An open letter to Insensitive Intellectual Idiots

 The peace that prevailed all these years at my home, has slowly withered away. It was my mother first and now, my father too has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. My dad’s elder sister too is a victim of Alzheimer’s. My grandma had this. So my entire family is slowly waking up to the fact that there is genetics at play. My parents’ health is deteriorating every day and unfortunately, I have no other option than to be a witness for it. Of course, I am going that extra mile to ensure their wellbeing is always a priority. I often tell myself that the most fundamental element needed to sail through this difficult time is patience. But it been easier said than done to inculcate it.

The shenanigans of this bad ailment is such that more than the patients, it directly impacts the serotonins of their family and friends who are dealing with it first-hand. I’ve been embracing my fear of losing them, their faults, their uncertainties, their immaculate behavior; all by myself. A very few close friends know about this, but this is a very challenging time for me. Consequently, there have been some lapses on my commitments. This has led to a few verbal duels with my wife. It, in fact, has gone beyond this and we can now be called a mildly battered couple, thanks to two Alzheimer’s patients at home.

Trust me, impaired cognition is not so easy to deal with, especially when you know there is no change coming in, ever. You have to deal with it as long as they are alive. The situation will only get worse over time. I am not even going into the details of my father’s auditory hallucinations. The very fact that it is irreversible is enough to weaken the dependents emotionally. On top of it, being a middle class family, there are financial and societal implications that you have to deal with. While figuring out things on all these fronts, a few duels happened. I have had regrets on the way things were going, especially with the battered couple tag **winks**, but with god’s grace, life is back to normal. Honestly, I am repentant and have come to terms with how I should not repeat it. I have learnt to cope with the situation now. But what I am not able to cope is the presence of insensitive intellectual idiots (i3s) around me who do not even know what the disease is, but lecturing me on how I should cope. Argghhhh!

Some came home, spent 10 min with my father and gave me hour long lectures on “why have we reduced the food quantity”, “why should I buy him more shirts” and “how often should I take him to barber”, “GPS based tracker for my father” and what not! One one hand, my father is finding it difficult to operate his own cell-phone and TV remote, but my uncle wants my dad to do all the ironing of clothes, so he is occupied. A married couple in their late 30s who never even dreamt of having kids are lecturing me on my son’s upbringing. The worst of them all is this: A relative of my wife, who neither knows A of Alzheimer’s nor my parents name, thinks I have lied about my parent’s condition. She has written a long message to me on WA stating that I’m trying to cover up issues with my wife by lying about my parents’ condition. And that karma will catch up with me **duh**. There are specimens who have started doing Yoga just a couple of years ago and consider themselves spiritual icons, giving me lectures on DOs and DON’Ts of my life. I wanted to tell the person that my spiritual guru has been guiding me since the time you had not even reached your puberty.

I got curious and dug deeper to understand why there are so many i3s (insensitive intellectual idiots) who cannot shut up, to say the least, if not empathize with my family. My father’s Neurologist gave me the answer. Although Alzheimer’s is highly prevalent in the west, people in India, by large, do not know about this disease. Average Indian Life span used to be 65-66 years a couple of decades ago. But due to advancement in medicine and Human Development Index going very high in the metro cities of India in the last decade, life expectancy of Indians has gone up to 75+ years. This had led to surfacing of alarming number of Alzheimer’s patients in India. In other words, very few have known & dealt with the disease in past. Suddenly there is a buzz with a lot of cases and people yet to assimilate. Doctor is confident that people will learn to deal with it, I am not!

I am at that juncture of my life where I am not at peace to tolerate such nonsense. It is a challenging time for me and I do not think of consequences when I speak/reply. My mind is currently a jumble of inaccuracies and my responses might make you very uncomfortable. How can someone say I am lying about my parents, goddammit! I know I am bad at expressing my emotions in public. But saying that I’m lying about my parents is a blaze of akhand chutiyapa. Please give your thoughts some food before being an insensitive asshole. Reform your own lives before judging somebody else’s. See if your own mother is happy before passing insensitive comments on others. Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet them on your way down. There are better things to look after than lecturing how many times my father must shave his beard! Don’t let me grab you by the shoulders on another blog post. Educate yourself on this degenerative disease; how it impacts the caregivers, its emotional paradigm. Empathize with the caregiver and their family and help them lead a more contented life.

