m a n u s c r y p t s

A few years ago, 3 to be precise, I might’ve been in the thick of it. The fire at Carlton Towers. My visiting card then carried this – Mid Day, 301, Carlton Towers…. No, I wouldn’t have been tweeting, because twitter would come into my life only three months later. But perhaps this was the reason the entire scenario bothered me, even as I sat watching the Twitter stream and the reactions. At first, i thought it was some minor mishap, and even cracked a mallu pun at TGIF’s expense. (@mixdev reminded me of that yesterday) But later, of course, I realised it wasn’t.

I don’t watch news channels, so I was spared the repeated shots (a good post by my friend Nishant) of those tragic jumps. I was watching the stream though, and kept seeing retweets of @jackerhack , who was stuck in the building. I read about people jumping from the windows, and my first reaction was what the hell was wrong with them? What did they expect, a bloody bed of roses??!! And then I realised that there was no way I could even imagine, let alone understand what they must’ve felt in those moments. The closest I could get to is perhaps when I have trouble breathing. Now these are very very minor asthmatic attacks, but even then I know the intense desire to get one lungful of air. And that’s perhaps just a decimal percentage of the trauma those poor poor souls must’ve gone through.

Trivialisation bothers me. I still read Malayala Manorama daily, and my biggest grouse with them is the way they capture deaths. Not events like the above, but individual deaths. Though I realise its perhaps a way of communicating to those who might not have known, reducing a life (and its end) to a few column cms with a matter-of-fact headline bothers me. Perhaps its some sort of block towards mortality. When @jackerhack ’s (okay, he has a ‘real’ name, and its easier to type – Kiran), so, when Kiran’s tweets were retweeted by everyone who had access to an enter button, it somehow reminded me of the above. After some time, when he tweeted about not panicking, I was even mildly irritated. (Sorry!) If it was meant for the twitter audience, i was wondering whether the majority of the audience cared for him enough to panic, and for those who did care for him, I wondered if the words would do any good. Was the twitter crowd mature enough not to panic, or not to see this all as a “ok, big event happening, let me part of it” thing? Are we really so different from the media we claim to hate?

Now he bloody obviously had reasons to do what he did, which he has articulated very well on his blog. I read and re-read and even before that, could empathise. And so, this is not so much about him as it is about us. Us, the crowd which blocked the roads there to take a look, us who sat watching on the tube or the stream, us the viewers and readers, us the voyeurs, and definitely me, who writes a post. Death makes a good story. With apologies to the few who don’t look at it that way, I wonder if being part of the excitement has taken a whole new turn when we’ve become the media on Twitter. Unlike the case with other media, when the crowd creates and consumes, who can complain? Yes, there are many cases in which relief and charity work have been augmented by Twitter, but this wasn’t such a case. Hopefully, all this is just me

until next time, false fire alarms?

In spite of the last post, I’m a bit ambivalent about Vir Sanghvi’s column.

On one hand, I am in complete agreement with the rebuttals that I have read – Lekhni, Amit, Rohit. Rational and well articulated.

And yet, over the years, that’s almost 7 of them, I can confidently say that blogger cliques have always been around. They may not have been formed with that intention, but over a time frame, many have developed that way, and this is a phenomenon I see on twitter too, where ‘followers’ tends to be taken literally. Will I name any? No, simply because they are cliques, and these days, cliques to mobs is a single click conversion. Heh.

