As the shutters pulled down on 2016 and the new year ushered in with predictable and clique-ridden wishes, I was wracking my depleted grey cells hard to choose what to write about. The nickel dropped during my caffeinated stupor when people around were ventilating their bluster full pitch just to let you know that the new year was tantalisingly close. There is, of course, nothing tantalising about any year for someone who spends most of his time digging his pockets deep to find out what I already know about my perennially shrinking finances. But more about that some other time.
I wrote two posts, both inter-linked and triggers to utterly reckonable reception. One mildly referred to the "guilt" I could sense in Modi's pompous speech in the wake of the tumult called demonetization and the sharp divisions in the ranks of his admirers and haters, both legion. But this is not about pro or anti Modi. It is about people who seldom keep their swords in their sheath while debating or arguing about any issue. The fact that harangues are shot like lose cannons makes these debates at once exciting and depressing. The contradiction obtains because it happens on a forum where one is supposed to make only "friends".The term Social Media has an inherent contradiction. Having stalked enough of this forum, I can safely vouch that sociability and friendship, if any, is confined to philosophical and motivational posts and feel-good photos that fool no one. Beyond this genuine or made-up bonhomie is Politics where daggers-drawn "friends" take wild swipes at each other -- consumed by so much hatred and malice that Pandavas and Kauravas make for better brotherhood in comparison. What amazes me no end is people are more jealously possessive about a political party or a leader than the latter are of themselves. As I had remarked in jest once: More loyal than the King, more Catholic than the Pope, more Hindu than the Shankaracharya and more Muslim than the Imam. All myopic slaves to ideologies that are not perfect and nor ever will be. Having dilly dallied with all political parties and their self-styled leaders in my three-plus decades of profession, I can bet my last buck they spill their intestines laughing at the way people espouse their cause. On a countless occasions, I have seen leaders taking potshots at each other publicly but privately helping each other's cause. Politics gets free brand ambassadors.
Champions of free opinion lead the brigade by running others down. If everyone has a right to opinion, where is the question of dissent? You just concede the other view and get on with life but for the mental eczema we all suffer from.
I am prepared to concede that we are a pluralistic and diverse society (I used those words because they are so fashionable) but as far as Social Media is concerned, I feel Zuckerberg got some of his labels wrong. So here I go with suggestions which are factual but unrealistic.
There should be an option "......wants to be enemies with you." At least it will know who you are dealing with. No mortification of being saddled with motormouth venomous spleens.
The software can be suitably altered to give a "dislike and discard" option. Na rahe baans, na baje baansuri. Friendship requests should come with an undertaking. Those who add you on their own and later delete you --whatever the provocation -- should be highlighted with a warning "Think twice before you add this person." At least intimate that a "friend" has unfriended you. It will save the embarrassment and fury of watching the same people as "People you may know." And how does one further know someone who is already known as a bad joke?
Thanks to technology, we have multiple social outlets to be stalked, bullied and harassed. There are some who say if Social Media is too much for you to handle, quit Twitter or Facebook. I try to strike a balance by being myself. Writing on the walls of "friends" can be injurious to health.
Social Media no longer performs the envisaged function of creating a positive communication link among friends, family and professionals. It has become a veritable battleground where insults fly from the human quiver, damaging lives, destroying self-esteem and a person's sense of self-worth.
Here is my unsolicited advice. Don't live your life seeking validation from people on Social Media.
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