Do you tweet or FB? (and what does that say about you???)

A few years ago, actually probably no more than 5, the title of this blog would have been thoroughly confusing to everyone on the planet except perhaps the very early adopters. Now it seems as though nothing in life is meaningful or important unless it is tweeted, liked or shared on Facebook.

Now that Facebook and Twitter have entered our lives so very insidiously, the connected world has divided into two types of people – those for whom Facebook is a lifeline, who vicariously live out their lives through status updates and posted pictures and those who tweet about each and everything that happens to them. Though there are those who are active on the two, most people, in my experience, have a preference for one or the other. There are, of course, the few who shun both ... and while there is a certain coolness perhaps in claiming that "I don't do social media" its damn irritating when you want to connect with them. E mail just seems so old school.

Facebook of course is great for connecting, sharing and generally keeping in touch. It is easy to use, most people’s parents and even grandparents jostle for space on their timeline along with their BFFs, love interests, potential love interests and childhood friends. It makes for an occasionally uneasy mishmash and the need to self-regulate, but it is an extremely useful way of staying in touch, connecting with old friends, and peeping into people’s lives. After all, who hasn’t scrolled through the pictures of people they haven’t seen for years to see whether they have aged well, been lucky or unlucky in love, and/or have photogenic children. There is a vicarious pleasure to be gained in viewing the most intimate of private moments from a relatively anonymous distance. The downside of Facebook of course is that it is all too easy to comment, share stuff and post pictures, and thus a fair amount of patience is required when trawling through other people’s invariably dull status updates (although one’s own are always obviously witty, incisive and interesting).

Twitter is a strange animal. Whereas the appeal of Facebook is obvious to anyone who has an iota of a social life, the Twittersphere is occupied by a bunch of people (well, millions actually) who think that recording their every action, thought and observation is a useful and relevant thing to do. They are obsessed by “trending” and being “retweeted” as if a random retweet from a celebrity really means that said celeb actually gives a damn what anyone else thinks. Brace yourselves Tweeple – no one on Twitter gives a shit about anyone else. They’re too busy trying to improve their own position in the invisible and highly complex Twitter caste system. You’re only as good as the number of people who “follow” you after all.

However, Facebook, it seems is “old school”. On a recent trip to the UK, I was told on a number of occasions by my obviously socially advanced British friends that Facebook is “so yesterday”. Apparently, Brits (and possibly Americans, though they are much more mob mentality than the snobbier Brits) are deserting Facebook in their droves. Twitter is apparently much “cooler” though personally, I can’t see the appeal. I naturally gravitated to, and still love, Facebook, and though I opened a Twitter account to see what all the fuss was about, I hate it. In my humble opinion, Twitter is for people with low attention spans, those who are obsessive social climbers and worse still, those who will happily ditch all semblance of grammar and accurate spelling to fit into that 140 character strait jacket. “You can watch the pulse of the world, as it happens,” cry the Twits. What rubbish. I can barely even understand what people are talking about thanks to their tendency to drop vowels everywhere (it is NEVER OK to write d instead of the, incidentally).

There, I’ve revealed my bias. I don’t care if Barack Obama has 33 million followers. Or if Amitabh Bacchan tweets to 5 million people. Although I can see how easy that would make life (anyone have a spare car/nanny/fiver I can borrow?) I don’t particularly want random people “following” my every comment and even “retweeting” it to their followers. Call me old fashioned, but I’ll stick to comfortably poking around my friends' Facebook updates and seeing how well they’re all aging. However, I will still tweet this blogpost. Ha!

Big Fat Indian extravagance

Last night I attended a four year old’s birthday party. I rocked up with kids, husband, nannies and the requisite gifts expecting to find a cute, fun event on one of the small terraces of the private members club where the party was being held. As we neared the entrance, the thumping Bollywood music suggested that we’d come to the wrong place. But no. As I squinted at the elaborate arch across the entrance of the venue, it became apparent that this was actually the four year old’s birthday party and not, as I had suspected, a wedding.

We entered through a blue neon lit tunnel, complete with twinkling stars and cartoon figurines and emerged into an extravaganza of balloons, a huge stage, bowling alley, bouncy castle, and areas with tattoos, nail painting, a photo booth and more. All offset by thumping Bollywood beats. As we sat down at one of the many tables and chairs festooned by gold bows and munched on the snacks being served by smart waiters, I wondered whether I was in a parallel universe.

I’ve been in Mumbai long enough now to know that “simple and understated” doesn’t fly, and that over the top ostentation characterizes most social events here but the sheer grandeur of this, especially given that it was for a four year old, blew me away.

