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Showing posts with label contests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contests. Show all posts

Sunday 25 July 2010

Face-Off the Book

Every person I meet asks me the same question. They want to know if I am on facebook and if I am then would I accept their friend request. Yes! I will but only after I know them cause facebook, like my little private world, is dotted by the friends I trust.

Facebook had made our world into a narrow space where we get each day connected with our friends, visiting their thoughts on their walls, seeing their pictures, reading their notes, exploring their private space. Did you say private? What private? Who wants privacy? It is more fun to be open about your views. That’s the reason why we are so choosy in the first place and confirm only those friends whom we know.

Sometimes I think about my life during those pre-facebook days. Oh! I did many different things then. Read books, painted in oils, made many handicraft items, made stuff toys, knitted, crocheted, cooked and visited my relatives without any reason, I led a very busy life until this facebook ruined me.

Three years ago, during a private meeting, I heard two of my friends discuss Facebook and they spoke about the fun they were having at this network. I had received many invitations/tags from different people asking me to join this network, but I was reluctant to join yet another social network. I was quite active on Ryze and would read my people’s work on the forums and the extra time that I had, I would spend it surfing the net and maintaining my blogs. I didn’t feel the need to join any more of those social networks. But after listening to my friends discuss their Facebook activities, I was tempted to give it a try. As soon as I logged in, I was surprised to see so many friends lined up, all welcoming me, it was like I was entering a party zone.

During those earlier days, I would visit various groups and read discussions on their board and play many virtual games. I had even written a poem for one of the contests on FB during those days, where we had to start a poem with word ‘Face’ and end it with the word ‘Book’. I had written about my experience on FB then…

Face is potholed by too many pokes
Of friends and families in every nook
Vampires fights, somersaulting werewolf
Frightening shadows of their crazy look


Playing Scrabulous, and other virtual games,
Enjoying cold coffee by the brook
Many summers ago, on a rainy day like this
All I would do, was to just gape at a book

I had attempted six short poems, my favorite was

Face above sand
caught in a blizzard
unprotected, helpless
trapped like a lizard
A joke turned sour
his friends, all gone
if by miracle , he survives
he may write a book

Of course I did not win then, because I couldn’t compete with the talented poets who wrote such beautiful lines.

The first prize for this contest had gone to Tolu Ogunlesi from (Nigeria) for his winning entry called
Instructions


Face the future.
Pick the moon off
the dark, cold floor
of night. Slot it gently
into the earth, and wait.
Nothing might happen.
Just like in an empty book.

I was quite fascinated with different groups and would take part in many such discussions where there would be different interactive word games. I remember making a story with my set of six friends by adding just three words. Each one of us would write just three words in one turn and a long story thus created was really good.

I got addicted to facebook

For many months after that I interacted with my friends (On FB, I had very few friends, I could count them on my fingers and toes) and would envy those who had 700 friend. “700 friends?” I had asked my friend when I saw his friends’ list on Facebook, “Do you really have 700 friends?” and he boasted that all those 700 friends were not mere numbers, they were all real friend. It’s been three years now but I still have not managed to collect 700 friends.

Over the years the popularity of this network has grown. As reported in HT -
If Facebook were a country, it would have a larger population than, say South Africa. This week, the social networking site crossed 500 million users. This means that one out of every 14 people on earth is on Facebook. India’s share is 12 million users, three times the population of Hyderabad, the city where Facebook will open its first Asia office soon.
Who would have thought in 2004, when it was first launched, that it would become so popular? When Mark Zuckerberg started this social network, it was just to share notes with his friends and other students. He and his roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes founded this website whose membership was limited to few students but was later expanded to other colleges in Boston.


The original concept for Facebook was borrowed from a product produced by Zuckerberg's prep school Phillips Exeter Academy, which for decades published and distributed a printed manual of all students and faculty, unofficially called the "face book". (source-Wiki)
Facebook has travelled a long way so have I.

I have more friends now with whom I can communicate and share my notes and my travel albums. I like the comments that are made regularly on my wall and like to interact with everybody. In the real world too, I have become friendlier, although of course, I am still shy of strangers and still never make the first move, I never start a dialogue with strangers. I never talk to my co-passenger while travelling, preferring to read my book, generally, I don’t make friends easily. I talk to only those who will talk to me, and am reserved by nature, but with those whom I have become friendly on FB, I seem to have fun.

Many of my offline friends still remain away from Facebook unless they are writers. Some of them have refused to learn. They wean me away from the internet, insist on meeting me regularly, want to go for long walks with me by the sea-shore or watch a movie, sit together at a coffee shop and have good time. They don’t understand my addiction on net and think I am wasting my time reading the personal views and making unnecessary friendship with people whom I may never meet.

I too am not sure if I will ever meet those online friends.

What does it matter? It’s the happiness that counts and if an unknown face can give us happiness by their expression of their sweet words, we have nothing to lose.

On a rainy day like this, none of my offline friend will visit me. I am stranded in my house in the self imposed curfew, I cook for a me a nice meal, and even enjoy a hot cup of coffee but cooped up in my dingy room only a FB friend can cheer me.











I am participating in the WeBlog's Sleepy Sunday contest! You may read other participating posts HERE




Monday 14 June 2010

Fatal Ecstasy (55-er)

“Help me, please?”
She urged. Her monotone, consumed by desperation, twanged
“Give me some more.”
The spasms came again, she screamed
Loud shrill resonated.
Silence
He lay next to her still body, lust overpowering his contentment.
“I must buy some more of those pills”
He mumbled. Covetousness thundered again.
The wicked grin eclipsed his face.


Thursday 31 January 2008

Looking for a 'Black Horse' at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

Okay! I am all set to attend ‘Kala Ghoda Arts Festival’ which is starting tomorrow, 2nd February 2008. There are 12 workshops clustered around two weekends in such a way that it is possible to attend only four. I had applied for four workshops. I have got confirmation for three workshops so far, and am still awaiting the fourth one. The workshops that I have been confirmed and attending are ‘An Introduction to Freelance writing’ which will be conducted by ‘Kavita Roa from 1030 hrs to 1230 hrs at Elphinston College seminar room on 2nd and 3rd Feb ‘Once Upon a Time - Writing for Children’ by Jane Bhandari and Marilyn Noronha from 1430 hrs to 1630 hrs at Bombay Auditorium History Society Auditorium on 2nd and 3rd Feb ‘What Every Writer should know about Publishing’ by Anita Roy from 1330 hrs to 1630 hrs at Bombay Auditorium History Society Auditorium on 9th and 10th Feb There are five writing contest also, of which I have just attempted one contest only. Then I plan to attend some open events and poetry slams too. My attendance to this festival will depend on my endurance and moods. The whole list of event are posted HERE

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