Virtual Parting

There's this stupid little virtual world game that I play, called Second Life. I have talked about it quite a few times in my blog. This is not a game but a virtual world as in you are free to do what you want once you are in it. There are no aliens to shoot at no points to collect or stuff of that sort that makes up a video game. There are games "in" the game but SL itself is fully free-form. It has its own economy and many types of businesses. People meet, chat, have relationships, marriage and everything.

It is quite an engrossing thing, this game and so addictive that some people have this text on their profiles, "Remember, it's just a game!". I don't agree with them. It's a game, technically and for the purposes of establishing that I am a sane person, I'll concede that it's a game. But it's not completely a game. In a game when you shoot at the alients, or the villain's henchmen or the enemy army, they don't hurt, they don't bleed, they do bleed on the screen, but not in real. Just pixels. Lighted dots on the screen. But in SL, behind the pixels there is always a human being. He may not be as ruggedly handsome, or she may not be such a ravishing beauty but they are human, with a mind that thinks and a heart that feels. Some people, not necessarily the people who claim that it's a game, but some people do not fully realize that they are interacting with humans. Humans with feelings. These people can be really mindless jerks at times.

On my friend list are some people I have not talked to in a long time, but I still can't bring myself to delete them off my list. It's not much different from the way I always call my friend Harry, my real world friend Harry, on 9th Feb without fail, even if I have not talked to him the rest of the year. And there are some people I talk to almost every day on Sl. Just like in RL, I will call my real friend Fazil at least once a week no matter what corner of the world I have taken refuge in.

In this world we form friendships. Do they matter any less than the "real" friendships because the medium of communication is different? I don't think so. The joy of new connections is the same. The partings have the same kind of sting and the feeling of loss. The partings are quite real and painful they are depends on depth of the relationship not the medium they were made in. Well, I am feeling the pang of such a virtual parting today so I just thought it might help if I rant about it.

Happy Birthday!

Today I'll talk about my personal life (yeah, like I talk about anything else on this blog). People who have been checking my blog lately would know that today is my birthday. So, as expected I am receiving the usual emails, phone calls, instant messages, text messages etc. etc.

At this time, I divide the people I know into 3 categories. First one, the people who I expect will remember and wish me, and they do. Second, people who wish me but I was not expecting them to. Also in this category should be people whose method of wishing exceeds my expectations like i was expecting an email but they tracked me down and wished me on phone in whatever corner of the world I was. Usually my parents are in this category. Since they have no business with the english calender, they cannot always remember the date and thus my date of birth holds no significance for them. Therefore I do not expect them to wish me or remember. This year they did, last weekend when I was talking to my mom on the phone she did remember, out of the blue and thus my parents did wish me.

Well, on to the third category - the people I think will remember but do not. Bad though it may sound, it is not really that bad. You always know how someone feels about you, every time you interact with them. The whole relationship does not boil down to the two words - "Happy Birthday", they are just bonus.

In this day and age when a man's circle is so big he can hardly remember the names much less remember dates for each one of his friends, associates and acquaintances, it's all done through reminder systems of some kind, paper or electronic, other than a few birthday you can never forget even if you tried (more on this later). But the very real and pressing stressful demands of real life can push it to the back of your mind. I have missed some myself, and I have had that happen to me.

I am very bad in that I don't remind anyone of my birthday, even if I am talking to them on that same day, I don't mention it.

Despite my cool, clearheaded and calm philosphy and understanding, sometimes I do feel a little disappointed. Not angry, just a little disappointed! Not about everybody, just a few people, very very few, in this category. I think once I have lost that little, tiny bit of disappointment, I will have attained enlightenment!

This thing called Guilt

I am just thinking - Is GUILT a natural human emotion? My way of finding out whether something is natural or learned is to look at two groups - animals and children.

Do animals have any feelings of guilt? No, I don't mean your "Tommy, you peed on the couch's leg again. Bad dog!" kind of guilt where tommy flashes a sorry face at his owner in response. I mean natural born feelings. I don't think animals have any emotion of guilt. They do what they want to do, or need to do, and do it when where they feel like doing it.

The same goes for children. If they had any feelings of guilt or propriety, you wouldn't have to potty-train them. Children also do as they please, when they please.

Somewhere between childhood and youth we acquire this feeling of guilt. If the boy is watching TV, at the back of his mind he has a guilty feeling that his mom already reminded him of homework.

When a couple is having sex, they maybe reminded of the fact that they are not married and what they are doing maybe considered sin or a bad deed in the eyes of the church and/or the society. Isn't that where the phrase "walk of shame" comes from?

As a matter of fact, there are a lot of examples where one part of your mind is busy enjoying something while a little part of your mind is busy rationalizing it, trying to put away the guilt.

Not all the things we do are fine, and there is such a thing as a good or bad, but some time, I think, we should pause for a moment and think about how much of our guilt is real and how much just our attempt to live our life our own way defying the norms forced on us by society.

O des se aane waale bata, kis haal mein hai yaa-raa-ne watan

It's kinda stupid really. All the time that I am in India, I am always
looking for opportunities to travel abroad, and I do enjoy that. And I
have said about a 1000 times that a 2-month trip is no fun, I need to
live there, create my own life and enjoy it there. But once I am out of
the country, once I am living in a foreign country I sometimes, not
always but sometimes, I do miss the life home.

There is this wistful feeling, every time I think about the life at my
parental home, there is not one but many things I miss. The easy rhythm
of life, that care by mom to the point of being spoilt, being fawned
upon by my many nephews and nieces, being the VIP visitor, re-uniting
with the closest friends, walking in those familiar streets, it feels nice!
The longer I have been away the better it feels!

There is a beautiful nazm, I don't remember the poet and as nazm's are
harder to memorize than ghazals, I don't know it all. But it's a
wonderful nazm that touches the deepest point in my heart and the couple
of lines that I do remember I cherish dearly. For my non-Hindi speaking
readers, if any, I will translate.

O des se aane waale bata, kis haal mein hain yaa-raa-ne watan

This is the beginning, which means O, visitor from my land, tell me how
are my friends in that country.
My favorite lines in this are:

Wo shehar jo hamse chhoota hai, wo shehar hamara kaisa hai,
Sab log hain hamko pyaare magar, wo jaan se pyaara kaisa hai.

Translation:
The city that I have missed, how is that city of mine?
Everyone is dear to me, but how is the one that's dearer than my own
life?


Of course, it doesn't rhyme in English, (I am not that talented), but
you get the idea, of the soft, wistful, nostalgic image it conjures up.

On the whole, I think it is a part of healthy life - something to do,
something to love and enjoy and yet something to miss, to look forward
to.