Like broken pieces of glass Gathered in bleeding palms Life sobbed in silent corners Unwanted, unseen, lost. Pieces of sunny dreams Pieces of bright colors Pieces of lonely ramblings Of unrequited hopes Pieces of haunting laughter Pieces of preserved tokens Pieces of broken promises Of painful old memories It bleeds in anguish, it cries in vain Arms outstretched, never to be reached Sinking in the vast abyss My shipwreck of a life.
This can be read as a sequel to my article on narcissism. But this is not just about the rampant self-obsession that seems to have taken over everyone. With all that social networking and publishing and putting yourself up for the whole world to see, comes a dangerous fact- you're more vulnerable than you think. I was hit by this fact by a recent experience, come to think of this- anyone who sees me and just knows which college or university i belong to, can within a couple of hours get all my personal details. Just by a few clicks of a mouse or just a couple of phone calls. Isn't it scary to know the whole world has access to your privacy, so quickly, with no security hassles to face and without you knowing any of their details, unless they want you to know? Believe me, I'm one of those people who are really, really particular about their privacy. I may not have much to hide from the world, but I happen to be really fussy about how many people know even my real name! Let alone my e-mail ID and my cell/land line number. I take all possible measures to secure my personal information, be it at social networking sites (this is one of the reasons I've permanently logged out of all these) or be it the info I give at my college or workplace. And yet, people are able find out any information about me that they require! This fact leaves me so vulnerable and insecure. Websites and databases may promise you any amount of security and privacy, but there are always methods to counter these ‘security’ measures, you know! I do not know if I’m part of a minuscule minority who feel this way, or maybe I’m the only one in this world who sounds so paranoid about their privacy, but this is something that really concerns me now. There are people who freely broadcast their lives on the internet or public spaces, and it’s their right to do what they want. But there are people like me who are simply not fine with it, and therefore we find survival on the internet a rather challenging prospect! Of course I cannot live without my e-mail ID and my blog; this is the only way in which I can stay in touch with certain people I know. No one can refuse to give their personal information at institutions or workplaces either, its so much of a necessity now. But it forces one to think what impact this will have on our society in future. I know that so much of free and easy access to information is good in one sense, but what if its endangering individual security? Are we then going to build up even more complex systems of security, and then are the hackers going build up even more sophisticated software to counter these measures? So where are we exactly heading, especially at a time when we spend around as much of our time in the virtual world as in the real one? Are both these identities inevitably going to clash and affect even those who want to keep away from them? These are questions that must be pondered upon by all virtual world, and also real world, individuals who presume they are safe and secure, while they are under an unknown gaze 24X7, where a scanner can track down their life history and details of their every day lives with a single press of a button.
There lives a man who On freezing winter mornings Or searing hot afternoons Seems so engrossed With no care in this world But with a piece of chalk Or a rusted stone He writes. Writes with a yearning On the streets, the black charcoal road On the outer walls of houses, On railings, on dustbins, He writes. A story? Some tale long lost? No, just crumbs of knowledge The alphabet, or just numbers. Undecipherable, unexplained No beginning, no end. They call him ‘mad’. But he writes still- “one, two, three, four…” A count that goes on Inexplicable, unstoppable...
Agreed, early childhood and adulthood are far apart. Too many years in between, but that certainly is no excuse to forget two or three simple words- excuse me, please and sorry. Yeah, our daily lives are busy, majority of our population struggle to keep up their hand to mouth existence, but honestly, how much does it take to be polite? How much does it take not to push women on a street, to step on people’s toes on the bus (and not even say sorry, while the poor thing yelps with pain) and what exactly does it take not to swear at the top of your voice in public?
The lack of civic sense is common knowledge, but on Delhi roads, its absence hits you hard in the face! You have to constantly look out to dodge people’s spit flying through the air like some extraterrestrial insect, and have to face the embarrassment of the background music of multi lingual swear words while taking an important call on your cell phone. Bus rides are the worst hit situations- Fights over the ‘Ladies’ seats’ are outrageous. Women lugging their children and bags get onto the bus and begin asking men to vacate seats for them, and more often than not, young and middle aged men simply ignore them. Then begins a round of bickering and abuse. In fact many a times it is elderly men who vacate seats for women. You wonder what’s wrong with these young guys who refuse to vacate seats even when they’re being given an earful for that. Not just anyone, even college students around my age, who look like they’ve been trained in manners, do that. Then comes the politeness bit. It seems most people assume that the bus conductors and drivers don’t deserve politeness. Even while asking for change, I saw this gentleman apparently on the way to a decent office, swear at the conductor loudly. And yeah, we Delhiites have a penchant for swearing even to joke with buddies. Sample this- “Arre kahan tha ab tak *$#%@ $# ?” and a hearty reunion of two guys follows. People fail to realize that their rather unruly reunion has an audience of around 70 people on a bus, including children. God knows what those poor kids make of it!
If I’m sounding like an uppity city girl who wrinkles her nose at others for some reason or the other, I apologize.But the point I’m trying to make is, our public places need to be a bit cleaner- not only the physical surroundings but also in terms of our manners and courtesy. You can clean and scrub Delhi’s face all you want for the Commonwealth Games, but if the common citizens refuse to make an effort to match up to this image makeover,I think it’s all pointless in the end. In fact this makes me think of rather bleak possibilities in terms of the after-effects of the Games. I hope we don't end up ravaging the city's resources for something that won't last lon enough to make it worthwhile. Here’s hoping for a better Delhi, AND better Delhiites!
Yeah, this is not ignorance, nor reluctance or anything in that league. A bit of negligence, and maybe, i confess, laziness on my part, that this blog hasn't been used in a loooong time. So I'm here to make amends. I've been missing not because there eren't things to write about- I just didn't squeeze out time and maybe I was procrastinating too much. So things accumulated for a long while, piling one on top of the other like sediments on a river bed, that sort of strated weighing heavily on my mind recetly. But since my other preoccupations took a back seat, (read: no SNSes anymore in my life) I think i'll manage to be fairly regular here. So hang on, my readers! I'm coming up with some interesting stuff soon! Catch you!