If not, at least, SHUT THE F*** UP!!

Image credits: Google Images

Single screen theaters in Bengaluru - A lost legacy

Gaurav sent an early morning news snippet in our Friends WA group. It said “Cauvery” theatre will be shut down and it will make way for a commercial complex”. The post received a sad emoji from all of us and was active after months of silence. My friends pulled my leg (I'll talk about that later) and we all recalled how we went to Cauvery theater to watch Kaante, but ended up watching a Saikumar starter Kannada movie, missing to check what was running for Morning show😊.

For a moment, my mind wandered through two decades of my pensive reserves of the happy association I had with Cauvery theatre.  Of course, this is not a new trend in Namma Bengaluru, we’ve been used to Individual theatres in the city shutting shop since a decade now. I’ve written in past about many of the once prominent theatres like Adarsha, Kino, Uma, Symphony, Plaza, Galaxy and many others on KG road.  But Cauvery is a special case for me. It is close to my home, my school, college and hence to my heart! If you’re a movie buff and you’re a proud namma Bengaluru resident since early 90s, then you’ll have a fair idea on what our city has lost on the entertainment front.

Cosmo culture

If you think Bangalore has turned multi-ethnic after the IT uprising, then you are off beam. Bangalore’s cosmopolitan culture dates to early and late 80s. While Hyderabad and Chennai play vernacular movies to a greater extent even today, Bangalore has been offering a rich, diverse and extravagant movie experience from ages. Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu and even Bengali & Malayalam movie fans have cherished their moments inside a Bangalore theatre. Remember, those were the days, Mallus and Bongs were not flocking to namma Bengaluru in search of jobs and their numbers were very limited.

No Language wars in our talkies

Unlike today, the Sandalwood movie industry’s cries that “we don’t get screens for vernacular movies” were just non-existent; because those were the days where Kannada movie industry was at its peak. Those were the days when Kannada movies ran to packed houses for one to two years and were remade in all other Indian languages, thanks to rich Kannada literature adaptations, great musicians, directors and lyricists. I fondly recall how my dad narrated his movie watching chronicles; Annavru’s Veerakesari was the first ever movie aired in Navarang and how he had bunked college to watch it, only to be caught by a neighborhood uncle next to his seat.

Cinema - Now and then

Along with movies, our movie going experience also has seen a radical makeover. Thanks, but no thanks to OTT! Those were the days where movie going was merriment. It was exciting for every middle-class family. The reason was very simple: It was the ultimate sort of entertainment for us. There was no internet; no IPL and no 200+ entertainment channels on television. And there were no mobile phones to be hooked onto for 10+ hours a day. If I tell any millennial kid that I have watched English movies in Sangam, they might get judgmental. But, yeah, true story! I still remember the ecstasy of watching English Movies like Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and a few other sci-fi thrillers in Sangam.

 Just like movies, the movie theatres were also equally special. Not just because of movies, it would also mean a bunch of other things followed by a movie. A good movie in the KG road/Majestic area would be followed by Lunch @ Kamat, if it was Urvashi, it would mean, lunch at MTR, movie in Navrang would always be accompanied by a visit to uncle’s place and so on. My favorites were Galaxy and Symphony because it’d be followed by ice cream at Lakeview, MG road and a chance to play in lifts at dad’s office. I still recall those movie going experiences because of such small pleasures. This is one of the reasons why I still remember watching movies in Puttanna in Jayanagar, Geetanjali in Malleshwara or Uma theatre. I got introduced to Rajni saar’s fandom in Kino, watching Arunachalam! Oh man, I can go on and on!

