the floods. I had parked my auto at Versova and went walking to Chembur.” He said

"You walked all the way from Versova to Chembur? That is quite a distance.” I said

“Yes it is; I walked through those dirty lanes, filled with filth and scum, wading through water for more than fifteen hours. It was a nightmare and those memories haunt me till today. Every time it rains I am scared and am reminded of that horrific day.” he said

Five years ago, on 26th July, I was on holiday in Hongkong and had escaped that deluge. I had watched the Mumbai rains on TV from the comfort of my family home. The flights were getting cancelled and there was more commotion at the airport. I had extended my stay in HK and came back after one month.

After I returned back to Mumbai, everybody had a horror story to tell. "There was no light and water for two days" said one neighbour, "Our lane was submerged in chin-deep water "said another. The stationary store down my lane had to buy a new photocopy machine, all the stationary was destroyed and he had to start all over again. The next shop, a cyber café, had all computers destroyed. A woman next door was mentally depressed as she reached home only in her petticoat and blouse and her sari was blown away. She was so rattled that she didn’t talk for days after that episode and had to be treated to normalcy. My maid, who lives in slums, talked about her how her family had perched themselves on the roof of their house and waited for rain to stop. Every person, whom I met, told me different story and each was a horror story. I was saddened to hear their woes.

I think schools should give a holiday today” said the auto driver, “The things have not changed. During last five years there has been no improvement. The people still use plastic bags, the infrastructure is still poor and there is no guarantee that 26/7 will not re-occur, I have lost my faith in my government.” He said.

Face-Off the Book

Every person I meet asks me the same question. They want to know if I am on facebook and if I am then would I accept their friend request. Yes! I will but only after I know them cause facebook, like my little private world, is dotted by the friends I trust.

Facebook had made our world into a narrow space where we get each day connected with our friends, visiting their thoughts on their walls, seeing their pictures, reading their notes, exploring their private space. Did you say private? What private? Who wants privacy? It is more fun to be open about your views. That’s the reason why we are so choosy in the first place and confirm only those friends whom we know.

Sometimes I think about my life during those pre-facebook days. Oh! I did many different things then. Read books, painted in oils, made many handicraft items, made stuff toys, knitted, crocheted, cooked and visited my relatives without any reason, I led a very busy life until this facebook ruined me.

Three years ago, during a private meeting, I heard two of my friends discuss Facebook and they spoke about the fun they were having at this network. I had received many invitations/tags from different people asking me to join this network, but I was reluctant to join yet another social network. I was quite active on Ryze and would read my people’s work on the forums and the extra time that I had, I would spend it surfing the net and maintaining my blogs. I didn’t feel the need to join any more of those social networks. But after listening to my friends discuss their Facebook activities, I was tempted to give it a try. As soon as I logged in, I was surprised to see so many friends lined up, all welcoming me, it was like I was entering a party zone.

During those earlier days, I would visit various groups and read discussions on their board and play many virtual games. I had even written a poem for one of the contests on FB during those days, where we had to start a poem with word ‘Face’ and end it with the word ‘Book’. I had written about my experience on FB then…

Face is potholed by too many pokes
Of friends and families in every nook
Vampires fights, somersaulting werewolf
Frightening shadows of their crazy look


Playing Scrabulous, and other virtual games,
Enjoying cold coffee by the brook
Many summers ago, on a rainy day like this
All I would do, was to just gape at a book

I had attempted six short poems, my favorite was

Face above sand
caught in a blizzard
unprotected, helpless
trapped like a lizard
A joke turned sour
his friends, all gone
if by miracle , he survives
he may write a book

Of course I did not win then, because I couldn’t compete with the talented poets who wrote such beautiful lines.

The first prize for this contest had gone to Tolu Ogunlesi from (Nigeria) for his winning entry called
Instructions


Face the future.
Pick the moon off
the dark, cold floor
of night. Slot it gently
into the earth, and wait.
Nothing might happen.
Just like in an empty book.

I was quite fascinated with different groups and would take part in many such discussions where there would be different interactive word games. I remember making a story with my set of six friends by adding just three words. Each one of us would write just three words in one turn and a long story thus created was really good.

I got addicted to facebook

For many months after that I interacted with my friends (On FB, I had very few friends, I could count them on my fingers and toes) and would envy those who had 700 friend. “700 friends?” I had asked my friend when I saw his friends’ list on Facebook, “Do you really have 700 friends?” and he boasted that all those 700 friends were not mere numbers, they were all real friend. It’s been three years now but I still have not managed to collect 700 friends.

Over the years the popularity of this network has grown. As reported in HT -

If Facebook were a country, it would have a larger population than, say South Africa. This week, the social networking site crossed 500 million users. This means that one out of every 14 people on earth is on Facebook. India’s share is 12 million users, three times the population of Hyderabad, the city where Facebook will open its first Asia office soon.

Who would have thought in 2004, when it was first launched, that it would become so popular? When Mark Zuckerberg started this social network, it was just to share notes with his friends and other students. He and his roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes founded this website whose membership was limited to few students but was later expanded to other colleges in Boston.

The original concept for Facebook was borrowed from a product produced by Zuckerberg's prep school Phillips Exeter Academy, which for decades published and distributed a printed manual of all students and faculty, unofficially called the "face book". (source-Wiki)

Facebook has travelled a long way so have I.

I have more friends now with whom I can communicate and share my notes and my travel albums. I like the comments that are made regularly on my wall and like to interact with everybody. In the real world too, I have become friendlier, although of course, I am still shy of strangers and still never make the first move, I never start a dialogue with strangers. I never talk to my co-passenger while travelling, preferring to read my book, generally, I don’t make friends easily. I talk to only those who will talk to me, and am reserved by nature, but with those whom I have become friendly on FB, I seem to have fun.

Many of my offline friends still remain away from Facebook unless they are writers. Some of them have refused to learn. They wean me away from the internet, insist on meeting me regularly, want to go for long walks with me by the sea-shore or watch a movie, sit together at a coffee shop and have good time. They don’t understand my addiction on net and think I am wasting my time reading the personal views and making unnecessary friendship with people whom I may never meet.

I too am not sure if I will ever meet those online friends.

What does it matter? It’s the happiness that counts and if an unknown face can give us happiness by their expression of their sweet words, we have nothing to lose.

On a rainy day like this, none of my offline friend will visit me. I am stranded in my house in the self imposed curfew, I cook for a me a nice meal, and even enjoy a hot cup of coffee but cooped up in my dingy room only a FB friend can cheer me.

I am participating in the WeBlog's Sleepy Sunday contest! You may read other participating posts HERE