FACEBOOK—our fatalistic fascination with the fun filled forum

Its seems that facebook was really in your face this year---all you facebook junkies (funkies) / facebookies / facebook hookers whoops!! facebookers sorry!!. don’t dismiss this article just as yet I request you to spend 5 minutes away from your live-in partner (facebook) and read this article fully before you lambaste it in your next status update!!!),that is not to imply in any way that it wasn’t as famous or popular last year but this year thanks to the stupendous success of “the social network” a movie based on the genesis of the website-- which some believe is an invention worthy of being awarded a nobel prize, after all if Barrack obama can get one I see no reason why facebook can’t --everyone who isn’t living under a rock and doesn’t have a tail knew all there is to know about facebook. I admit I do not have any new facts to add to your all-encompassing knowledge on the subject-matter but I do wish to share certain observations that I have made regarding facebook and the pivotal role it plays in the life of an aiims undergraduate. I assure you I shall not bore you with platitudes and heavy discussions about how it is killing the art of social interaction or how its turning an entire generation into soulless shells incapable of any human emotion. Also I’ll try my best to not sound like the egregious pseudo-intellectual that many of my peers seem to be convinced that I am, instead I’ll try and recount the many wonderful and ingenious ways in which facebook has literally rocked our world (I just wish you could see the sarcasm dripping off my fingertips even as I just typed that last sentence!!!) For simplicity’s sake let us broadly classify the aiims population into some arbitrary groups and then study the impact of facebook on each. Please note that these categories aren’t mutually exclusive and any given aiimsonian shuttles back and forth between these categories.

1) The cool crowd—as far as they are concerned facebook ain’t nothing but an easy way to inform the uncool crowd (which is a term applied to everyone else apart from them and their equally cool friends, kinda like apartheid based on cool quotient) about the obvious truth that is their awesomeness. They are so cool that even their profiles don’t deserve a picture of them so instead their profile picture is represented either by the posters of the loudest or the meanest metal bands out there or a photoshopped image of some really popular movie star at his/her smouldering best. Their status updates are equally cool and mostly discuss the awesome parties they were dancing away at last night or how hung over (or how hung) they are, pun intended of course. Once they have firmly established the everlasting nature of their awesomeness they consider next on their agenda to teach people the error of their uncool ways by way of commenting on their status updates. Global warming be damned because as long as these guys are around all the polar bears can rest assured,as thanks to them it’s gonna be a cool cool world for a long long time!!!!!!

2) The mills-and-boons loons—though mostly comprising of the fairer sex this category is not without its share of lovesick dudes.These are the people whose only religion is love or its display to be more precise.They have replaced words like hello and goodbye with such impressive exclamations as muah!!muah!!! or XOXO (I only recently found out that it in fact is neither a symbol for Japanese-liquor nor for soft core pornography but infact represents hugs and kisses which this group of people seems hell-bent on showering on the objects of their affection).Their unabashed display of cloying sentimentality is nauseating to say the least but as they say love is blind (in more ways than one wouldn’t you agree??)--and also kind of demented--so they can’t really be blamed for their PDAs.

3) The tortured souls --their status updates would make even the most optimistic ones of the lot reach out for the nearest sharp pointed object and gouge their eyes out.Their ability to evoke such pathos in such concise a form of expression as a status update is truly remarkable but what is even more so is the fact that absolutely each and everything can bring about a wave of depression in them from the weather outside to the genocide in Darfur, you name it .I swear to you there are times when after reading their dreary posts I almost feel guilty for not being perennially dysthymic. So I always keep a bottle of Prozac ready every time there’s a new update from them.

4) The braggadocios/Recession-proof fashionistas—With notifications which give a deeper meaning to superficiality and a bank-balance that is almost as inflated as their egos, these are the faces to look out for on facebook. These are the people who consider it their prime responsibility to inform the rest of the masses about what they are wearing, what they are doing, where they are, with whom ,doing what....ad nauseam.They are absolutely fabulous in the most unapologetic way and leave no bones unturned to rub it in all our faces. If it were up to them page 3 would be 30 pages long and the current affairs and global news would be placed in tiny 5 cmX5cm column right next to the obituaries.