Cauvery memory

Talking specifically of Cauvery, for me, 2nd show movie meant only Cauvery. Watching movie at Cauvery was affordable compared to paying heavy parking fee at any of the Multiplexes. A torino (Remember “The Only” soft drink of yesteryears?) shared between me and my sister was, by far was more enjoyable compared to pre-booking nachos and Popcorn combos in PVR. My dad getting tickets to home and taking us was more exciting than today’s booking tickets online. I can never forget my first movie date disaster with my college crush **winks**. It was Hrithik Roshan starrer Aap Mujhe Acche Lagne Lage, was again in Cauvery theatre. When I drive through today’s eternally jammed Windsor-Mekhri stretch, I recall how Cauvery junction, without the BDA's engineering marvel called Magic box underpass, had traffic jams only when a movie show was just over and people would come out of theaters.. Be it Bollywood movie with Wife and friends or Puneet Rajkumar’s family entertainer with family, the preferred cinema hall was always Cauvery.

Cauvery Theater

Even to this day, all my school friends prefer individual theatres to watch a movie because we enjoy audience’s satirical comments in an individual theatre like Cauvery more than our corporate audiences’ silence in multiplexes. This post is incomplete without mentioning theatres of KG road. While Sagar played Hindi blockbusters like DDLJ and Hum Aapke hain Kaun, Tribhuvan played English flicks. Plaza, Adarsha, Swagath, Lido, Shanti, Pallavi, Kino, Nanda and so many other theatres appear in front of my eyes if I think of movie halls in Bangalore. Today, most of these have succumbed to the real estate roar.

Storylines and narratives in movies of today have changed, the city is changing and so are the movie watching experiences. From watching an early morning show for fans to Netflix and chill, a lot of things have changed. But the fact remains that in the necklace of Bangalore’s cosmopolitan entertainment, so many pendants are missing and many others are in the verge of getting lost.  Alas, a true Bangalorean will miss them forever!

The Return of the King

    It was just another lazy weekend and I was busy browsing OTTs, with an indecisive dilemma running an infinite loop on what to watch. Sudhindra ji’s call brought me back to senses and I realized I’d have, as usual, wasted at least 30 min trying to find something to watch that would interest me!

“What are you doing right now?”

“Nothing important. Watching something interesting” **duh**

“Tej, I need a help. Lakshman ji is injured and we need a known old face in the colony to accompany our folks to distribute Sri Rama’s Phala Mantrakshate that has arrived from Ayodhya.”

With zero determination, I said Okay”. Sudhindra ji described the Do’s and Don’ts for a few minutes and disconnected. With a subtle cry of confusion, I met the other RSS Karyakarta in my locality, who was assigned to distribute the Mantrakshate that has arrived from Ayodhya, to all the houses in the colony. I thought it would just be another “visiting my homies” event. But what happened over the next four hours was a boomerang of emotions! At the end of it, I was feeling totally elated with all the varied emotions people displayed. All the insightful interactions, the stories, their belief, betrayal they experienced back in 92 and how people have been waiting for the return of Sri Rama in Ayodhya; It gave me a real picture of how big and collectively congenial this event is for Indian Hindus! One thing was very evident - Bhaarata is witnessing its first mega divine event since 1947. Read on.

An uncle, on hearing why we are there, got fully teary eyed, wiped his tears and recalled the story of how he, in his mid-30s, dared collect funds in the Muslim majority neighborhood to buy 50 bricks and sent it to Ayodhya for the reconstruction of Sri Rama Mandira. He took us to his Pooja room to show us “how he has been reciting Rama taaraka mantra” every day for the last 32 years. I, for once, thought, I may not have not seen the pious disposition of humility of Shabari from Ramayana, but this uncle’s faith is no less. Faith can indeed move mountains!

Another entrepreneur that we visited enthusiastically said that he has declared 22^nd Jan, Monday, a holiday for his enterprise and wants all his employees to celebrate the return of Sri Ram Lalla to Ayodhya. He urged us to bunk offices that day and do a grand Pooja at home. He also said that a Live telecast of the Prana Pratishtapana event has been arranged in the temple’s hall and we can gather together to celebrate there in large numbers!

