Day 26: Please stop the trolling!

Just because there are smartphones and there is Internet and there are apps that allow to us to spread just about anything, I don’t think there is any NEED to troll people whose actions have ABSOLUTELY NO bearing on you..

I am stunned at the uproar the wedding of two film stars in Kerala created yesterday. And I’m even more stunned at how educated friends of mine have been bombarding me with these “jokes” and memes. Stop it.

So what if they both are divorced? So what if they maintained that there was nothing going on between them? So what if the daughter of the man chose to support her father’s second marriage? So what if his first wife ‘sacrificed’ her career for him and the child? So what if there was always talk of these two ending up together someday?

Who are we to judge anybody? Who are we to say she suffered for the past how-many-ever years with him and yet he is now with another woman? Who are we to say the daughter was heartless in supporting her father and cared nothing for the mother who went through labour to bring her into this world? Who are we to claim she never had any faults? Who are we to claim he never had any faults? Who are we to decide which parent the child should support in such a case? In any case, how it it your right to get involved in their lives to the extent of being vile, crude and downright crassy?

For God’s sake. This is about the lives of a family that fell apart…and a new one that formed. No one knows what went on in those lives in the past years. No one knows if he was a devil, if she was a devil, if the child was not brought up well. No one knows what prompted the discord and what created the distances. No one knows what split two people apart and what brought two people together.

Everything we’ve known came from the grapevine. It’s all pure speculation. How can we just change sides when it suits us? You all, supporting the ex-wife and mourning over her huge sacrifice of career and being a mother — did you so quickly forget how you all blamed her for being a horrible mother and terrible wife when the divorce happened? 😮

Stop the trolling. This is not affecting your life by any measure. This is not going to make you wait outside theatres in mile-long queues. This is not going to make IFFI stop making good movies that humanity needs and turn their lenses on what’s happenings in outer space. This is not going to take away any jobs you/your family have in various parts of the world.

Stop the trolling. And for God’s sake, leave them alone. How people choose to live their lives, within their rights and life premises, is none of anybody else’s business.

Stop the trolling. Your troll jokes and forwards are NOT FUNNY. If you think they are, and if you can’t help spreading that shit, spare me. I exited some WhatsApp groups yesterday to which you all promptly added me back. Trust me: if you can’t stop, I will not think twice about blocking you and never remembering to unblock you after that. And I don’t mean just this instance.

Have some class, and have some principles.

Day 9: Digital Secret Service: The Start-Up No One Ever Told You Of

This has been some year!

Today, all the world was shaken up when Donald Trump became POTUS elect. And if that wasn’t shocking enough, I was further stunned at his speech. President Trump was so not the Candidate Trump. He was saying all the right things. He was actually displaying the ability to use logic, morality, brains and empathy; and he was rather magnanimous in his remarks about his rival, at whom he’d been spewing poison till just a few hours ago.

Yesterday, all of India was shaken up by our Prime Minister’s address to the nation, declaring the end of days for India’s 1000 and 500 currency denominations. It was a radical move, the likes of which have never been seen before. For me, it took quite a while for the news to sink in. I could not believe that it was actually happening! In a country where decisions of graver proportions and expected results are normally discussed, agreed upon, discarded and then brought back to life again — a cycle that would go on for eons before reaching finalty — something like this hit us all out of the blue. And it was absolute reality.

In June 2016, most of the world watched in surprise and shock as the people of Britain voted for a British exit, or Brexit, from the EU in a historic referendum.

And well, in March 2016, I moved to Kuwait. I was shocked and surprised I actually did that. That’s a whole other post. 😛

Now, a lot of what’s BIG NEWS are expected; it’s usually a matter of time before it becomes a reality. But even then, the moment that it does happen is usually a surprise and shock (for the ones we hope for seldom happen and the ones we expect to happen usually never happens when it should)!

They’re super secretive. They pop out of the blue. They take your life by storm. They leave you stunned, sometimes excited, sometimes in despair. No one knows about these things.

Except the small team at the Digital Secret Service, a start-up no one knows of yet. Do you know them? Have you ever heard of them before? Ever come across their name or vision or mission or website or ad or anything at all, ever? Do you have any idea about their team size, skills, demographics?