5) The Hinglish log— I knw I’m goin’ 2 get a lot f flak for dis 1 but lemme say in mah defnce dat while I on mor dan 1 occasn hav used dis linguistic aberration dat has quikly becum the lingua franca @ aiims, I do nt in any way condone da merciless butcherin’ f shakespeare’s tongue. V liv in times wen dere’s a spell-check on evry gadget & if u mention the wrds Wren and Martin or English grammar ppl flee the scene lik a vampires 4m garlic. And if u ask any1 about the proper usage of colon or semicolon I bet 9 out of 10 ppl will say “emoticons” be4 anything else!!! But 1has 2 giv credit wher it’s due, so wid much chagrin I do concede dat the jargon has it’s own advantages not da least of wich is the entrtnmnt quotient cuz every 1ce in a while u cum across a post wich leaves u in splits & u begin 2 wonder if its really such a bad thng aftr all.

6) The lick-spittles (you must know that is not the word I wanted to use but decency demands I refrain from using it)--- I really do believe that the facebook management should rechristen the “like” link as “lick”.Sycophancy is in vogue on facebook.6th semmers have altogether different motives for being ideal suck-ups but it baffles me to find so many people in cyber-space getting their tongues brown (please excuse my French!!!).Call me an arrogant schmuck if you want but I do think that a compulsive desire these fawning folks have to like everything betrays a lack of discernment and is in fact a projection of their own insecurities. Its nice to be positive in life but loving everyone and liking everything means you either have really low expectations or you have an endorphin secreting mass in your brain.
The very inexorable nature of this modern interactive tool combined with the universal desire to be noticed and heard which is innate in every human being makes facebook not very different from the highly addictive substances of abuse like crack and crystal meth. And not unlike these substances the causes and effects of facebook addiction are quite unique for each individual so its not possible to discuss them all exhaustively in one go.

Well they say art imitates life but in this case it’s the other way around. Does anyone of you remember a movie called baazigar starring SRK, Kajol and Shilpa “the body” Shetty (not that there was anything even remotely arty about it) but it had a song which did really well, it goes something like “kitabein bahut si padhi hongi tumne, magar koi chehra kya tumne padha hai????” Who knew that almost a decade later the answer to that question would be more than 600 million saying “yes” in perfect unison.
Good job Mr. Zuckerberg!!!!!!chhha gaye janaab!!!!!

Graduation

One fine day i put on some new clothes

Climbed on a stage smiling

And received a sheet of glazed paper

Stating in the blackest and the whitest

that my childhood was over

that who I was -or aspired to be- was being replaced

By who I was ordained to be

And just like that all my dreams were replaced

With cold , calculated and careful plans

A life which was promised as an adventure

Was turned into a never-ending run on the treadmill

The universe of possibility in my head was sucked out

And supplanted with one of conformity

My freedom was rendered obsolete

And all my desires declared effete

My definition of happiness was reduced to that of acceptance

And that of acceptance to acquiescence

As if just to make it official and eternal

My teary-eyed mother pressed the silver button,

The flash went off and an image was captured

The very same I am holding now and remembering the day

When I was standing at the cusp

and without a warning was pushed over the edge and made to fall

And fall I did—through time, space and everything

Falling I still am

The surcease of this fall shall be the last thing I know

Or maybe not.

A letter to a friend

Questions raised by your silence answered by mine

Echoes of things left unsaid buried under the rubble of time

Mistakes made unmade and made again

Attempts to propitiate and absolve gone in vain

Apologies conceived, miscarried, reconceived and aborted

And for indemnification guilt and nostalgia consorted

Broken bones and festering wounds--our inheritances from “our before”

