whatsup whatsapp

Bugs bunny relaxing and chewing on a carrot while blurting out a nonchalant 'what's up doc' fills up my memory screen when my phone chimes an incoming WhatsApp message. When Elmer Fudd the hunter pokes Bugs Bunny with a loaded double-barrel this nonchalant response was a game changer. There was no scurrying of rabbit-feet nor screams which would have been the expected response those days in a comic. Instead, the long-limbed rabbit lying in a very relaxed pose spits out a 'whats up doc?' from the corner of his mouth. Acton and Koum, when their journey from Yahoo to Facebook did not happen, decided to develop a social app and called it 'WhatsApp' a derivative of 'what's up'. And as they say, rest is history.

WhatsApp too has been a game changer. While Yahoo groups, Orkut and facebook have been instrumental in reviving old ties and friendships, Whatsapp brought about a paradigm shift in social communication. Of course, it has also brought along a new set of maladies.

Realisation hit me a couple of weeks ago that I am rushing in the morning to complete my chores, whereas I used to relax and enjoy my cuppa while flipping through the newspaper. And the culprit I could see was WhatsApp. Over the past year, I have been discovered by long lost friends and herded into groups - school groups, class groups, like-minded groups. For someone with the multiple lives spent in 9 schools, two colleges and six jobs, there is no dearth of groups for me.Wading through the messages in the morning was eating into my otherwise relaxed schedule. I am trying to collate here the experiences gathered at these various groups.
The work of the roosters has now been taken over by the roosters within your whatsapp groups. One can do away with wake-up alarms now as these new generation roosters are very punctual. Without missing a day they send out the morning greeting at the same time day after day. These greetings will also have some pearls of wisdom. These pearls of wisdom invariably are forwards which the sender might  not have even read nor understood.
Members in a new group are like kids with a new toy. The first few days in a new group are worse than what probably happened at the tower of Babel. Everyone tries to have one-to-one conversations and there are few meaningful group conversations. Many egos bite the dust and the hurt ones take the exit route. School groups, especially if the re-connection is happening after a couple of decades or more, will start off with introductions and exchange of photographs and old stories. Once most of this is done, an awkward silence begins. The conversation graph goes south and the stale meaningless forwards become the only activity in the group. These groups do hit a peak now and then when a new member joins or when one of the member has an anniversary.
When one is a member of a multitude of groups,one is prone to certain occupational hazards. Some of the forwards get re-forwarded to the same group. My standard excuse in such instances is that the forward was so good that it deserved a re-forward.Generally such 'mistakes' go unnoticed as many members dont read all conversations. However there is also a breed of nit-pickers who take great pleasure in pointing out such oversights. 
In a multi-linguistic country it is inevitable that some members send out forwards in minority languages. The linguistic champions then descend on such unfortunate victims like a tonne of bricks, admonishing them for the sacrilege committed. 
Epic writers are another bane for the whatsapp community. Blog writers who send out their long-winded lectures in the forum do not realise that most of their stuff never gets read. The famous US Navy doctrine of KISS applies here too - Keep It Simple(short) Stupid. 
The knights in shining armour are the modern day Don Quixotes. They strike at every windmill and take pride in slaying hoaxes. Unsubstantiated forwards and misleading 'authentic' information need to be nipped in the bud. The Hoax Slayers are a community I personally appreciate. 
I wonder what happens with all this digital communication that is flying back and forth. The ease of use and the non-expensive nature has helped in the proliferation. There are huge servers dotting the universe which store and relay these messages. The energy used up by these machines to transmit trivia to and fro is adding to the carbon footprint. I have read somewhere, I am not in a position to verify this, that a  typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, filtering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That's over 1% of of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car. These calculations could be best guesses, but they are worth giving a thought to.
A simple 'hello' or even a 'whatsup doc' has now evolved into an addictive communication malady that influences our daily lives in more ways than we can think of.

Work life - a new definition ?

Today is a Friday. In this part of the world, it is a 'Sunday'. However in the virtual world that we all have migrated to, the 'day' and time does not matter. The sun never sets on the cyber empire. My queries of yesterday, my yesterday, are fetching me answers even as I write this, from people who have just started the day. Time seems to have ceased to be the fourth dimension. The working day seems to have become a continuum.

