Category: Yesterday

  • Ex-communities

    One of the pleasant side-effects of the pandemic in Bangalore is the (relative) reduction in time to get to places. That meant I didn’t grumble much when we had to make a trip to Jalahalli. The original plan was to use the Metro but thanks to the reduced time, we took a cab. Typical tourist behaviour! (For Whitefield residents, Jalahalli is practically tourism)

    Our destination was somewhere inside the HMT kingdom and on our way back, as the sun began its descent, the backseat of a car was a great place to reflect on folks spending their Sunday evening. Using HMT and time together is predictably Facebook meta, but there is a poignance in the vestiges of a once thriving community. A cinema, an officers club, an auditorium, a playground, a hospital and even a museum, all centred around a factory. Someone’s vision of a self-sufficient ecosystem.

    And like all ecosystems, it has a shelf-life. But parts of it persist, and the crowd in the playground, where two cricket matches were being played simultaneously, was proof of that. It reminded me of the university campus, and a phrase I had used for it almost a decade ago – islands in time.

    I am probably biased because I am an 80s kid. Technically 70s, but hey, what’s a couple of years in a few decades? I think the ecosystems that I experienced in the 80s gave people a shared identity. And I could not help but juxtapose this with apartment life. Yes, we call it community, but how many really are?

    I also believe we have been moving relentlessly towards a more individual-centric was of living. Technology and specifically mobile internet has accelerated it. Ironically, the pandemic was a speed breaker that made us realise our shared existence in isolation, but the lesson, I pessimistically believe, won’t stick. Algorithms ensure that our digital consumption is a warped version of reality tailor-made for the individual. And when everything from food to self actualisation is a swipe away, community gets played differently.

    One shift is from real to digital. I am old enough to remember the first years of the consumer internet (in India, at least) and the online communities then. IRC, anyone? 🙂 And the early days of Web 2.0 – from Google Reader to Del.icio.us to Twitter. Yes, these ecosystems too have a shelf life. The internet has matured, and by definition, that is a loss of innocence. And likes and ‘fams’ simultaneously reveal and exacerbate the malaise within. I happened to be reading Behave, and found this paragraph relevant here –

    …neighbourhoods readily communicate culture to kids. Is there garbage everywhere? Are houses decrepit? What’s ubiquitous – bars, churches, libraries, or gun shops? Are there many parks, and are they safe to enter? Do billboards, ads and bumper stickers sell religious or material paradises, celebrate acts martyrdom, or kindness and inclusiveness?

    Look around, across real and virtual neighbourhoods, and think about what you see. Maybe it’s me, but it is indeed ironic that the era of hyper-connectivity creates an inherent sense of disconnectedness. Not just from others, but from the self too. That, is a dangerous place to be.

  • “Let them know you’re thinking about them”

    You’re familiar with that – it’s one of Facebook’s birthday reminders. Until some time back, I used to religiously wish folks on their birthday. But I have stopped that, it felt like cheating. To me, this sort of wishing reduced the significance of the event and the wish, and almost brought it to the level of an already degraded currency on the network – the ubiquitous ‘Like’. I know, this can be argued quite a bit. At a very simplistic level, wishing someone on the birthday could be like a little shot of dopamine for them, and easy for you to provide too.

    But I have at least two perspectives against this. Call it over-analysis if you will. The first is where I draw a parallel with travel. In the case of places, increased access and convenience tend to bring in people with motives different from an earlier set. From travelers to tourists. Right or wrong is subjective so let’s just say that the character of the places, and their residents change. Arguably, the first set of folks had a deeper bond with the place and more of an interest in its well being. And so too, with the wishes on Facebook. My birthday is off Facebook and I know that those who wish me now really have me in their thoughts.  (more…)

  • Knew you, again

    Jon Westenberg wrote on a subject I too have been mulling over recently – It’s Sad When Someone You Know Becomes Someone You Knew – on people who have become footnotes in one’s life. I could relate to it, though I do think that many relationships have a context-based shelf life. I have written about this before – way back in 2007.

    My recent thoughts on the subject, however, are on a couple of tangents. It’s about how people change across time, and the way we react to it. I’ve noticed that I tend to ‘freeze’ people at the last set of close interactions we’ve had, and be very surprised to realise they’ve changed. Silly but true! In some cases, it seems I have expected them to remain as-is even after a couple of decades, and get annoyed because I find it really hard to relate to their current version! [posts in 2008, 2009 (3rd para)] In other cases, I come across a person’s published work, or opinion, and ‘refuse’ (in my mind) to accept the excellent thought/nuanced perspective because I find it to be incompatible with my view of the person I had known! Someone I know had become someone I knew. (more…)

  • Habits and home

    It’s been happening on enough recent Cochin trips to be given the status of a habit – visiting The Grand hotel for lunch. The food is predictably good, though they take liberties with what can be called ‘meals’. But there’s more to it. The Grand has been around for as long as I can remember, and in the otherwise rapidly changing landscape of my hometown, it offers a solidity and anchorage that is rare and appealing. This time, we had this guy seated right behind us. 🙂

    Another habit, which is even older, is shopping from Malabar Chips – for friends, colleagues, and us. Some of the people working there have been around for decades, and I told D how I’d watched them change over the years. “..all the faces that made up my childhood“, as Rana Dasgupta phrases it in Solo. It made me think how we probably notice changes in others more than they themselves do. By the same token, we don’t notice ourselves change. (more…)