I have, over the last one year, had the opportunity to see the impact of online persona over the actual persona. Recently, a few of my friends launched Claps and Boos, which is based on the desire of people to be socially networked online and the other big interest of most Tamizh makkal/Desis - movies. As a part of doing some spadework, I realized how much people let others know of themselves online.
I have over the last one year, hoped to maintain some form of online anonymity. I make sure my updates on Facebook is seen only by people whom I know and trust, deleted my Orkut account and of course, culled out most of the personal references from my blog as well. While people have called me anything from paranoid to being a jerk to keep most of my facebook friends on the other side of the wall (pun intended), I can only say that there is some method to the madness.
Family - Previously when I was in high school, college, there was an easier way to keep family and friends apart - but now it is beginning to get difficult. When a friend puts one number risqué comment on my wall/blog, I'm quite at a dilemma as to what to do. I hate to delete people's posts/comments as I do not believe in censorship - but, I can only imagine my mom doing a double take seeing some of the stuff that my friends seem to say/write. I have not solved this one just as yet as the only other way is to put my family on the other side of the wall - which will have serious repercussions which I do not desire. Right now, I think my family is becoming sane enough to realize what to see and what not to see. :) And recently, when Orkut Tamizh Cinema Community was hacked by a moron and was held to ransom, I realized how open/vulnerable personal information is when some idiot tries to hack you over reasons that are so stupid, that it is not worth risking your family's online information - especially when you have a substantially younger sister. Nothing is worth seeing your family pulled into the public over some stupid (non-)reasons
Work - Recently, when my company was trying to hire someone, my manager walked up to me and asked me to do some Facebook/LinkedIn research on a potential candidate he is vetting. even though I knew since 2006 that people were looking into these stuff, being asked to do that and finding some information that was really not pleasant to report to my manager has created a permanent scar on me to ever attempt a completely transparent online profile of any sort - especially Facebook which is supposed to be a completely personal application. I do maintain that I try to have a different set of actions at work - just because of the industry we work for, I cannot be as opinionated as I'm in my personal life. So, that has a great deal in this desire to be anonymous.
Friends - This is one of the prime reasons, though its been listed third; I have over the course of last few years, gotten to know some fantastic people online - with Blogeswari, Hawkeye and MeThinks topping the list, who, I would have never known if not for the internet. In fact, internet has also been responsible for me knowing RealNirmal better from the image I had of him from my college days - he had a particular nickname which was not easy to like, you see! :) But for the past couple of years, I have been waging a battle against many of my friends' perceptions of what certain comments/blog-posts/wall posts mean. While I have completely avowed my lack of trust/interest over finding any kind of relationship online, people seem to want to give their own spin to what I say, the pictures I post etc. This is fine when it happens to be tongue in cheek comments from people I know well, but sometimes some idiots online do not know the level of liberty to take and barge in on a completely personal thread with a friend. Decidedly random acts of adding people, liking something online are given twists to bizzare, that I have stopped accepting any friend requests from people I do not know!
To summarize, I want to see whether I can doctor/cultivate my online image. I have already seen some success as some of the folks who read my blog think I'm an extreme right wing guy, while people who talk to me in person are of the decided opinion that I'm quite on the other side of the world. So far so good, lets see!
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Ironical
This week marked my successful maneuver, beating Nintendo and their artificial "always in demand" status of Wii. I'm importing, (Yeah! Import!!) it from the land of the jalapenos, ara-nijaar wearing desi makkal (read mama and mami's) and of course, where my man (Barack Obama coems afetr this guy, really! :D)lives. The doode is of most nicest person I've come across and has bought and shipped it through someone I know. I'm scheduled to get it on Saturday morning - Can't wait to lay my mega sized hands on it!!
This marks my completion of all the acquisitions which I had in mind when I graduated - a new car, iPhone, Wii and a collection of Ray-Ban shades. The post is titled ironical for the fact that the one thing which I wanted to buy when I landed here in the US - a memory foam mattress does not figure in the list anymore. I remember the times when I used to skip visiting any relatives where I had to sleep on any other surface other than a mattress - my mom's parents house comes to mind first (they had some kind of joint family system and so, me being the oldest kid on my mom and dad's side had to be the sacrificial goat - sleep on the floor, eat last, act mature (!!!!) pondra pala kodumaigal!) and then our native place near here. The annual trip was a great ritual in our family - as per our family kadhai, my great grandfather found the moolavar and utsavar moorthy's of Maha Vishnu, Boodevi and Sridevi while supervising ploughing at his fields. He waged a long battle with the Sarkar (no, not Amitabh Bachchan!) and the powers that be and with his influence with Chakaravarthi Rajagopalachari, my great grandfather got to build a temple for Varadaraaja Perumal at our village. My grand father, in spite of his busy official commitments made it a point to see that the temple never passed into the Hindu Aranilaya Thurai and our family has been maintaining the temple through annual family visits and post my grandfather's death, my dad making a bi weekly 1000km trip to the place to remodel, rebuild and keep the temple running. And really, of all the disappointments I've been doling up to my dad since long - IIT Oothals, 12th flop show, SVCE Fiasco and failing to get a call letter in CAT inspite of seemingly eye popping percentile scores, his biggest grouse has been my agnostic attitude and stubbornness in never going (coming?) back to India, for good. This aversion to taking responsibility of the temple stems from the fact that I had to make do with no mattress and live in (to me) inhuman conditions of taking bath in the river which flowed in the kollaipuram of our veedu and with no TV beyond DD and of course, sleeping on the oonjal or near the miththam with no mattress or AC made me loathe those annual trips, which invariably happened during my and my sister's annual holidays meant those trips resembled a trip to prehistoric times - with over Bhakthi makkal at home, no fan and near frying temperatures. The only fun thing was the evening swim in the temple pond - which was racistically named "paapar kolam" (rough translation: Brahmin Pond) as my great grandfather funded the digging, it was called as it is.
