“Hello, writer sahiba! What’s happening?” I was surprised to hear an old friend’s voice early in the morning.
I was of course happy to talk to him, but when you suddenly hear from someone after months, that too early in the day, you can get inquisitive. As it turned out, the friend, who I used to speak with once a year for precisely three minutes (on his birthday or mine), had sent me a group invitation that I had not yet accepted. And that was why he was calling.
A series of questions and answers later I figured out that the invite was for a WhatsApp group, which apparently had all the ex-classmates listed. I was the only one missing – and thereby missing out on all the action. I could only smile in response.
I had first logged on to >WhatsApp a year and a half ago, much against my wishes. Being technologically challenged and resistant to change has always made it difficult for me to discover new things and to accept them: by the time I knew what Orkut was, the world had moved on to >Facebook ; I had barely managed to get myself a Facebook account when Google Plus arrived. And Twitter? Let's not even get there. So it was only natural that I had no inkling of what WhatsApp was all about until a cousin introduced me to it. I didn’t think much of it even after the introduction.
Peer pressure, however, can be difficult to resist — even at 35. It had become tough defending my stance. The tipping point came when my doctor, chemist, tailor, and even carpenter started telling me to WhatsApp them. They didn’t check SMS anymore.
And so, after months of being pestered by friends and cousins, cajoled by ex-colleagues and ex-lovers (ok! I made up the last one), and being looked down upon by doctors and shopkeepers alike, I gave in: one beautiful spring morning, feeling unusually generous towards the world, I took the plunge.
It was all very confusing in the beginning. I could hardly find my way around, and when I did I could only find messages seeking to sell property, beauty, lingerie and what not. I was added to random groups that sent pictures of dogs, cats, babies and sometimes piglets too; there was no trace of the people who had got me into this mess.
“You should announce your arrival,” advised a friend. So I put up my first status: the forg is out of the well. That did the trick. “It’s not forg, stupid, it’s frog”, came an old friend’s message – I had not heard from him in years. “Look who is here!” said another, unable to believe I had given in. And in a matter of days, people, who for years had just remained numbers in my phone book, came to life. It is the juicy, gory stuff that takes centre stage, and, like any other guilty pleasure, it is so addictive you can hardly take your eyes off the screen: what if you missed out on an important detail?
One reason I had always resisted a smartphone or chat and >social media app was that I did not want to become a slave to a tiny device in my hand. I found it unacceptable to be trapped in a virtual world ignoring the real. Ironically, I had become the monster I feared.
In just a few months from not having anything to say I had much to talk – or type – about, and even more to hear, or read. So much so that I compromised on chores, postponed assignments, sacrificed sleep, and ignored children, husband and home. I slept with the phone and woke up with it, and sometimes even checked it in the middle of the night. For the little time I was away from the phone, I would be thinking about it.
There was another thing that happened: with all the chatting, sharing, laughing, crying and even working happening virtually, real-life conversations had almost come to a standstill. There was nothing left to say to anyone: everything that could be said had already been said.
It struck me hard when I met a friend after many months and yet had nothing to talk about. That day while he sat fiddling with his phone, and I sat gazing at the sky, I decided I had to get out of this trap.
It wasn’t easy; being all by myself through the day only made things worse: here I was, sitting alone, staring at the walls thinking what to do next, and there everyone was chatting, joking, laughing. I longed for my virtual life, but hung on. Whenever I felt the urge to get back – and it happened quite often – I read a book or baked a cake; when I missed talking to someone, I called my mother or mother-in-law, when I wanted to gossip, I spoke with my girls. Despite all this there were times I felt as though I would suffocate to death, my phone meanwhile was already as good as dead. But no one dies of WhatsApp deficiency; I didn’t either.
Since I quit using the app, I have started getting regular phone calls from friends, cousins and acquaintances, and our conversations have not only been longer but also much more wholesome than they had been in a long time. And as far as the action is concerned, I get all of it in real life.
anubhuti.krishna@gmail.com