No? Well, neither have I. But I’m sure they exist. I’m convinced there is a team somewhere in this world, who knows of every secret in the world well in advance of it becoming public news. A bunch of highly creative, artistic, digital savvy, versatile, sarcastic (bordering on humorous) and completely jobless people. And their expertise is in preparing and waiting to irresponsibly blast out a multitude of (sometimes rather well-designed / well thought out and elaborately written) jokes, memes, sarcasm-laced quotes, cartoons and all kinds of “easily forwardable” troll-content that take the social media by storm.

Nothing else explains how we received elaborate image- and text jokes about the demonetisation of the 500 and 1000 currency notes yesterday. Even as the PM was addressing the nation, I’d received a dozen of them 😛 Same story today, as Trump was winning, and subsequently won.

So jobless, I tell you. So so so so sooooooo jobless! The only thirst they have in life is for “something out of the norm” (intent, flavour and outcomes irrelevant) to happen each day, to push out their magic creations and flood the world of mobile devices.

Yes, some of those are funny, but a lot are in RATHER poor taste. In any case, no considering your work quality, where do you people find all this time!?

Revolutions are not for dumb people!

Hey all!

My apologies to each reader of my blog, to the wonderful bloggers in my bloglist, and to those bloggers in whose list I’m honoured to be a part of. My apologies to all of you for neglecting the blog world for some time now. I have not been updating my blog regularly (that too, when the Avant Garde Blogie Awards nominations are happening, damn!), I have not been responding to your comments, and I have not been visiting any blogs either. I’ve been a bad, bad, really bad blogger 😦

In my favour, I’d like to say that I have been caught up in a couple of weird things that’s been keeping me busy these days. A computer that logs me out automatically — and shuts down too — when it feels like (leaving me with a really dumb expression each time); a Mom who keeps calling me downstairs every 4th minute; a Dad who remembers he’s got “urgent work to be completed” only when I choose to use the system; a brother who…ummm…naah…can’t really find anything against him 😀 ; and a perpetual boredom in life that keeps giving me strange and foreboding signals of my future!

So, that done, let me tell you what happened when I decided to join the most happening Revolution in the blog world!

Today evening, when I woke up after a short nap, I slowly looked around around me. The signs were good. Mom was happily gossipping with her brother and sister-in-law. Dad was chatting up with an old friend (sign that he would not think of ‘work’ for a while). My computer was not acting strange at all!

Time to blog, I realised! I sat down in front of the system and logged into Gmail, Orkut and WP. I waited for 5 minutes. It didn’t log me off! Was I happy! And then, Nikhil called. We discussed “rude bloggers” for a while and he asked me if I’d joined the Commenting is a privilege, not a right! revolution.
I felt really ancient! I didn’t even know about it! 😦

Well, though I’d already been in despair about being a bad-blogger lately, he made me furthermore guilty, saying his blog, and many others, had been neglected! “I’m hurt”, he said. 😀
I felt sheepish. I’m sure I sounded so too 😐

I said, “Look, I’d been really busy…I’m sorry…I haven’t been checking any of the blogs lately…” etc etc. He kept saying “I’m hurt! I’m more hurt!” 😛 Well, to change the topic, I latched on to the Revolution badge — and I asked him to help me put it up.
It was then that I felt like an ancient sheepish dumbo! 😀

He explained things over phone to me. “Open a new text widget. Add the code. Save changes…” etc etc. I was awed, wondering how people know such stuff. “It’s basic HTML”, he said. Ahem! that put me in the not-so-knowledgeable-about-basic-stuff category! In spite of having fed the widget with the code, the badge refused to come to life. When he started explaining it all over again, I, like a genius, blurted out that I’d added the code to a widget that was already there.

“What?? You needed to add a little more code, then! I asked you to create a new text widget. You should’ve told me you were adding it in the same old one! I asked you whether you opened a new widget and you said yes! Brilliant! Great! Oh. My. God!”

😯 I’ve never heard him sound so mad! Of course, he refused to agree that he was mad at me. Politely, instead of saying “How dumb can you be?”, he said “I’m amused”.

Patiently, he explained it all over again — the angel! 😀 😉
(While he patiently explained it again, I was kinda ROFL silently! Well, apparently, I was not as silent about it as I should have been 😦 !)

P.S.: But well, the badge is up! I’ve joined the War-Against-Trolls! 😀
And sorry for such a senseless post, people. I’m still in the daze of ‘being screamed at’! 😀