The Facebook Bug

Long long ago, I was a facebook fan. Now I hardly use it, for in my opinion, it has failed to serve its purpose for me. Not that I really had a direction and purpose, and aim and all that when I signed up for it.But generally speaking, on the whole, it bores me to death. I don’t have anything to say to people I hardly ever talk to, no photos to upload, no funny comments to pass, and don’t find the incessant need to let every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world know what I’m doing every minute of my day.
So, I pondered long and hard, and studied the users- namely my friends, and the friends of friends on my list, and realized I could neatly categorise them. Of course, there will be resemblance to living characters in this categorization, and it isn’t coincidental. But I mean it in good humor, rather wry, I should say. So request it to be read in a similar tone.

Well, the first category of people include the newly weds, the newly engaged, and the to be couples. They’d look and appear normal to the naked eye, but then suddenly there would appear a change in the relationship status to “ is single” , followed by “in a relationship” , to prove that nothing was going on before he/she met her/him. Yeah right, like we don’t know. And then there would be atleast 30-40 comments depending on his/her popularity showering with compliments/comments and the likes. Soon to appear would be “ is engaged”, with the photos of the beaming couple. And again, the same people would say the same things, in slightly different ways- “Congrats! You guys look so cute!”.The only difference being in the differential placement of commas and fullstops.And not to mention, the winkey smileys. ;) The flowchart repeats itself a month or two later after the wedding. And the honeymoon snaps. So, I have two pertinent questions here.
1. I don’t have much experience personally, but my cousins have got married, so I’ve seen weddings in close quarters. How in the world do you find time to update the fb status during the wedding or the preceding/following days?
2. As a friend, and well wisher, am I required to wish/congratulate on very status change- from ‘is single to ‘is honeymooning’? What is the norm, here? How many times is normal, and when does it become jobless/stalking?

Moving on to the second category, are the newly emigrated desis in the US of A, and other cleaner neighbourhoods of Mother Earth. They simply cant get enough of the cleanliness there, I presume, because all we are made to see is pictures of them stating- “Me in front of the tower”, “Me at some waterfall”. I suppose you get my drift. Sometimes, there are empty pictures of valleys, and flowers and rivers. By empty- I mean bereft of people. Even the titles of the albums are predictable. Everyone has an album called “fun times” or fun tymes”, “random” etc.

The third, the most irritating category is the ones who play Farmsville. I get nightmares because of Farmsville. “ A dolphin has been found abandoned, do you want to adopt it?”
Really now. That ranks priority one on my task list for the day. Adopting a virtual dolphin that some other virtual member abandoned on a virtual universe. Perfect start. I am sure there are other equally irritating games, but I’m quoting the most obvious.
Other nauseating tools include the ‘virtual poke’ that has been used, misused and abused so much that its like chalk on the blackboard. They have died down, a lot, though since the conception. But some people still stick to it. I don’t know why.
Posting Youtube videos is another fad. Especially of babies doing weird things. The video of some baby doing a dance for “hips don’t lie” is still doing the rounds. And the absolutely unimaginative, predictable clichéd ‘Awww’ that follows soon after!

The fourth is the ones afflicted with a serious disease/affliction. The ones who update their status every other minute. Everything they do, remotely funny, or interesting is up in a jiffy!Ever since I saw a Criminal Minds episode that dealt with a virtual stalker who used fb status updates to murder women, I cringe at every seemingly useless piece of information that is unwittingly put up. Like they say- “the internet never forgets”.

There is another set that deserves special mention. Posting extremely obvious statements on someone’s wall, and pretending to be the only ones who understand the ‘secret’. People aren’t dumb, you know. Besides, when all the girls suddenly say ‘red’ or ‘blue’ or some other color, its pretty obvious what you’re talking about/or what you want the other person to think of it. I can almost hear the giggles when I read such threads. There would be a discussion of a rather private matter on a public domain, a lot would have been said, and then suddenly one party would realize and say- “sent you a mail!”. Duuh. Couldn’t you guys have done that before? Heard of Chat engines? Gtalk/YM etc?

Well, since I unknowingly chose to be a medical graduate, and decided to stay in India, it follows that I do not fall under any of the aforementioned categories. So I really don’t know what to do on facebook. So I open the page everyday, look at some colours, and sign out.

