Faceboook and a  Heartbook

This I specifically address to all those who greeted me and wrote nice quips saying how nicely I look in the facebook profile picture. For a person trained to ‘get appropriately embarrassed as a sign of politeness when openly praised’, to be honest, the two hundred plus ‘likes’ and nice comments in a few hours secretly delighted me. The way how some memories have been recollected and ‘lost connections’ reestablished, has really touched my heart. I could see my own students, good old friends, acquaintances, old colleagues (a few of them), cousins, nephews, nieces, and ‘facebook connects’ (whom I have not personally known) ‘liking’ me. Thank you.

For a person who belongs to a generation that believed in ‘personal relationships’ and ‘direct contacts’, this is a bit difficult to understand. It is my young (24 year) old techie friend who in the first place inspired me to change my ‘profile’ picture. So, I was careful to take a few pictures as soon as I returned from the hair dresser. (These days my barber takes Rs. 700/- to do a reasonable job on my head with the hair dye). When I said this to my techie friend, he said, “Why boast of your barber, I can make you look much better if I ‘process you’ on my photoshop.” I certainly allowed myself to be processed before I showed my face on your pages. And you all seem to like it. When you all said, you like it, I went back to see myself again and again… and again and again. My photo slowly started gathering some light and hue and I looked more handsome in it. Every time I went back, I looked more handsome and more handsome. I started liking myself very much. I too did not fail to check how rapidly the ‘like’ count went up. I was quiet pleased with the going.

As I was looking at my own image, my old memory popped up, something which I had not recalled for years. Once upon a time when I was a teen ager I had a Canadian female ‘pen friend’ by name Amy Logan. Oh! I must tell the younger ones who a pen friend is. A pen friend is one whom you have not met but become friendly only through exchange of letters. He or she normally lived in a foreign country. My mother encouraged me to have pen friends for the purpose of improving my written communication and acquiring a cosmopolitan outlook. Watch the word cosmopolitan. But ironically, she hated all my local பெண் friends and drove me mad. Amy was of my age, 16 or 17 at that time and I really longed to see her at least by looking at one of her photos. Though she wrote very sweet letters, she never sent me one. Though I was a little disappointed I, I went about pleasurably casting her in several images my creativity permitted. The exchange did not last long.

 As these thoughts were gaining strength, my brain whispered in a measured tone, “Hi… Chinnaraj… like you, Amy must be on Facebook… why can’t you search for her?” Listening to this voice, I searched…and re-searched. I know Amy Logan could have become Amy something else now… Maybe, foolishly I thought Google can ‘mine’ the ‘unminable’. Several Amy faces, young and old, pretty looking and not very pretty looking came up on the screen. I narrowed down to faces older and then much older. Then I gave up.

After that I conjured up the old memories hidden deep in my heart. But the image of Amy I created long long ago was too fragmented to develop into a recognizable form in my mind’s sensors. But this sudden popping up of an old memory brought me a strange sense of mystery and a fleeting joy. Few minutes had passed and I anxiously went back to see how the ‘like’ counts improved. I took another look at my profile picture. This time, I didn’t look that handsome in that picture. More I looked, more it deformed itself into some ugliness. I went back to my ‘heartbook’ trying to turn a few more of its crumbled pages.

Then my wife’s shrill voice rudely shook me up, “It’s enough you played with your I-pad…your dinner is ready.”