· When my brother doesn’t turn up home on time, and his phone doesn’t connect, mom calls me up to flash a message on his wall to contact home immediately
· Middle of the night, I want to meet my new-born nephew, who is in the other end of the world currently. I open my fb, and there he is-I can even see him taking his first steps!
· A cousin has recently released a magazine as a sub-editor. I never knew she was so talented! Heck, I was hardly in touch with her to know any better!
· Old classmates- married, settled in various professions, and some of them even seen with their little ones!
Till last month, I was blissfully unaware of this entire parallel universe which was just a click away from me, yet, I chose to ignore, just because of the hype it had acquired. And may be because I was not comfortable with the fact that everyone- EVERYONE was out there to keep an eye on everything. I mean, when I go hang out with a group of friends, would I be comfortable sharing the pics online knowing somewhere my dad is also in the same space? When you have parallel, and often completely contrasting personalities when you are with friends or family or acquaintances, there are very fine lines of code of conduct to follow… Well, that age, that time, when I preferred maintaining no other online identity than my office mail id.
Now I realize I had missed far more than just “being in touch with old friends”. And now I realize that “socializing” is not just some extra baggage that you have to carry, but a beautiful experience where I see all my loved ones sharing their piece of life with me, and deep down I know, I am so happy to be a part of it, a part of them…