I could feel the restlessness in the old lady, who said, my sister in Chennai phoned that she has already received the mantrakashate and I was waiting for you guys since yesterday. The Old lady’s husband lauded our efforts of doing this and called it a divine work. We could see him feeling fetter when he expressed his inability of not being able to join us due to a knee surgery that he had undergone recently.

Another doctor couple explained how the estrangement in the neighborhood grew with other faiths post the babri masjid demolition incident and how their love thy neighbors failed to look at things beyond the lens of religion. He further said “It has been 32 years now, I don’t care anymore and will happily celebrate on 22^nd Jan, welcoming Sri Rama, come what may!” He said “A meteoric rise is inevitable after a fateful loss and we all will witness that rise now in our country”.

Some offered monetary help assuming we are going to Ayodhya on 22^nd for the Prana Pratishtapana event, which we casually declined, while others happily agreed to at least lamp a few diyas on the day of consecration of Sri Rama. Some also showed us the stock of firecrackers to be burnt on the consecration day. Of course, there were some Haider Hindus, who shooed us away without even being courteous, but it is not even worth talking about them here.

While it was not surprising to hear many showering laurels on the man who made it happen – Our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, I was indeed very surprised to see families taking selfies with us, clicking pictures of us handing over the phala mantrakshate to them, offering sweets, coffee, fruits and displaying all forms of sweet hospitality. I couldn’t recall when was the last time people waited, took selfies and lauded strangers visiting their houses. I was glad to read similar stories on Social media as well. I could clearly see that this Return of the king event is re-igniting the penultimate dreams of billions of Indians; restoring the Rama Rajya in Bhaarata!

Indulgence in this activity is something I was glad I did not miss and will definitely remember for the rest of my life!  I came back home with a sheer satisfaction of happily exclaiming #JaiSriRam more than 1000 times.

And the old lady’s words are still abuzz in my mind - Raama Banda... Rama Rajya noo baratte (Translates to “The king has returned. The core ideals of virtue, morality and justice will also return to India).

Cant stop recalling Tolkein’s Poem from the Return of the King

 "From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.”

A mindful conversation

For a long time now, I have always evaded paying a visit to my sister’s home by giving the weirdest and very unreasonable excuses, purely because of traffic chaos that I have had to endure to reach Nelamangala. But circumstances this year were totally different, thanks to the unprecedented times in the family and I am a regular visitor now. My nephew who is now a student of a residential school, 400 km away from home, is studying eleventh grade. He had come home for a week for holidays. This time, my sister had asked me to come home and specifically talk to him because ever since he has gone away from home, it has become hard for her to connect with him and that he is behaving weird. This was making her very anxious. 

I've seen my nephew growing in front of my eyes. From his super mischievous deeds like him painting my bike with a weird colored enamel paint, to both of us doing Harry Potter and other superhero quizzes online, we have always been on good jovial terms. We never discussed academia or had intellectual conversations together in the past. The conversation that I had with him this time was so different, that I took some time to come to terms with it. It made me see remarkable changes in his attitude and thought process, and I realized quite a few things have changed for good. This blogpost is all about the conversational epiphany that I experienced. 

The conversation started with me inquiring about his hostel life. He said he is enjoying this life. He started talking about how his life has changed. From waking up at leisure 8AM in the past to 530AM, doing the laundry himself; how the absence of luxuries of zomato and swiggy is controlling his hunger pangs; how he has been accustomed to the meditation that he is forced to perform everyday for 15 min and in spite of being able to sense that he is sleep deprived, how the meditation is actually helping him concentrate better with his academia; I could feel a drastic change in his tone. 

He was then saying that it took him a lot of time to get used to this hostel life without gadgets and gaming. He said he has made very good friends and they all spend quality time; he explained the non-academia things they do to rewind after a busy day at college. To my surprise, he was appreciative of the conducive environment within the campus due to non-availability of mobile phones. I recalled all the games he played on the mobile phone in the past and told myself “not bad”.

