Pitfalls

While this blog certainly was a new beginning for me, what i didn’t realize at that time was that I was doing it just the day before DIWALI!!! As far as new beginnings go i guess Diwali stands right there at the top coz it’s supposed to be the start of the New Year.

Although the majority of India knows this for sure, I am one of the ignoramuses who didn’t know. I could be pardoned though, for this festival is one, which my native place does not take the plunge for celebrations. Websites assure me that this is highly unintentional and that the only reason we didn’t join in to begin with is because Kerala didn’t have a strong business community due to which the festival lost out in terms of allure- ness. Now that got me ticking, festivals with all the mythological connections were supposedly rooted in religion and religious intent. Or is that the hogwash that our grandparents gave us and their grandparents before that…and so on…..?

If you look at any festival, its definitely a cauldron of commercial activity….. new dresses, sweets, food, sparklers, hallmark cards (no Indian festival is complete without it these days!!! )…..well lets just say that it leaves a huge impression on one’s bank balance. So which goes to say then that any festival was started perhaps with not just a way to remember god but also to sell goods…… is it blasphemous statement? Well okay….. then maybe the festival started off as a way to remember god and god knows what….. and then the highly intellectual (read greedy) human species decided to add on market activities to them……

If that being the case then I guess we keralites perhaps had our fill of remembering what with Onam and then Saraswati pooja all happening within weeks prior to Diwali and then we decided to sit this one out….. Smart eh? :)

Oh man talk about getting deviated…. Well where was i? oh yeah….new beginnings….. I kind of figured I was getting good at this when I started the blog and then diwali crept in and well I got a wee bit over confident. So when my friend threw the facebook challenge in my face (pun intended). I decided to take it on……..

Boy – o – boy!!! Why can’t I learn to quit while I am ahead!! The thing that sort of leaves me confounded is what’s with the whole social networking sites??? Why would I want to talk to a person with an audience of all my other “friends(?!!!)” when I could just as well drop an email or pick up the phone or call for a cup of coffee and COMMUNICATE. It sort of reminds of people who lean out and shout at each other from their balconies, with the entire apartment complex being a forced hearing participant. And these conversations are especially enlightening coz they invariably are about when the next particular party is to be held? And did you see what she did on that serial? And hello are you coming for that sale or not? And ……. Oh god…… oh merciful god…. Now instead of the balconies and the shouting on top of our voices ….we are far more civilized….. it comes with the IT advent and the viral marketing and ….. oh who cares?!! Well my friend assures me you can do a whole hoard of stuff out there….. you can write on each others wall (?!!) and I thought graffiti was a definite No No. You can check your movie compatibility….? Does that mean I get to know if I will like a movie before watching it or after??? You can post stuff and like be totally radically cool……oh how exciting!!!!!!

Well I am there and guess what I am right now in the phase of “being discovered.” I am however hanging on tight and posting politically correct and highly unrevealing boring stuff. I guess the day is not far when I shall be shown the wall….er the door……oops the virtual door!!! Till then let me try to tame the conventionally balcony yelling aunty in me. Alvida