Of married friends, status updates and Facebook

As I reached the end of yet another awe-inspiring episode (okay, back-to-back episodes) of Powerpuff Girls, I realised I just couldn’t avoid visiting Facebook any longer. I had been away from it for nearly two hours- a record of sorts, unless you consider the 3 hours I stayed away from it when my mother had locked me up in the bathroom, because she was getting bored and had nothing better to do.

I have been mortally scared of Facebook for some time now. In fact, as a lasting testimony to my unfaltering creativity and ability to play with words even in times of unspeakable panic and terror, I have decided to rechristen the website…Fearbook! (Why, you uncouth, unsophisticated brutes. Stand up and applaud already!)

Anywho, what is it that’s turned my near unhealthy love for Facebook into the kind of indescribable fear that I feel when I switch on the telly while India starts questioning and demanding answers night after night? Why has my passport to perfectly legal voyeurism turned into a one-way ticket to instant depression and several bowls of instant noodles and tubs of half-melted, pre-Neolithic ice-cream that normal human beings like you, Digvijay Singh and Lady Gaga wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot-pole?

The reason, my friend, is that every 19^th friend of mine has decided to get married. No, it’s not that. If all these people who just got married would keep the news to themselves and be kind enough to not share it with their entire ‘friend list’- one that’s usually longer than the list of do’s and don’ts in public that my ex swore by- it would still be okay. I would still stop at just a few bowls of instant noodles and skip the ice-cream entirely.

But no, that doesn’t happen. Not only do people get married at an age when some of us are still trying to get over the suite life of Zack and Cody coming to an end, they also insist on letting everyone know that they have the kind of emotional stability, financial security and sheer guts that are prerequisites for tying the conjugal knot. In their pictures, they look gorgeous, radiant and impossibly happy in the manner of a glowing Prince William after exchanging ‘I do’s’ with Kate Commonfident Middleton.

Do I have a problem people looking happy and content? No, unless they are hardened criminals on the run with proven record of looking incredibly satisfied right after claiming their latest unsuspecting victim.


From the bottom of my single and, therefore, battered and hopeless heart, I wish all my married friends all the best. It’s a wonderful thing that’s happening to all those who feel they’ve reached the stage in their lives where marriage looks like the logical step forward.

In fact, please pardon me (or not. I know you left this excruciating piece of boring harangue for Bigg Boss approximately 2 minutes ago anyway) as I digress a little to talk about my kind and their take on life, marriage and everything else in life in general. I don’t know how they do things in far-off countries such as the US, Italy or Nepal. But here in middle-class India, we live and die by this handy little list of things-to-do. A list that’s sacrosanct and meant to be followed unless you die or something-

1. Take birth.

2. Go to school.

3. Crash into college.

4. Get a job.

5. Make the symbolic trip to Goa and do the symbolic zipping around in a ganji on a scooty with friends and take 5,000 pictures of each frikking spot visited.

6. Indulge in the perfunctory activities of cool rebellious self-harm such as cigarettes, drugs, an occasional protest Facebook sign-up /march against female feticide, etc.

7. Dodge the marriage question long enough to repeat points 5 and 6 in no particular order.

8. Get a promotion.

9. Get a second promotion.

10.   Repeat points 5 and 6, though a little more discreetly than earlier.

11.   …

12.   …

13.   Get married.

15.   Be happy or pretend to be happy for the rest of the life.

This looks like the perfect plan, the neat little blueprint that makes sense for most normal adults who had their last imaginary friend at least 18 years ago. Not for us, who can’t wait to finish boring work every day and speed home to fill the pages of their color books while ‘Banker to the Poor’ lies unattended and continues to gather dust for yet another year.

Coming back to Facebook and purely avoidable announcements on its much abused pages, I would implore my married friends to define joy and happiness like they define it on the pages of a dictionary. And look happy too. Pray, look happier than the model who sells Happydent. But please, don’t flash big happy pictures on my wall without prior warning in all caps. Be kind enough, people, to put a status update that says something like, “Beware, all the single ladies. Photos of engagement/marriage/honeymoon/1^st kid/kid’s 1^st birthday/2^nd kid’s 1^st recital coming up. So if your jobless folks are masochistic enough to insist on letting them ‘see the photos na’, then don’t. Scroll. Down.”

Such warnings will act as useful red flags, which would help some marriage-scared chicken like me distract my mother away from the computer screen. I could quickly point at the window and yell, ‘Oh look, big bird’. Or better still, “Oh look, Bigg Boss on neighbor’s television.” Fishing her binoculars out from her tool-carrier would obviously take her some time. And that would allow me to bring the page down to where some Farmville-maniac would be discussing the discounts available on manure for their apricot saplings or some such.

That tiny window of opportunity would be enough to ward off parents, who would then return to their normal parental duties such as watching Australian Wipeout or throwing stones at neighbours who frown upon Rakhi Sawant’s show or at those who insist on putting wallpapers on their walls. It will let me read, surf the net or do some equally productive work like staring at the ceiling fan or practicing my teleporting skills.

A little bit of care and discretion is all it takes on the part of my now-married friends to keep my ties with my family friction-free. It is all I need to avoid conversations that always begin with, “Daughter, Sinha uncle was saying…” and ends with, “Dodge! Run! By god, impressive marksmanship skills the girl has!”