I work on my present through the emails and the forums that I am active in. Every 'ping' and 'pop-up window' pulls me into the present and  'here'. It injects an urgency into me and makes me react immediately. It tosses all my 'time management' lessons out of the window. Makes me drop everything and react.  The emails are so here and so now that it is not strange to get a follow-up phone call with every mail. At the office the colleague in the cubicle across sends a mail and then walks over to remind you to check the mail.  My daughter, then a school going kid, once spent half-day at my office with me. While we drove back home her question was - is mailing the only activity that you do at the office? Very observant! 

Are we seeing an overdose of communication in the corporate world? Yes, email threads (they should be called ropes) twist and turn adding new tributaries flowing through the organization. Every fibre added to this thread has its creator's signature and shouts out a loud 'Yes I am also here'. Some contributors pick up the wrong end of the thread and respond resulting in the thread going in two different directions at times. This often happens when simultaneous responses are given. While 'Great minds think alike' the simultaneous responses need not be similar. The responses can then see a branching of the thread. The email thread now becomes a many-headed Hydra. Like the mythological Hydra for every broken thread, multiple threads come up. The only Hercules who can perform this labor successfully is either the head of the organization or a major system crash.
As all 'e' gets replaced with 'm', we are now over-reliant on mobile communication. Not voice but text and all other media. Corporate communication too has percolated to WhatsApp, boon or a bane time alone can tell.  I have managed a day at the office using my cell phone to do almost all the work when I forgot the laptop at home. It wasn't too difficult. I know a colleague who hardly uses his laptop, constantly on the phone and in a coffee shop. Of course, he must now be wearing a neck collar.
This flexibility of work hours and office space becoming all-pervasive has impacted the working hours greatly. Telecommuting, working from home are all fancy words for not having to shave, bath, dress up and commute. One can slouch around in PJs in one's favourite resting place at home and work. The downside is that there are no fixed hours to this working lifestyle. The communication expectations have now scaled new levels. Personal or official, one is expected to respond instantly. Time or day of the week is immaterial.
So in today's world with the workspace and work hours creeping into one's personal space and time, it was indeed a whiff of fresh air when the French government ruled in favour of employees to disconnect from work after work hours. The seamless work hours has created an explosion of undeclared labour. It has also resulted in expectations that border on the impossible. When half your team sits in a different time zone, your workday stretches beyond the hours stipulated by labour laws of your country. It becomes impossible to disconnect from work and when a government recognises this, it is a welcome sign.
I am told that the new gen or the millennials, with their addiction to instant gratification, find it difficult to differentiate between the real life and cyber life. They do not know where to draw the line when it comes to instant gratification. A post in the cyberspace gets them instant likes similarly they expect the workplace to be full of low-hanging fruits. The reality of the workspace frustrates them and resulting in short tenures at each job.
Work life continues to be constantly evolving and those in a bricks-and-mortar 9 to 5 job find it extremely difficult to fathom the lives of those who have flexi hours and flexi location options.

Give me a Lift

In most of our vertical cities, we are condemned to use the lift at least four times in a day. It begins with getting out of the apartment and coming down to earth and the second use could possibly be when you go up to your ivory tower cubicle or work desk. A third occasion is when the lift hurls you down at the end of your workday from your ivory tower to join the multitude of tired souls trudging back home. And if you are a homing bird the fourth occasion is when the lift encapsulated you and delivers you back to your cocoon your home. Of course, there are people who do not use the elevators even once a day and also those whose usage far exceed the four occasions described above.

I have started noticing the 'lift culture' and I can see it is very telling on the location, time of the day and of course nature of users.

let us look at the 'waiting for the lift' stage. The current generation of potential spondylitis patients that we are, we tend to avoid eye-contact with fellow travelers and busy ourselves with our phones or similar devices. Everyone has their head bent at an awkward angle and eyes squinting at the bright screens of their phones. While most may not have a new message or mail to read, they still do this to avoid any social contact of the brick and mortar, or should I say 'flesh and bone' kind. Then there is always the risk of awkward incidents such as opening up an audio or video which are private in nature. People also use this as an opportunity to show off the devices they possess.