Simplistically put, many news channels and newspapers started out as a means of expression. Those who produced good content realised that many were paying attention to what they had to say. They looked around and noticed that there were others of their kind too. Mutual acknowledgment was a bit difficult because of business considerations, but they still stuck together, broadly, in terms of stances towards issues. The adoption of the medium rose, bringing new audiences. Somewhere, the quality of content became iffy. Sometimes because it had become a business, and sometimes because the content creators lost objectivity and started dictating norms, because they believed their audience was THE only audience that mattered. Of course they had measurement tools. Heh. (Just a small detour to say that even media planners trash the TAM and IRS/NRS methodology, yes, go on, take a poll)

And then the web happened, and became a force to be reckoned with. It brought with it, blogs, which took less than 5 minutes to create. Some of the creators spent exactly that much of time. But others stuck on. Time and effort brought them recognition, and even some fame. They looked around, saw others of their kind. There were hardly any business consideration, linking to each other became the norm. The audience was being built all this while, and unacknowledged, a herd mentality too. Personal branding crept in. In many cases, the quality of content might have dropped with time – rehashed content using previously successful templates, link-baits, these are just online manifestations of things we see in newspapers and television. But though the posts were not as funny as they used to be or not well thought out, the audience stuck on, it was after all, a cool community to be in. There’s nothing wrong with it, its human nature to seek out kindred souls. The unfortunate part is the increasing intolerance for contra-views among many bloggers. You can see enough comment wars if you look around. At some point, perspectives became dogmas.

And then came twitter, and microbloggers. It became all the more easier – from the simple RT to #followfriday and lists, there are multiple tools available, to build audiences, and cliques. And as I’ve written before, we on Twitter are famous for mobs.

So,  my point is Mr. Sanghvi, relax. We’ve seen it all before, its only the medium that has changed. The people remain. This too shall give way to something else. If all goes according to the way it has before, in a few years, you can chuckle over post like yours by some blogger, who thinks someone in what is then the new media has been judgmental to a senior blogger. Heh.

Meanwhile, the good part is, the web makes content production and distribution very easy, so you can ignore people if you personally think they’ve ‘lost it’. You will always find a contra-voice, it might be brow beaten sometimes, but it exists.

until next time, sanguine

In an earlier post – “Brood Mode“, I’d written about expectations, and how sometimes, they cannot be met. In the context of that post, Austere had commented thus “Is it the instant-ness demanded of the response that puts one’s brain to a side?” I messaged her on Twitter, that ‘the time construct’ was something I’d planned to write on next.

Our response time has been shrinking on a continuous basis, twitter, FB etc are a manifestation of that – real time, but the changes have been happening much before that, probably with every advancement we made, not just in communication, but even things like transportation. So, the thought is, if we had more time on our hands, would we be behaving differently with people?

When I was chatting with Meeta recently, we started discussing this, in the context of relationships with people. It started with me saying that the traffic during the daily commute to work, made me forget all the rules I make for myself, because with all the lane cutting and parking woes, its easily a scenario in which you’re either aggressive or you end up on the road, literally. So I wondered if it would be different if there were no time constraints.

Despite only a superficial similarity, I was reminded of another construct – money. What started out as a tool of convenience has enslaved many and managed to dictate their actions. Much like the things we create to crunch time. The similarity ended there. Time is not money. Quite obviously, time exists with or without us, though the latter can force one to ask “Who does it exist for then? So let me put it this way, it is a construct that’s still not fully understood, whereas we made the money construct. But for the fun of it, imagine what you would’ve done if your life wasn’t dictated by time. What if you had all the time in the world. Would you be a different person? Would you behave differently with people?

As it regularly happens these days with me- by sheer coincidence, the day after I had this discussion with Meeta, I came across this work from Hugh MacLeod, which puts it so well

until next time, timed out for a fortnight

Even if you’re not really a 140 type character, you’d have heard about the CBI – Chetan Bhagat Incident, that is. But if you haven’t, not to worry much, we have a link, starring our very own celebrity blogger Nikhil Narayanan, who created the hashtag that led to the deluge. Considering Nikhil’s proximity to another author (turned politician) we’re also probing into other possible links with the external affairs ministry. But that’s for later. :p

In essence, what started as a debate on piracy – books, not Somalian warships and blockades- led to Chetan Bhagat blocking a couple of twitterers, and the phase that launched at least a few hundred tweets, each a warship using variations of the word ‘block’. Samples can be found here, and my contributions here. My friend Vimoh (as usual) wrote a very objective post on the entire episode, capturing life on Twitter and the presence of celebrities on Twitter very well. Chetan Bhagat can take solace in the fact that his desired aim of uniting India (as stated in 2 States) did happen on Twitter, with very few exceptions. My stated aim of Chasten Bhagat also happened. I think he now understands how the ‘2.0 state’ works, since a couple of days later, we found him very sportingly, making a dig at the incident – “wife screamed at me this morning for no reason. felt like blocking her.” Now that’s cool.