With such a love for mattresses (my room back in India was characterized by a 4 feet high bed - because of the fact that there was 3 twin mattresses stacked for comfort), it surprising that I've ended up sleeping on the couch - almost every night these days end up with me sleeping after watching this or this. No mean feat given the fact that fitting my extra large frame in to a regular couch requires some talent. Its a different story that each and every morning, its a struggle once I wake up - with stiff neck and back and cramped legs! But still I think the mattress is nowhere on my list of potential takeovers for now. Such is the vagaries of time! :P
P.S: Task List for the long weekend is to play the guitar solo of this and score a 250 plus score in the bowling game in Wii. I know getting to 200 in the real deal is a difficult task for me with a penchant to gutter every turkey opportunity. The last task item would be run 15 miles in 3 days - the rough equivalent of a half marathon which this guy, also called Math Pult from Michigan - Ann Arbor inspired me to attempt
This marks my completion of all the acquisitions which I had in mind when I graduated - a new car, iPhone, Wii and a collection of Ray-Ban shades. The post is titled ironical for the fact that the one thing which I wanted to buy when I landed here in the US - a memory foam mattress does not figure in the list anymore. I remember the times when I used to skip visiting any relatives where I had to sleep on any other surface other than a mattress - my mom's parents house comes to mind first (they had some kind of joint family system and so, me being the oldest kid on my mom and dad's side had to be the sacrificial goat - sleep on the floor, eat last, act mature (!!!!) pondra pala kodumaigal!) and then our native place near here. The annual trip was a great ritual in our family - as per our family kadhai, my great grandfather found the moolavar and utsavar moorthy's of Maha Vishnu, Boodevi and Sridevi while supervising ploughing at his fields. He waged a long battle with the Sarkar (no, not Amitabh Bachchan!) and the powers that be and with his influence with Chakaravarthi Rajagopalachari, my great grandfather got to build a temple for Varadaraaja Perumal at our village. My grand father, in spite of his busy official commitments made it a point to see that the temple never passed into the Hindu Aranilaya Thurai and our family has been maintaining the temple through annual family visits and post my grandfather's death, my dad making a bi weekly 1000km trip to the place to remodel, rebuild and keep the temple running. And really, of all the disappointments I've been doling up to my dad since long - IIT Oothals, 12th flop show, SVCE Fiasco and failing to get a call letter in CAT inspite of seemingly eye popping percentile scores, his biggest grouse has been my agnostic attitude and stubbornness in never going (coming?) back to India, for good. This aversion to taking responsibility of the temple stems from the fact that I had to make do with no mattress and live in (to me) inhuman conditions of taking bath in the river which flowed in the kollaipuram of our veedu and with no TV beyond DD and of course, sleeping on the oonjal or near the miththam with no mattress or AC made me loathe those annual trips, which invariably happened during my and my sister's annual holidays meant those trips resembled a trip to prehistoric times - with over Bhakthi makkal at home, no fan and near frying temperatures. The only fun thing was the evening swim in the temple pond - which was racistically named "paapar kolam" (rough translation: Brahmin Pond) as my great grandfather funded the digging, it was called as it is.
With such a love for mattresses (my room back in India was characterized by a 4 feet high bed - because of the fact that there was 3 twin mattresses stacked for comfort), it surprising that I've ended up sleeping on the couch - almost every night these days end up with me sleeping after watching this or this. No mean feat given the fact that fitting my extra large frame in to a regular couch requires some talent. Its a different story that each and every morning, its a struggle once I wake up - with stiff neck and back and cramped legs! But still I think the mattress is nowhere on my list of potential takeovers for now. Such is the vagaries of time! :P
P.S: Task List for the long weekend is to play the guitar solo of this and score a 250 plus score in the bowling game in Wii. I know getting to 200 in the real deal is a difficult task for me with a penchant to gutter every turkey opportunity. The last task item would be run 15 miles in 3 days - the rough equivalent of a half marathon which this guy, also called Math Pult from Michigan - Ann Arbor inspired me to attempt
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