And then came the most important thing, his future plans: He said he was confused about his future plans. He said he is unable to decide yet whether to go for both JEE-Mains and Advanced or just prepare for JEE-Mains so that it would help him prepare for K-CET and Comed-K in parallel. He spoke at length on why he thinks getting into an IIT would be difficult for him. He said he doesn't know if it is just insecurity with all that has happened recently or fear or both, that is stopping him from knocking the doors of IIT. Then he spoke of his hatred for chemistry. He took a pause to recall his dad’s love for chemistry and then went on talking about how he finds Chemistry so boring and difficult to even balance simple chemical equations; how he thinks those IUPAC names are just crazy and how chemistry alone has pulled his GPA down by significant margin. He was sad that he was still a seven point someone :). 

At that moment, I took a pause. For someone who has always discussed movies, super heroes, gaming and fantasy novels with me, such serious conversations were a little hard for me to absorb. My nonchalant nephew that I saw just six months ago was having such a mature conversation with me. 

I did not express any emotion, but I realized that he sensed that disconcerting look on my face too. This entire conversation lasted for about an hour and a half. At the end of it, the realization that I am in my late thirties already was hard to come by *winks*.

I just nodded happily and gave a subtle reply “Well, that is youth for you. It sets its own boundaries without even asking whether the body & mind can take it or not”. I advised him to start preparations for K-CET, COMED-K and JEE Mains, with a vision to get into a good NIT. When I said “As a fallback, we always have very good engg colleges in Karnataka too” he looked somewhat convinced and the conversation ended. I went inside and just told my sister “Don’t worry about his behavior. He is in the process of defining himself”. 

Until now, I was not a proponent of the belief that adolescence is a stage in life. But I am convinced that it is changed now. The saying "Chronological age is not a biological marker" is more evident than ever; even more so with the millennials. This entire episode felt like reading a Paulo Coelho’s novel. Phew; the fingers of time played a heavy chord selection on the emotional strings of my guitar!

The rising concern of virtue signaling in the Indian courtrooms

 Scene-1

An assailant, who has committed a heinous crime of raping and murdering a 4-year-old girl child is standing within the balustrade. He is pretty convinced of his fate that is awaiting him. Naturally, death is inevitable for him and is going to be a reality very soon. And why not! The most unpardonable, utterly disgusting and wicked sin that he has committed deserves nothing less than death.

The reading of the final judgement begins. The judge starts off calling the act barbaric and monstrous. The judgement also reads “A tiny, bud-like girl was smothered by the appellant before she could blossom in this world. The monstrous act of the appellant suffocated the victim to such an extent that she had no option but to leave this world.”

Scene-2

But the milords gave the most unprecedented twist to this case. The three judge bench declares that the crime committed cannot be termed as the rarest of the rare to award a death sentence.

** Audience and the victim’s family is flabbergasted** W.H.A.T?

Wait, it doesn’t end there. In what appears to be a Bollywood mimicked woke gathering where the judge who penned the judgement quotes Oscar Wilde “Every Saint has a past and every Sinner has a future” and reduces the death sentence to 20 years of imprisonment.

I’m sure the above scene puts even the most intriguing courtroom comedy scenes like Legally Blonde or even namma CSP to shame! But, this is no Netflix series. This happened in real, three days ago in the Supreme court of India. I frankly do not have enough imagination to recall the drama that would have unfolded in this court hearing! The bench refers to the principles of restorative justice and believes that the victim deserves an opportunity to become a socially useful person and repair the damages caused. On this grounds, milords reduce the death sentence awarded to a child rapist to 20 years’ imprisonment. Yeah! True story, this one!

I am not even going to the intricate details of what Oscar Wilde meant in his above quote. You can read it here. But of late, repeatedly, the Supreme court of India, through its judgement, has proven that it is more inclined on virtue signaling than sending a strong message to the offenders. In this case, I truly fail to understand the need to uphold the sentiments intended to demonstrate a rapist’s good character in a courtroom! It is truly shameful that a three judge bench, of which one is a woman, shows concern for a child rapist. And in the name of justice, all that victim’s family received was cliché! Oh dear lord; I cannot imagine the victim family’s plight.