Some perspectives.I’ve blocked people on Twitter too (I still feel bad about those nice girls who sent me what they must’ve thought were useful links), but not after warnings in the public stream. Like I commented on twitter, The Comic Project said it best here, ” If you want to block, block; don’t talk” . In the same article, Surekha also pointed out that though it began as fun, it quickly spiraled into a mob. Something that Nithin, who proved to be a very good voice of reason, had pointed out just when the spiraling started. The ironic part is that I’d have missed out on all of this if Surekha hadn’t popped up on a chat window and told me something was brewing. (Fault attribution check :p)  And though I usually avoid hashtags, a window of wordplay opportunity I couldn’t miss. So i dived right in, ignoring the standard operating procedure of checking out origins. Big mistake, no pun intended.

I hate mobs, and on the other blog, it is a subject that keeps appearing every now and then. So it sucks to have been part of one. In a post from long ago – 5 years back, titled “Communities and echo chambers“, Dave Winer commented “Your “friends” are an angry controlling abusive mob. …… If friendship is just that, people being friendly and supportive, great. But if it’s really defining who it’s okay to attack, then it’s not friendship.” I perhaps cannot define the relationships on twitter (always) as ‘friendship’, but as I become part of communities on various kinds of social networks on the web, it becomes all the more important to keep a check on the ‘belonging’ craving. Its a lesson learnt.

until next time, mob bile…

PS. But all that doesn’t stop me from an occasional dig – like yesterday, when I suggested a brand ambassador for Haagen Dazs, after their franchisee in Delhi did a unique preview – for those with international passports only. To an extent, the mob was in action yesterday too

Sometime back, I read an extremely interesting post by Chris Messina – how we’re now hit by a plethora of data and information on the real time web, which our brains are not adapted, and how, in order to process this, we’d require an augmentation of our existing abilities.

The information overload has been happening for a little while now. I’ve been on Twitter for over a couple of years now. Between reading blogs, writing them, microblogging, Facebook and all the shiny little tools that keep coming up, its a constant juggling act. I can also see a drastic change in the relationships there already, as compared to the banter of the initial days. New people, new thoughts, old people who’re changing with time, old thoughts recycled.  A simple @ tag connects lives. Meanwhile, its not just relationships and thoughts that change, but also behaviour – the need to share an experience, attention deficit, and so on. These would obviously vary with an individual’s usage of Twitter, facebook etc, but I’m sure there are more like me.

While I’ve been dimly conscious of the vastness of the Twitterverse, I had a more tangible realisation only after i came across a tool (from an article shared by Shefaly). As I sat watching the pictures streaming across the screen on Twitcaps, I felt I was somehow connected to all of them across the world sharing images – from parties to churches to landscapes to death to raunchy stuff to coffee mugs and so many many other things. There are multiple images being shared every second, and I had an acute realisation of the magnitude of change happening, in terms of connectedness and sharing. The population of the world, the population of your own city, the number of people working in your office/living in the apartment complex- as the numbers come down, the people slowly change from a blurred intangibility to a focused person. But as we get more and more networked, the number of persons who become tangible are increasing, the arguments about their relative importance to self notwithstanding. As Chris says in the article, can human beings cope after a point?

Sometime earlier this year, I remember writing a post about speciation – the evolution of the human species, and how replacement of body parts and advancement might finally end up in a being that may not match our current concept of human, or even living, like the Cybermen in Dr.Who. In that post, I had also mentioned Homo Evolutis, one of whose characteristics was networked intelligence.