You, my married friends, can ensure things remain super-smooth till the next day, when one little question from another jobless uncle-ji would make sure the question of marriage, etc comes crashing back to my parents-

“Aur Kumar sahab? How’s the family? And the daughter? When’s the big party, hain?”

PS: Did I mention those who just got married aren't supposed to read the blog? I hope it doesn't come between me and that nice lunch invitation you guys were planning to send me. 

I tried so hard and got so far.*

**Q: What’s common between a train, a plane, an office and your home?

A: All have people who know all about cricket and insist on letting you know.

With the Cricket World Cup now having reached the semi-final stage, there is little else anyone wants to talk about. And while a sports-challenged person like me would perhaps choose to lock herself in her room after, of course, getting it sound-proofed to keep all ‘cricket’ firmly out of it, work, social commitments and the annoyingly obligatory requirement for Vitamin D means one has to step out almost daily.

Home is where the noise is.

In fact, one doesn’t even have to leave the house for the ordeal to be unleashed by cricket enthusiasts-you can find plenty of them within your family. The past few weeks have been particularly excruciating as I’ve been waking not to the gentle sound of music nor even to the not-so-gentle sound of the rather judgmental cleaning-lady‘s, ‘Wake up, who will go to the office, me?’, but to parents, brothers and uncles discussing the previous night’s match or the relative merits of Indian batting and Australian sledging. 

An attempt to reach for the remote control for the briefest glimpse of the television for potential business stories of the day feels like major breach of cricketiquette as more than one disapproving pair of eyes tell me better than to interrupt (what I’m sure is the fifth repeat telecast of) match reports or discussion.

Caution: Men at work

The scene at the office is only slightly different. In fact, ‘cricket at work’ is even more unnerving because my workplace is full of that special category of evil men who possess the skill and the knowledge to string one intoxicating word together with the next, creating the magical and all-engulfing web of cricket reports and analysis. 

Also called sports journalists, these men, with their God-like ability to prove the same LBW decision both right and wrong, kick-start their day with pronouncements on what to expect from the Wankhede pitch and end it with whether the expectations were met or not. 

Either way, the story is a winner.

Pretending to focus on yet another inspiring quarterly performance report of Air India, I listen to these men and pick from them whatever pieces of cricket wisdom I can. I wait with bated breath for the moment such conversations begin to steer toward what I know, which could be a singular catch or a crucial expensive over that won/cost Pakistan their match. However, what could potentially be my moment of glory comes and goes even before I can clear my throat, because the men can’t possibly linger on the Ghost of Cricket Past and must move on to more important business: The next match.

You can run, you can hide…

It is perhaps this overwhelming world of cricket that I foolishly hope to escape with my trips out of Delhi. Within a short span of a couple of months, I visited Patna, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Hyderabad, only to realize that it had been incredibly optimistic of me to expect any relief from the relentless and all-pervasive world of cricket. 

My train journey from Delhi to Nagpur, which could have been perfectly peaceful, remained anything but, what with my father, a couple of Hyderabadi gentlemen, a young lad from Haryana and three fresh-out-of-college-about-to-join-TCS fellows discussing cricket till the loud wails of a (by then exasperated) toddler prevented them from going on any further. 

Our day of arrival at Nagpur coincided with the India-South Africa clash in the city, making it absolutely impossible for the taxi driver to not boast about the same and the ones that his city had proudly hosted earlier. 

The bus journey from Nagpur to Hyderabad was characterized by a general air of sulkiness as everyone including the driver, the conductor, my father and most passengers were in a foul mood because by that time, it had become clear that the Proteas will indeed beat Dhoni and Co. 

The flight back from Hyderabad to Delhi was perhaps the most agonizing. A failed TV screen and a fully booked airplane meant there was no way I could have escaped the non-stop chatter of the two boisterous and deceptively emaciated-looking teenage co-passengers, who had enough cricket within them to fill from cover-to-cover the hallowed jubilee edition of Wisden, Sportstar or some such.

If you can’t lick ‘em.

The battle between me and cricket is as one one-sided as an inebriated Canada-Dream World XI clash. Clearly there’s no escaping cricket in India. But if there is one thing that the Sachins and the McGraths have taught me, it is to never give in.

And so, the only option left for a cricket illiterate like me is to take the good old Indian method that sees most of us cruise/pant through the toughest exams-cramming. I have decided to read as much as I can on cricket. I plan to religiously go through pre-match reports, match reports, post-match reports and all other kind of reports that sports media deem fit to be shared with the rest of the world. I will try not to worry too much about Boria Majumdar getting jostled by ecstatic/homicidal fans while listening to him answer in a frighteningly angry voice Arnab Goswami’s mile-long questions after each match gets over. I will also ask my brother, however reluctant he is, to (re)draw, label and explain the cricket ground on a sheet and elaborate on the differences between a hook, a pull and a cover drive.

The effort has to be made because it is not just about the World Cup, which, though seemingly endless, will end in less than a fortnight. It has to be made because it is important that we keep trying to learn new things and explore unfamiliar territory, however overwhelming and noisy it may be. It is important because the brain, God’s most precious gift to human kind, must be challenged constantly to keep it fit and agile.

But mostly, it is important because a seemingly innocuous snore fest of a story on the relative merits of buying advertising rights for World Cup and IPL act as a constant reminder of yet another threatening event looming large.

*The title has been copied verbatim from a friend's write-up for a college mag article. I think her name was Swati, and I am sure she was a computer science student. 

**The blog was first published on the website I work for, www.dailybhaskar.com.

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