Although eye contact with fellow travelers is avoided, everyone keeps out a surreptitious look for the next lift arriving. There will also be some stealthy moves being made towards the next arrival. Invariably you will find a habitual offender rushing in from nowhere to take up the most vantage access point. These late comers have perfected the art of looking busy, important and most of all the 'I was always here' look.

Reverse engineers are another category of lift users that one comes across. This tribe will take the lift going to the basement to actually go up to a higher floor. They are the ones who have used the local trains in Mumbai  - where you travel back to Churchgate in order to go to Borivli! They beat the crowd and probably lose a few precious seconds of their lives. 

At any and sometimes every floor one comes across the lost souls. The lost souls are the directionless ones who have this perpetual question for the lift traveler when the door opens - " going down?" The indicator outside can flash the brightest colours but these Columbuses will only be satisfied if an inmate answers that the lift is indeed traveling sideways.

The 'button pushers' are another category of panicky travelers. They have a strong belief that the more number of times you push the button the faster the lift travels or arrives. Once they get into the lift they will push the button to close the doors, they do not believe that the door will automatically close and also they do not want anyone else to get in.

The 'blockers' are the category that has just come off the soccer field or the basket ball court. They prefer to travel with a lot of elbow space and leg room. Once they enter the lift, they get rooted at the entrance to ensure nobody else gets in. They run the occupational hazard of getting tackled by the latecomers (described elsewhere).

Finally we have the lift lovers, they leave the lift very reluctantly at their destination. They continue the conversation with fellow travelers, who still have floors to go, holding the door open with total disregard for other passengers. 

Cash Q

Having heard and seen in the media the new experience that everyone is facing these days in India, I ventured out of my virtual world to gain first-hand bricks and mortar experience. I walked up to my Bank branch that I frequent when in town, armed with my cheque book. There were just 4 men standing outside the door, but when I tried to enter the guard stopped me and asked the purpose of my visit. I flashed the cheque book and told him that I wanted to withdraw money from my account. He asked me to join the four guys and wait. After 5 minutes when the guard again appeared at the door, I showed him the words "Preferred" on the cheque leaf and asked if I could get the 'preference'. He gave me the helpless smile and shrug of shoulders. Another 5 minutes and the five of us got ushered into the branch. My account manager recognized me and greeted me. When he learned the purpose of my visit he pointed towards the two counters that had about 30 people each standing and told me that I could choose to join either of the queues. Very helpful account manager! Next time when he makes an overseas call to speak to me, I will let him know my exact feelings.
As I stood very patiently and with every intention of seeing this through, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a gentleman with a couple of forms and cheques in hand. When I inquisitively arched my eyebrows, he said - ' Sir why don't you go to that counter, there are only two people waiting there'. Of course, my parents have taught me as a kid not to talk to strangers and over the years I have grown very skeptic of strangers who try to help me in a bank. So my response was I am OK here. Then two others also said the same thing to me. In a democracy, you cannot refuse such an offer voiced by more than one person. I moved to this shorter queue and stood happily there. The gentleman from the longer queue then explained to me - ' Sir this line is for senior citizens, why should you wait so long in the other line'.
I was out of the bank in another two minutes. So it didn't take me five hours to withdraw money but the experience has now got me staring into any mirror that I pass by. Senior citizen - who me ? Couldn't be, at least not yet! 

when past comes haunting

It was in October 21years ago that I first left the safe shore of home and the first foreign land that I touched down was Kuwait. Again I was back in the same land for a two-day business trip. An uneventful and empty flight brought me into the city. Uneventful, yes until the bumpy touchdown. I did my regular routine, done it at least 10 times in the past decade and half, of rushing to the Visa counter and picking up a number from the token machine. The next part of the process is anybody's guess - your number appears on the screen and you go to the counter and hand over the paperwork along with the cost of Visa and get a paper that allows you entry into the country. So here I was at the counter when my number came up and the polite lady after some checks on the computer screen asked me to take a seat as she had to check more.

Now, this was an unscripted activity. A different activity from the usual. After a decent wait of over 30 mins, I got called by an in-charge with stars on his shoulder. He said 'you have a fine'.

Not fully understanding what he said, I replied 'yes, I am fine'.

Then his next comment slowly sunk in 'no you are not fine. You have an outstanding fine'.

That was an Oops moment for me and I asked 'what fine'.