As the information deluge gathers momentum, there may be those who choose not to be part of it, who are comfortable not being part of this vast stream of consciousness, while there may be others who use their abilities and the augmentation to embrace this. These are obviously two extremes, and its quite possible that humans would figure out a middle path. But I already see this divide happening – some leaving it by choice, some left out by circumstances. The learning curve is becoming so steep that after a few years, it might be difficult or even impossible to catch up. And that’s how I begin to wonder whether we’re rapidly approaching the point when the species will diverge. Maybe not in my lifetime, but within a couple of generations?

There’s another aspect of all this that I wondered about. With the increasing amount of information and the speed at which we’re forced to process it, will we have time to acquire more perspectives, or continuing that cycle, accumulate more baggage? Will that change the way we behave with people, and the way we live life? Will we become more objective? Or will we become more biased, relying on notions we don’t have time to change, and behaving accordingly?

As I write this there is a stream of thoughts running in my head – of times, friends and relationships. Poignant moment as I realise the vast yet connected nature of the universe and its inhabitants. In the miniscule amount of my lifetime that I have spent on Twitter, I realise that people and relationships have changed, perhaps irrevocably. The lifestream will be an interesting read for me later, if I do manage it. Meanwhile life flows, faster, faster, until each second and beyond is accounted for, with streamers in between, so that we might remember…just..

until next time, you’re here..now..reading post #700..thank you

There’s an old man whom I meet almost everyday now – he’s a parking attendant. He has a speech impediment that renders most of what he’s saying incoherent. He claims to know quite a few languages and from what I make out of his Malayalam, it is quite passable. I did try to make conversation with him a few times, but felt uncomfortable every time I asked him to repeat something. Sometimes I see him talking to himself. Maybe he is relaxed when he doesn’t have to explain, or maybe he doesn’t want a response when someone cannot understand him.

A few experiences made me compare his condition to my communication on Twitter. I have always fancied Twitter for the lifestream capability. That’s one of the reasons (the fear of losing the lifestream) that I’ve even started hosting my tweets in my own space. But, while I can do that on the blog, the conversations and some interesting people I come across make an effective bonus that keeps me hanging in there.

However, last week, something made me question my Twitter existence. On two consecutive days, I was ‘forced’ (yes, I do take responsibility for forcing myself too) to explain tweets which were my reactions to a couple of stuff that were being talked about on Twitter. The reactions were not pro or against anyone, and did not even touch upon the central issues, they were just interesting to me from a thoroughly different perspective. No, I am not going to detail them here, but suffice to say that while I was explaining, I felt like the old man, who found it so difficult to communicate something that perhaps (and most likely) in his head, doesn’t suffer from any lack of clarity at all. It frustrated me that, even keeping aside barriers like language and speech impediments, it has become impossible for us (I blame myself too, and am generalizing, so those above all this, please ignore) these days to take a statement or idea and not immediately judge it and catalog it safely into some stereotype we have made in our head (in both cases, I was considered either pro something or against something, when I didn’t have an opinion at all, because the issues themselves were of relatively lesser importance to me)

Sometimes, I see the old man in conversation with others, and he seems to be enjoying it. Maybe his companions know him enough to figure out what he’s trying to say, or maybe they’re just nice people who would like to see him happy and make him feel that there are people who understand him, in spite of his disability. If it’s the latter, I hope he never finds out.

until next time, communication channel surfing

When he entered the place, there was already a crowd. All he wanted was to be able to have some decent conversations. He realized that he’d have to find a handle if he were to make any headway. And then he found her and realized it was possible to have a conversation amidst 140 characters.

