If we are honest with the qualities that we put in our resumes, then ‘Blowing things out of proportion’ might be the one that most resumes would have. Birthdays for instance is one such thing which we carefully selected , inhaled deeply and then blew out of proportion. There is only one birthday that really matter. Your first one. All the others are undeniable eventualities. The way we celebrate birthdays as some sort of achievement is baffling. There are certain rituals that have now become part of this jamboree that is birthdays. The greatest contribution this birthday bandwagon has brought about is that teenagers and kids now know the difference between AM and PM. The most sacred ritual of these modern day birthdays is the phone call to the ‘birthdayer’ right at the stroke of midnight. It takes incredible skill and a certain amount of luck to be the first caller. It is like calling an FM station or a television phone-in programme. If you hear an engaged tone, then sorry! someone beat you to it and that guy will be his/her new best friend. Don’t worry; you’ll get another chance in about 365 days. Another ritual, typically found in colleges is that of giving birthday bumps. It is the one ritual that is mostly looked forward to by those holding a grudge against the birthday celebrating mishap. The prey is held horizontally to the ground by his friends ( or supposed friends) and people take a free swing at his ass. So come this ritual, you can see a large standing queue if especially the person has pissed some off before. You can also see some taking practice swings. They want to make sure that they hit the jackpot with the one shot that they get. The biggest contributor in the universalization of birthday celebrations has been the Facebook. The second leading cause of death in men after suicide is that they asked a girl her age. But these girls don’t mind Facebook announcing their birthdays to the whole world. That is one logic that we will never understand. May be it is the flexibility that fb offers. Some people have birthdays every six months as they keep updating. Birthday wishing is also an important art especially if you are defacing someone’s wall or @ ing someone. Some people wait one day before wishing just so that they can use ‘Belated Bday wishes’. Now belated bday wishes are the best. It gives the impression that you have got a life and yet you remembered. The birthday boy/girl will be glad that you took the time off your busy schedule to wish him/her. All the while you were drinking red bull and playing Fifa. That’s the power of the ‘belated’. There are people who use the word ‘advanced’. But trust me ‘advanced’ is nowhere near as good as ‘belated’. They might be wishing at 11.55 PM and to acknowledge the fact that they are 5 minutes early use ‘advanced’. Another thing is to use some words that give the impression that you two are thick friends. There are a lot of words in the ‘buddy market’ for this and it is up to each individual what fakes ( I mean fits) best. The next is the acknowledgment from the ‘birthdayer’. Now one might be wondering what is there to acknowledge about getting your ass kicked, face shoved with cake and sleep disturbed. But this is the last and perhaps the most important piece of the ‘faking it’ jigsaw puzzle. The safest way is to beat around the bush and thank in general terms. If you take names, then it is sure that someone might be missed. In a way that would be a blessing in disguise as you will have one less call to answer the next year. But if you love the attention, be as generic as possible. Now for those fortunate ones whose friends missed their birthday, that shouldn’t stop them from acknowledging. They can go like “ I can’t thank my friends enough” ( Seriously you can’t because they forgot) or “had a blast with ….” (that’s also true because you gave them a piece of your mind). So birthdays are not something you can treat casually. Be professional and fake your way through it. Happy Birthday.
Tag: Facebook
SHARAPOVA TRENDING
SHARAPOVA TRENDING
When Maria Sharapova started trending on twitter, she would have thought they were all condolence messages for her shock defeat at the wimbledon . But it was not. Rather all the hullabaloo was regarding a simple ‘I don’t’ reply from her at her post-match press conference. The question was ‘Do you know who Sachin Tendulkar is?’. Though it was an honest reply from the 5 time grand slam champion, the ‘so-called’ sachin fans took offence. They spammed her facebook page to an indescribable degree and trolling on twitter too followed suit. There is no question about the greatness of Sachin Tendulkar here. But the social media ‘mob’ didn’t care. For them she had committed an unpardonable offence. True lovers of sport wouldn’t mind these trivial matters. For them what happens on the field is what really counts. Be it the tennis court, football pitch or the cricket ground. The self anointed guardians of Sachin who were trolling her social media pages does not fit in this category. They probably don’t even know about the ongoing wimbledon championships or for that matter would not have even seen Sharapova play. Their narrow mindedness and cyber bullying clearly stems from this lack of sporting acumen. This kind of reaction from my fellow country men clearly embarrasses me. Leading the charge against Sharapova was the people from my home state of kerala. They did not think twice before posting derogatory comments on her FB page albeit in their mother tongue. Would Americans have reacted the same way if someone said they didn’t know Babe Ruth ? It is true that Cricket is a sort of religion in India and Sachin is accorded the status of a god. But that doesn’t justify this sort of response. That is just petty. Cricket is in no way a global sport and just because we revere a person there is no compulsion on the whole world to do so. There is no doubt that the great man Sachin himself will be the first to condone this kind of hooliganism.
Resolving Resolutions
It is my favourite time of the year. The festive season has football action coming thick and fast.It is also the time of the year when i start googling for best new year resolutions. Our new year resolutions are like politician’s election manifesto. They are ambitious,sounds legitimate and often non-executable. The spirit with which we jump into the new year’s resolution bandwagon starts dwindling the moment right after we make one. It is not about if we can keep our resolution. it’s about how long. Because eventually we all will falter. The longer you can prolong the inevitable, the better (or worse). So why do we keep making these false promises to ourselves?. There is something about the cool December wind or the Christmas spirit which lingers on even after christmas. Come new year we are all resolved to take a resolution. I think it’s the idea of a fresh start that compels us into making a fool of ourselves year after year. There are many who quits drinking and smoking every year. They feel so attached to that resolution that they make it every year. Now people have started taking resolutions to quit things like Facebook and Twitter. It’s good to know that people are realizing that the best way of socialising is out of the social networking sites. But it is not that easy. First they will post about their resolution to quit Social networking site on one such site. Then what about all the subsequent likes and comments and retweets and whatever jargon they have invented for ruining our time?. It is inherent human nature to give in to temptations. We feel a resurgent urge to do the taboo. When someone tells you not to touch something, we feel irresistible to do so. Here we are giving the forbidden fruit to ourselves. We tell ourselves to not do something and how seriously naive it is from our part. Isn’t this the same thing that happened with Adam. If God had told him to go ahead and eat the apple,he wouldn’t have taken another glimpse at it. But God forbid him and look what happened. Some might argue that the new year resolutions are always negative like i wouldn’t do this, I would quit that. We have an inherent penchant for positivity. It is this lacuna of human psychology that leads to the failure of most of our resolutions. So may be resolutions like “I will keep on drinking”, “I will pay taxes” will do the trick. The main reason for the failure of New Year resolutions is that we are not ready for it. It is forced on to us by ourselves. That is why we struggle,linger and finally succumb. It doesn’t require a New Year to make a fresh start. You can do it whenever you want. But you need to be convinced that you are fully ready for it. We are not resolute enough to keep our resolutions. So my resolution for this New Year is to not make any resolutions. But I being a feeble human being will make one and undoubtedly break that even before the first weekend of January 2014. Right now it’s time to get creative on the resolutions and i am switching to google.
GandhiSpeak 