As I walked around with my toddler, trying to get him interested in anything except the Angry Birds catapault game which had captured his tiny mind, I spotted the bar. I quickly downed the mohito mixed by an enthusiastic barman, and suddenly the noise and outlandish flamboyance became a little more palatable. I did wonder though whether the screeching tones of the MC as he conducted a series of games for the kids was actually at a decibel level safe enough for tiny ears. The tables were piled high with gifts, and there was no doubt that the birthday boy would have fun opening them but I couldn’t help but wonder whether he would really ever be able to appreciate the value of possessions. Kids are naturally avaricious, they want more and more and more .. and sometimes they just need to be made to see how fortunate they are, in comparison to many others. Most Indian parents are particularly ambitious for their children, both in terms of their futures and the “things” they have, and there is a relentless focus on acquisition – of knowledge and possessions.

The evening was fun for the kids, especially for my energetic almost three year old, but I left in a slightly reflective mood. The contrast between the haves and the have nots is always particularly acute when you witness what seems like unnecessary overindulgence, particularly when its motivation is more to impress “society” than to make a child, or a bride and groom, or a couple celebrating their anniversary happy. The British shun ostentation and sneer at “showing off”. In India, flaunting your wealth is both expected and necessary, a prerequisite for displaying your position in a country where everyone is busy trampling on everyone else to escape searing poverty.

Buy the book!

becomingdesi: Published!

Published!

I wrote a book! I finally did it … and it’s been a very surreal experience.I thought I’d pause and reflect back on the journey, now that the book is in print, in bookshops, and the chance to fiddle around with it and endlessly re-edit is long gone.

It all started one afternoon about three years ago as I was sitting staring at the wall in a post-lunch near doze. I couldn’t quite bring myself to fire up my laptop and start trawling through the dozens of mails which I knew would be there waiting for me … and so I carried on daydreaming. My mind was wandering and for some reason I started to feel nostalgic. I’d been in Asia for ten years, 8 of those years in Mumbai, and I felt fairly seasoned. I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and started scribbling down the progress of my journey from fresh off the boat newbie to seasoned Mumbaikar.

As I did so, and with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that I’d actually come on quite a journey, emotionally. I’d been in India for so long, that it felt like I’d almost been here forever. What had seemed ridiculous, sublime and incredible now seemed routine and everyday. I no longer exclaimed at the cows ambling along the road and the tears which had spilled whenever I had caught sight of a limbless beggar had dried up. That wasn’t to say that I was completely compassionless, but somehow the impact of the poverty and the apparent suffered had just lessened over time, as the shock factor reduced.

As my own attitudes had shifted and changed over time, the only way I could measure the progress of my adjustment was by observing the reactions of people who saw my surroundings for the first time. The friends who came to visit me provided a useful benchmark. Their wide eyed reactions to the chaos of Mumbai, the surprise at the sheer number of people on the streets, the colours, sights, sounds and smells made me smile, and also took me back to my arrival, years earlier. Their responses to an environment which by now seemed very ordinary to me, made me realise that seeing goats wandering around the city, or men pushing handcarts the wrong way down a busy road was actually not normal. That the sight of grown men wandering hand in hand along the streets was not a reflection of a permissive society but rather an expression of their friendship. In the same way, my own responses to my home country changed over time. I find it more and more remarkable that people in England can actually drink tap water. I find it revolutionary that they separate their waste and put it into different containers. And of course, shopping brings out the greedy consumer in me. In India, I claim not to need new things. Because the array of shoes, clothes and handbags here isn’t particularly appealing. When I hit the UK high streets, the story is quite different, and I end up hauling an entirely new wardrobe back with me.

And so I came to realise how much I had changed, and I found the whole concept of adjustment a fascinating one. I came across the book “Watching the English” by Kate Fox, and read it 3 times, mesmerised by her astute observation of a nation, a nation which I was by now looking at in a much more analytical manner, from a distance.

The book started out as a fairly serious, dry observation of this change, and the expat reaction to what is after all a pretty crazy life here. It morphed and changed, and ended up as a fictional tale, inspired by my own experiences, but rooted in the “chick lit” genre. It is hopefully therefore much more entertaining and far less didactic. Once I started writing, all of those distant memories of my arrival came back, and the book evolved and took shape very quickly. Getting published was actually remarkably easy, and happened in that brilliant, "only in India" way ... a friend knew the MD at Random House, introduced me on mail, I sent some samples and my idea for the book, and a couple of weeks later I had a contract.

The task of actually writing an entire book seemed very daunting at the beginning. The first line took me an hour to write. As I wrote, I had no idea what would happen next, and though I knew that Julia would, of course, find her Mr Right, I actually had no idea how she would find him. I didn’t know about plot or storytelling, I didn’t know how I was supposed to shape the story, and I guess I just did it pretty instinctively, with the added benefit of my editor’s perspective. I wrote everywhere - at home, at the parlour, and the Club, sitting by the pool. On planes, trains (in England), and in the car going to work. Every day I inched a little closer to the magic number of 100,000 words and every day it seemed just a little bit more certain that I could actually do it.

Buy it, and let me know what you think.

http://www.flipkart.com/becoming-mrs-kumar/p/itmdgyzwkaaqtsfy?pid=9788184000412&ref=a9e4048b-e7b9-462a-88e2-2a02fc03f9e9&srno=s_1&otracker=from-search&query=becoming%20mrs%20kumar