until next time, my second anniversary dedication to Twitter. 2 days from now

The thought started with a tweet of mine sometime back- “if some of my twitter friends lived geographically closer, my real social life would rock too ” At least one blogger and now microblogger seemed to think so too. Why Twitter friends? Because on Facebook, and earlier Orkut, its mostly reunions or keeping in touch with those you already know. They are what i call contextual friends – made by us at some point in time at school, college or at some workplace. Their relevancy decreases with time and space. Yes, that is generalisation, and I do have a way of coldly analysing it. Humour me

Blogging and Twitter work in a different way. You guys read this blog because you like the content, or you have to laugh twice a week at how a guy exhibits his lack of writing skills so blatantly to the world. Anyway, the majority of you do not know me from reality. Now increase and decrease the number of characters (people and letters respectively ) and you get Twitter. So in the case of blogs and twitter, you first get to know people virtually, and if all works well, you perhaps might meet up really. Now, in my case, except for a few meetings (that i can count on one hand) and one blog meet (which reaffirmed that I shouldn’t be attending them) I have kept my anti social record quite clean.

But the Twitter statement came because I’ve come across at least a couple of people on Twitter, with whom i have vibed splendidly. While it started off in my characteristic guarded manner, over a period of time, I’ve been able to be truly me, and not do anything for acceptability, with them.

Let me elaborate a bit on this. In reality, we befriend people with whom we have a few things in common. There are some traits of theirs which we don’t particularly like, but since the net takeout is positive, we continue the relationship. Some of us, knowing that others dont like a particular trait, play it down in front of them, to be more acceptable. This is something I’ve grown to hate, and which along with my occasional penchant for “Hey, spade”/switching off, would partially explain the decrease in my real social activities.

In reality its very difficult to tap people on their back, ask them ‘hey, are you interested in bollywood, F1, spirituality, music….and subscribe to certain views’ and then have sensible discussions, where we can even agree to disagree. I think virtuality makes it easier, but the snag then, is geography. The other snag is that it will push me deeper into the anti social shell, because now I know kindred souls exist, albeit far away.

until next time, i still agree to a bit of socialism though

I always wonder what the ‘hard disk’ capacity of the human brain is… maybe we’ve or will figure out ways to quantify it, but unlike the mechanical one, or even ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, it will be a long while before we can get to choose what the brain keeps and what it send to the recycle bin. Maybe, by that time, they will also figure out how to ‘upgrade’ the human brain’s capacity.

In terms of memories, we’ve been doing it forever, from clay tablets to computers, the aim has always been to store information, though processing and artifical intelligence did get into the picture later. But having notepad and word documents with dates and activities seems a strange way of documenting life.

Which, i am guessing, is the reasons I stick to Twitter, but am always on the lookout for lifestreaming tools, like the one I have installed here. Its quite twitter heavy but also pulls information from my blogs, and a few other online accounts. I am also hoping to add Facebook status messages to it soon, since that’s also a good chronicler of happenings. This one does that too, but I’m yet to find a way to integrate it here.

In case you’re wondering why this fascination for lifestreaming, think about how you feel when you see an old photograph, hear an old song, meet an old friend.. there are so many associations it throws up.. I bet you can recollect most of these associations now – the dress you were wearing in the photo, where you got it from, where its journey with you ended, why were you looking happy or sad; where you heard that song first, the mood change it causes in you and why, what was generally happening in your life then; under what circumstances you became friends, the fun you used to have together, shared incidents and so on…. Well, I, for one, am not sure, how far back I will be able to remember, what I’ll be able to remember, and for how long… and these things are important to me because together they are what is known as my life.. and it’d be sad if I couldn’t remember the details of my own life, through my own mind or its accessories… thats the reason behind this fascination for lifestreams… maybe its to do with being a sucker for nostalgia..maybe its the way I am built…

I think it would be quite soothing at a later date, to sit back and read up the stuff that brought me to where I’d be then.. to better understand who I was, and perhaps figure out why I did what I did, why things happened to me, and so on..in essence, hunting for a pattern in the chronicle of a human life…

until next time, the sum of our lives….