Food Fiasco

A year back, we were posted in the TMA Pai hospital, in Udipi, in the department of OBG. Well, yes, of course, none of us were excited by it. Least to say. Most of our waking moments were spent in bitching, complaining, whining and the likes. Its funny, when you don’t like something, everything about it seems cunningly convoluted and repulsive. Of course, this post isn't about OBG, so I apologise for digressing. A whole new post and more can be written on OBG and the life in it. I shall save that for a rainy day.
There was this restaurant opposite the hospital, where we would all gather for our customary lunch. It was called Naivedya. Good food. No complaints at all. But trust the people in Dakshin Karnataka, especially round about Manipal to come up with irrational combinations. Parata with coconut chutney is the all time favorite. One keeps eating it, and then almost forgets what the norm is. So, this place had something called “ Shezwan Masala Dosa”.
I never could quite gather the courage to try it out. For starters, I’m not a Chinese cuisine fan. And I completely detest the way we Indians cook Chinese. So you can imagine my apprehension. But it sounded too fascinating to resist the try. So I would tell all my friends everyday, right in the morning that I would be having that for lunch. And then on reaching the restaurant, I would get cold feet, and settle for the simple thali. Deliveries, placentas, blood, endometrium etc etc didn’t help my appetite either. So this went on for quite a while.
And then one day it suddenly happened. I ordered it. Pin drop silence on our table. The excitement was palpable, I could almost touch it. My salivary glands first went dry with the expectation, and then overworked with thoughts of how awesome it could taste, and then went back to being dry again. After many an excruciating moment, the waiter finally placed the dosa on my table. I could have died in those few minutes, and I wouldn’t have known, for the dosa was the only thing on my mind.
It looked ugly. As a wine taster would know, the first step is to see it. I follow the rule for most foods. Well this ingenious piece of an invention looked disgustingly ugly. It was an oily fluorescent orange, with light reflecting off its creepily slimy surface. Even if I am exaggerating, it didn’t look all that pleasing to the eye. A fat Chinese man dressed in Indian clothes. With a cup of Sambhar and chutney at its side. Cultural integration at its best. Whoa. I took a deep breath. But all I could smell was the typical ‘aroma’ of a south Indian bustling restaurant. The smell of smoke, sambhar, sweat, and my own savlon tinged hands. Alright, next step. I took a piece, it almost fell out of my hands, halfway on its journey to my mouth. About a litre of oil greased my palms, even mud would have slipped through my fingers. I could see all eyes were on me. The tension was too much. I had to taste it!

Another attempt later, my poor taste buds were greatly disappointed, hurt and deeply pained as every morsel of the the much awaited shezwan masala dosa hit them where it hurt the most. No prizes for guessing, it had noodles in place of the heavenly potatoes as stuffing. So basically, it boiled down to the combination of shezwan noodles with coconut chutney and sambhar. Pretty awful, isn’t it? Well, I dissected the dosa. Deroofed it. Ate the fluorescent orange dosa separately. And ignored the noodles. I suppose someone else at the table had a go at it. Don’t think anyone of us were happy with any part of the dismembered dosa. So much for the chef’s brilliant idea. It sucked. I should’ve known anyway, with all the new Chine-indo dishes. Sounds as promising as the peace dialogues between the aforementioned countries. Never ever again.
Although I truly feel bad for the sight revolting, nausea promoting, fingers greasing, oil dripping, noodle stuffed masala dosa, I wont be eating it again. Its not the dosa’s fault you see. Its like watching Aishwarya Rai and Rajnikanth dancing together. Blame yourself for watching it. Or eating it, in the case of the SMD.

The Apathy

Time : too late in the day, too early in the night. The time when owls start to prowl, when spirits-good and evil start to roam. The time when things become blurred for a portion of the population
Period: the end of internship
Mood: disgusted, used, disillusioned, little nostalgic
Attitude: don’t give a damn
People: 2 medical interns
Place: below shenoys, Manipal, the abundant crow shit covered/layered area
Topic of discussion: nothing specific
Content: lots of curses, many pauses, no plans, more curses, blank stares, few more pauses
Excerpts:
Me: “Well. So, whats up yo? How’s it going?”
( Considering we’d just had dinner together, rather late to start a conversation, but considering the given time, age, and era, quite understandable)
Her: “Nothing much.”
Head nods. I look blankly at greens in front of me. Not really seeing anything, but.
A few minutes pass this way. People of all ages, and profession pass our way. We don’t really see anyone, except THEM. The ones who do OBG. And then suddenly the conversation kick starts.
Me: “Oh man. Am so glad that stupid OBG is done. And then some *(@$%@!(@ ( expletives censored)
Her: Yeah… I know @*#&@#*!#$@!*#!
And then silence descends once again.
She interrupts
Her: “You think my pants are too low?”
Me: “Err, err, uh, hmm, uh. Ok”
( Laughter that contains traces of embarrassment, boredom, some wry humour, and various other unexplained emotions)
Fade to silence.