His response was ' I don't know, telephone, electricity, anything!'.

'But I left this country in 2000. 16 years ago. While I have come back at least 10 times on short visits and never once have I been told that I have some dues'. the response was a shrug of shoulders and a request for me to sit and wait.

After a lot of 'please wait for one minute', actually after two hours I was informed that I had a due from a traffic accident. 

That eventful morning then flashed before me, the grey wintry morning when I had an accident on the fifth ring road. Yes it was in 1999 December, almost 17 years ago. I recollected the white smoke that billowed out behind my car as the rubber burned the asphalt or was it the other way around. Either way, I had hit the car in front and I was unhurt. Couldn't say the same about the car, as I had to exit from not my usual exit door. In two minutes a police car reached me and was controlling the rush hour traffic around us. I felt more important when I saw the police helicopter hovering over us but then it disappointed  me by flying away. The gentleman whom I hit, let me rephrase that, the person driving the car which my car hit, drove me away from the accident site. I do recollect us going to the police station and sorting out all the paper work.

But now, after 17 years the incident had come back on the screen of an official. I expressed my willingness to pay and another chapter of the saga was opened. They, the officials, did not have a clue  about the process to accept this payment. It took another two hours before a genius appeared on the site and took me to a different counter where the payment could be accepted through a manual transaction.  Paper, pen technology saved the day for me.

As I write this I still am sure I had paid this fine 17 years ago! 

Clinical visit

Touch wood! My association with clinics have been limited and rare. I am not the healthiest specimen on the face of earth but probably the laziest and a firm believer of time being the best healer. My better half being non-believer of the idiom, forced me to visit a clinic for a chronic issue that I had been carrying around for over 10 years. The issue was a harmless swelling behind the ankle that kept me company all these years without complaining of my foot odour or any other discomfort that I subject my lower extremities to. 

So off I went to the nearest clinic. This was a new one that I was venturing to as I had moved house recently and the old clinic did not move with me to this side of the town. This clinic, looking more like a five star hotel, was recommended by a well meaning friend. I walked into the cool confines of the entrance lobby and looked for the reception. Having located the reception in the bright cavernous lobby, I marched  purposefully  to the lady manning the counter. To a  not so welcoming look I said the greetings, which got reciprocated grudgingly and the eyebrows formed a interrogation sign. Paradoxical words " how can I help you" sounded from below the interrogation sign. The conversation went this way .

Me - I would like to see a GP, please.

She - We don't have GPs , we only have specialists. Which specialist would you like to meet?

Me - I am not sure, that's why I prefer meeting a GP who can then direct me to the right specialist.

She - what exactly is your problem?

Me  - I have a swelling behind my ankle 

She - Can I see ?

Me - Are you a doctor ?

By then she walked around the counter and said - I am not a doctor but I can decide which specialist you should go to.

I exposed my ankle and she let out some sympathetic noises, which sounded like the mother hen chiding young chicken, and said - let me refer you to Surgery.

As the word surgery cut into me, I stitched it with a response - I would still prefer a doctor to diagnose and refer me to anyone else. 

That response of mine questioned her years of experience sitting at the reception and handing out diagnoses and remedies to uninitiated souls like me. She certainly did not take it kindly and pronounced her final judgement.

She - I have seen this before also and the surgeon will have to operate on this and cut it out. The only way to treat this is to surgically remove it. 

Me - Thank you .

I rushed out of the clinic and i could hear her trying to reassure that it wasn't as bad as she made it out to be, but I was keen to break Usain Bolt's record. Once in the safer confines of my car and a kilometer from the clinic I wondered with such receptionist around what would the doctors role be?

Seeking refuge

Whose shores are these 

Water so cold

And sand so hard

My heart so still. 

No sand castles

Our castles destroyed

Not running barefoot in the sand

But running away from motherland. 

No laughter no cries of joy

No lazy sunny afternoons

This shore so quiet

As tears lap the shore. 

To the welcoming shore

They said we will go 

Unwanted , unloved and unknown 

We have been washed up the shores. 

Why is this shore not mine

Why did  I inherit a land with mines

Why is three year old a refugee

Was I born to wrong parents. 

I feel the cold water coming back

To caress my cheeks so white 

Is it sea water or tears of humanity 

Both so salty.