Of late, such folly by milords of India has become a mainstream concern for the justice seekers of our country. There have been more and more judgements in which judges have their own ideas of what constitutes as justice as opposed to what is right circumstantially (Sabarimala case), giving weightage to their own views in deciding the judgements (Freeing Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins), unnecessary levels of virtue signaling (Sallu Bhai case), citing examples of the legal luminaries of west instead of our own (Chief Justice DY Chandrachud). I can go on and on!

Whenever someone spoke ill of judiciary in my informal debates with friends and family, I have always asked them not to throw rotten tomatoes at the judiciary. I always argued that when justice fails, it is the dawn of new bad beginnings. I am not sure If I myself have this opinion anymore. I am no legal expert, so I discussed this case with a lawyer in the family who practices in the supreme court. This is what he opined “there was a time when our judges were capable of identifying virtue signaling attempts by lawyers. They were capable of seeing through the façade and recognize the hidden motivations of such virtue signaling. Now, our judges need lessons on why it is not a good idea to base judgements in heinous crimes on restorative justice”. He said that the judges of yesteryears based judgements on mature jurisprudence than the contemporary judges

With such repeated woke liberal behaviors in the courtroom, justice is going to be far-fetched. It concerns me even more when I see that executive and legislature are seeing improvements (Yes, I have my reasons to say so), but judiciary is slowly becoming implausible. I sincerely pray to god that such irrational behaviors by milords will write its own death sentence, for the greater good! Let dharma prevail.

Digital Detox? Now is the time

The digital extravaganza has been an overkill of late. It looked like it is an opportunity, during the lockdown, to fill the gap with whatever you were doing when you could go out. During office, end of day meant 530pm, or even if we pushed it by an hour, I would surely unplug at 630 or 7pm, considering the traffic shenanigans. The luxury of work from home did not impose that restriction, so I was on my own in completing everyday tasks. I was starting an hour late, thanks to Ramayan, I was taking Mahabharat break every day for an hour and when I was not in any meeting, I would sit with my laptop in front of television and continue working. Initial few months of lockdown felt so good, that I started imagining televisions in office so that work is not stressful at all. But gradually, Mahabharat and Ramayan on television ended and my own Ramayan started. I got bored being inside four walls. Series binging with dad also came to an end. I had no time to read amidst the work. I started dedicating some time for my religious observances. Even though this was rewarding, this didn’t last either.

Uninstall Facebook WhatsApp Instagram

Even though life was slowly getting back to normal, with every new thing I was trying to do, I was spending more time with electronics and mobile phone. By the end of Oct, I realized that I was addicted to Twitter, WhatsApp, Insta, FB, Netflix, HOTSTAR and all other OTTs I had access to. With no walk/run/gym and lunch and dinner served to me on my laptop table, an unexplained lethargy had kicked in. I added screen-time for the apps. But even after the limit was reached, I was craving to turn it off and spending more time on SM. This was an indicator that I had to get out of it. I was struggling to find a window of time that feels right for you to unplug and do a digital detox, because I was in front of laptop for better part of the day. WhatsApp web was a possibility now. And twitter tab was always open! For almost a month, although it did not affect my day to day office work, with SM and office work together, I ended up sitting in front of laptop for a good 12 hours a day. At the back of my mind, I always knew, I can’t do this for long and I was sure I can spend “that” time constructively, doing something better. The motivation that ‘reading more, writing more, spending gala time with family’ – are all better options than spending time on SM - was always there. But when I tried chalking out a plan to get out of it, I didn’t know where to start, how to proceed, which ones to keep and what to delete. It was all muddled and I was caught in the SM web. Trust me, Digital detox isn’t so easy, unless you plan it and more importantly, prepare your mind!