Coerced into healing with only the scar tissue left to show for

A study on the evolution of indigenous species in the aiims ecosystem

Please note that this study is based on observations made before june-2010

The taxonomy and nomenclature of Facchus aiimsonicus has always been a topic of much dispute. Most puritanical biologists believe that on the basis of morphology and phylogeny it is not a separate species per se but is in fact a sibling species of the Homo sapiens while the modernists claim that brain-mapping and behaviour psychology establish beyond doubt its status as a separate entity. After the ground-breaking observations by the noted phylogenists Kullz et al that over the course of a definite period of time fixed by them as “2 semesters” a process of what they describe as “resolution of first year syndrome and epic-disillusionment” most of the members of this species undergo a radical transformation and acquire the characteristics of their sibling species,the Homo sapiens. Also Darwin’s law remains valid and natural selection does eventually play itself out in this remarkable process but in a neverbefore seen manner . The ones who have certain mutations in the gene ‘Intel2p6’ -which regulates the translation of a transmembrane protein called intelligentsia expressed on the surface of CNS cells –do not undergo the resolution process and instead transform to a separate species called Facchus persisticus ludicrous.This new species retains the morphology of its parent species but shares none of its higher mental functions and capabilities.Surprisingly natural selction here gives rise to atavistic characters instead of the more advanced ones and this species most closely resembles Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

This strange finding has been explained by eminent biologists Singh and Dudeja et al with their theory “survival of the most popular”,according to which if a sufficiently large number of individuals having marked phenotypic differences congregate in a relatively small ecosystem,by virtue of their mutual understanding and behavioural patterns they alter their surroundings and influence the selection process to such an extent that they themselves are ultimately selected.A vicious loop is then setup as the remaining members of the ecosystem then are forced to either to alter their spatial and temporal distribution to avoid conflicts arising due to sharing of resources or exhibit mimicry of their characteristics.This has led to incalculable loss of bio-diversity and as of present there’s anarchy and pandemonium in the aiims ecosystem.

Agnihotri et al have in their extraordinary longitudinal study discovered a symbiosis between certain members of the Facchus species and Fachhus aiimsonicus persisticus(please note that there is much debate as to why are they still considered facchus despite them being well out of their first year of inhabitation in the ecosystem) .They found that whenever some of the non-ludicrous individuals come across a herd of ludicrous animals,before they can be attacked or chased by them,these individuals start stimulating the anal orifices of the ludicrous herd members and in doing so avoid prosecution.This anulingus of sorts has over time proved to be an evolutionary advantage and as an adaptive change their tongues have hypertrophied to a ridiculous extent.This sort of behaviour has now become a part of their natural predisposition and it is postulated that these individuals would over time form a bridging link between the two species. Given the eclectic and unstable genetic makeup of most of the members of the ludicrous species,it is not surprising that there is a high mutation rate among them and thus no generalised inferences can be derived for this group.This is undoubtedly a hotbed of evolutionary process and a wetdream of most anthropologists.

#77

I took my life in my own hands

I cupped it in my palm

Held it there at length for long

But then I had a qualm

I had my life in my own hands

I couldn’t hold it anymore

I dropped it and I walked away

And left the pieces on the floor

THE UGLY WHORE

Back at the mirror again,searching for a face

she never had (and never will)

she forgets the one she lost and is losing still.

she lathers her face and scrubs it sore.

examines and frowns and scrubs some more.

beauty's a bitch,its a jaded chore.

but noone fucks an ugly whore.

a wretched pea in a rotten pod,

she damns her face and curses god

all her life is a vicious test

to face the worst but look her best.

#101

Each soul has

A mystery to veil

And every heart

A secret to hide

Is it any wonder

That we feel

This void inside

Far too dense

Are mortal eyes

To penetrate through

Our thick disguise

Each sweet smile

Shields a lie

And every breath

Masks a sigh

We feel empty

that is why

#234

I need to unlearn

The breathing out and in

And in between intercept

My heartbeat to begin

I need to freeze the flow of blood

To enfranchise my brain

Melt my mass to liquid

And flush it down the drain

#222

With my outstretched hands

I roam through the lands

I have thorns in my feet

Ain’t got much to eat

I have dirt on my face

No home or home-like place

I got no friends, no kin

Yet I feel glad within

For I am free, free and alive

Eventhough I got nothing

I still have this life

And look! It’s so full of beauty

And so full of colour

It’s all I think I’ll need

To get through forever

#220

Here and now

We meet again

We’ll meet yet again

Just like we do now

Maybe it’s fate

Or a cruel practical joke

But surely we will

And just like now

Unlike before

I won’t feel a thing

For you no longer are you

And I am no longer me.