Mark Zuckerberg stating "The future is private"

While I was almost on the verge of dropping the idea of Digital Detox, Mr. Zuckerberg has come to my rescue, like a blessing in disguise. His new privacy policy and updated terms & conditions, which has created outrage globally, has in fact motivated me to take a digital detox!. Adding fuel to the fire, the new terms by Zuki, is shocking! Come on, using your financial transaction data, monitoring your approximate location 24/7 in-spite of location services turned OFF, selling your data to all FB companies; outrageous and I would call it despicable too! If he really did think this is the only way to do justice to his 21 billion $ WhatsApp deal and generate revenue, I don’t trust any of his products at all. Besides, the targeted ad is just the beginning. This is going to open a pandora’s box of the shadier possibilities of what could be done to the world with data.

Digital Detox

Also, imagine the benefits of deleting your FB-Insta-WhatsApp accounts. With all your friend’s friend, who is not even your common friend or acquaintance’s whereabouts and his/her information popping up on your wall, your FB timeline is just a bunch of suggested videos with ads and twitter snapshots. Arghh! It has long lost its good old sheen! Honestly, Facebook has become so irksome. I am keeping FB active only because it is a perfect platform to share my blog posts to 500+ people at once. Nothing more!

While WhatsApp forwards can save a few tens of gigs of data and a couple of hours, WhatsApp Status can save you remaining 22 hours. My uncle, who in his entire life has not watched a half time of a football match, updates his status with the hashtags #RipMaradona #SoccerLegend. I’ll not have to tolerate such nauseating sycophancy anymore. Although Instagram wasn’t this painful for long, the reels, are really waste of time. [Confession: I’ll really miss Dr. Richa Negi’s refreshing dancing groove videos on Instagram.**winks**]

I believe the best way to beat the quintessential social establishment and protect our privacy is to stop invading other’s privacy. And above all, the true evaluation of whether any privacy expectations are reasonable or not can never be assessed on any Social Media application. This is exactly why I am happy to be getting rid of FaceBook, Insta and WhatsApp.

Data Wars

Whether Zuki takes it back owing to public outcry or not, whether my friends like it or not, whether my cousins miss me on SM or not, I have decided to delete my FB-WA-Insta accounts permanently. I’ll keep twitter for my rants and Signal for my instant messaging needs. PERIOD. I can totally live without the rest. And I strongly believe it is the need of the hour too! When wrong people without morals and ethics; without concerns; without the sense of what’s fair and what’s not, get access to our data, they will always gain an advantage over the rest of us, until we decide to put an end to it. So, the onus is on every one of us!

Well, what do you think of my decision? WhatsApp… errrr… Call me! Let’s start to socialize the real, good old way!

Image credits: Google

Is your LinkedIn another FaceBook Profile?

In Indian job market, job portals like Naukri and Monster have played a big role since long, leaving very less market share for other players like LinkedIn. There are no second thoughts about LinkedIn’s potential. But somehow, for long, it was etched in job seeker’s mind that when someone started preparing for a job change, the first conversation began with “Update Naukri everyday bro, otherwise you won’t get calls”. I’m sure many in the entry and mid-career level can connect to this. But this seems to have changed in the recent times. There were a few recruiters asking me with an awe of surprise “You don’t have a LinkedIn profile”? Well, I always had it. But I never bothered to update it because I never expected job opportunities coming my way from LinkedIn. The possibility was too feeble. But looks like things have changed. Nowadays, a lot of recruiters use LinkedIn because of its robust networking capabilities, seamless cross-border connections with over 600 million user base and feature rich platform not just for employees, but for employers too. So I realized that it is important to have mine updated and started looking into it often. I installed the app too. This is when the surprise unfolded.

A video of a grandpa dancing (Left) and a MP updating distribution of ration kit (Right) on LinkedIn

What a mess LinkedIn really is! It is nothing more than just another facebook. From work-out and Yoga videos, ration distribution pics by certain MP, people posting Salsa videos of their grandparents begging their followers to like the video, content writers writing poems to scenic photograph posts with 3000+ likes which made absolutely ZERO SENSE. In other words, I was browsing through another social media profile of mine. With all such godforsaken updates, I was dreading to see the updates that made sense to me. I sat for more than two hours to remove unwanted connections, un follow/hide spammers. Despite my best efforts, after the clean-up, my LinkedIn feed just feels better, but still far from what I expect from a Professional networking website. I realized this is a big problem because people perceive LinkedIn as another social networking site. Here are a few things that you DON”T do on LinkedIn so that it remains a job and professional networking platform.

Profile picture

Your profile picture is undoubtedly the most important element of any networking site, be it professional or social platforms. Research has established psychological evidences that without a display picture, the accounts are perceived to be dormant. But if you have added a picture of John Snow, Ronaldo or your favorite god Hanuman as a profile picture to give an impression of being creative, you’re on self damage mode.  And yeah, the professor from Money Heist as your DP on LinkedIn does not make you a genius. Don’t get overboard with your creativity. Keep it simple, silly!

Whacky Profile Pictures n Linkedin-1

Whacky LinkedIn Profile Picture-2

Whacky LinkedIn Profile Picture-3

Adding connections

Adding qualified connections increase your job prospects. Yes of course. But you need not add every goddamn person you know and hype it. I was thinking twice to send a connection request to a good friend from my previous organization, because even though we connected over lot of cultural initiatives, we never worked together on any products/services. But here I am, getting connection request from a stranger car service guy who is my friend’s connection. Arggh! 

Updating the pic of The Atlantic Road, Norway (Left) and Writing Poems on LinkedIn (Right)

Your house maid’s husband’s distant relative who has completed his engineering and is now seeking job, your wife’s retired PSU uncle’s daughter who is a nutritionist, your college crush whose designation is Home maker, your primary school friend who is doing  research on zombies from Sudan University of Science and Technology need not be your professional connects. DON’T YOU GET IT? They neither belong to your domain/organization/technology/services nor can be of any professional value addition. If they really have known connections, ask them to introduce you to them. Accepting connections from every Tom Dick and Harry you’ve met in life perpetually is useless.  Go back to your profile, browse through your connections to check how many amongst your connection can really have a potential impact on your careers. Remember, connections are just numbers. 1000+ random connections from acquaintances do not; I repeat, DO NOT add any weight to your digital resume. For god sake, please stop adding the entire world’s populace to your connection list, morons!

Pro-tip: Create separate email-IDs for your professional needs and social media requirements. This will avoid a lot of your personal contacts sending you requests and it also give you more power to manage professional profiles.

Posting updates

Posting significant professional updates are indeed good way to let everyone know of your achievements. But majority of the updates from my connections did not seem deserved to be even there. A software engineer in my connection had posted her pics of distributing food packets during Covid-19 lockdown.  Why why why? Had her profession been Social Work groups, it would be worth an update. But in IT Industry, It will not give her any professional edge over others who have not done it. Another friend had copied leadership quotes from Google and pasted it. Will it help his followers inculcate leadership habits? I also found people posting the certificates of their organization’s mandatory trainings like EHS and Data Privacy. For heavens’ sake, stop this! A funny video with caption “Don’t give up” made some sense. But after seeing screenshots of a newspaper article on Happy Iftaar and a meme on Yamaha RX-100 to describe the Japanese engineering, alas! I lost my mind.

 

An Iftaar party cooking update (Left) Personal updates about Daughter on LinkedIn

In the midst of all these unwanted junk, many important updates go unnoticed. And even bigger problem is that unlike FaceBook, we cannot even delete the profile. It has to be there, up and running. You never know when you’ll have to make real use of your connections. So please don’t be willful and a pain in someone’s professional life. Be responsible and have social conscience. If LinkedIn becomes another FaceBook, destinies of many professionals may become undeniably enmeshed.  As we prepare for another economic depression, this gibberish will not take us anywhere. Go and act now. Because if you don’t, sooner or later we’ll be victims of our own complacency.

No; I am not posting this blog on my LinkedIn.