http://WWW.social-networking-the-way-forward

As my fingers slurred on the keyboard typing the last status message on Facebook before I went for my siesta, my mother-in-law entered the room...she was struggling to end the call on the mobile phone and therefore needed my favor; she, otherwise, never disturbed me while I "worked" on my laptop and I thanked the world for not having educated her enough to understand the virtual dimensions of my "work." If you please, I am a "social networking expert" employed by my hard-working husband so that the peace of the house is maintained as long as I am hooked on to networking. He had researched well, he gifted me a laptop as a marriage gift. He not only became the most trendy person going around by doing that, he also made me feel how much he appreciated my being technically savvy...at least till a month. He must have read through all the overflowing emails, sms-s, status messages, infinite friend list, long chat sessions, online gift exchanges, etc., etc. before marriage. In short, he just handed over almost all his boring duties as a husband to the Internet and freed himself of having to shop around for endless hours with his decked-up wife, play the perfect loving husband to bring whatever her highness wanted at any time of the day, the monotony of having to buy gifts on all occasions...I realized I had been taken for a ride when he said this just a month later, brushing aside my request to go for shopping, "arre, e-Bay, Amazon, Naaptol.com, futurebazaar.com, indiaplaza.com...sab hai na!!"

 

I sulked in a corner, despised the laptop when I added 2+2 but then, where could I go??? I was no more a vagabond to wander around alone in an unknown city (not that I didn't have googlemap or my xyz city.com on me but...) and neither had the liberties left to do so with my mom-in-law's expectations scrutinizing all my moves through night and day...if my saree was in place (which I learnt to perfect, thanks to YouTube videos and a crazy woman who demonstrated the process with much elan), if I sang the morning prayers in the sweetest voice (thanks to bhajan-lyrics, rituals, all elaborately available on hindu streaming sites), and cooked a new dish everyday (per kind favor of recipes galore on fiesty food sites). It was a thumbs-up on all fronts...and like it or not, I soon became the blue-eyed daughter-in-law of my M-I-L, much to the chagrin of my S-I-Ls...sister-in-laws...oh c'mon! you better get used to all this, it gets tedious to type out the whole thing during bitchy chat sessions.

 

However, life's not so easy...that little craving--to spend time together, a little of that human touch...started disturbing me...and a workaholic husband just added to my woes. I tried, I promise I tried to build a human relationship where we could give each other "quality time" but both of us were possessed...he, by the paucity of time and the stress of delivering and achieving...and I, by my little expectations of mush and attention...the "quality" hour of the evening started turning sour...it became a "hearing" session for grievances with neither of us having an ear for the other..."Oh! Damn it, lets dissolve the whole thing," I say and turn on for help---FORUMS FOR UNHAPPY HOUSEWIVES...I type on the Google page...my SOS calls are answered by the many concerned out there in the virtual world. It doesn't take much to jot down few words of concern and free advice anyway...but I cannot discredit one DIY advice - it implied--"immerse yourself in the gigabytes of the world--your life will start pacing at 1000 Mps" and I did so... My M-I-L is also concerned about why I need to "work" for such long hours. My physical world stands frozen, stagnant and cold. However, like all other tiffs in the world between spouses, mine too was not eternal...soon, we had a new member in the house, my child. I soon realized that I wasn't a new mother, there was hardly an instance when I was overworked or overwhelmed by motherhood...I seemed to have all the solutions at the tip of my fingers...nine months of pregnancy also included a nine-month course on motherhood, not a single site remained unread...and then, you also had health sites, culture specific new parent forums (Indiaparenting.com), etc., etc. I tell you, I almost gave my M-I-L a complex...I am not sure if she loves me or hates me for that but she sure appreciates the way I am bringing up her grandson.

 

For a few years, the "human factor" engaged me but my son grew up, all too soon. However, the world knew that I was on top of the world...every move my son made, every milestone he crossed, yes...even the number of times he pooped...everything was up and loaded on Facebook, as status or photos, my never ending rendezvous with the rest of the world "out there." Opinions were never given such importance...every comment--the "who thought what"---was a must read. The only opinions I disliked were the one freely offered by my M-I-L and the other I-Ls. How physical and crude it appeared as compared to the sugar-coated ones "out there." How time flies...my son goes to school now and I am a someone "out there" now. Just Google my name and there I am....so-and-so belongs to blah blah blah communities, so-and-so said $%&#* on Twitter, so-and-so has won the "Best Blogger" prize (Oh yes, I even earn now---I made my passion my "work" and I love it). I have an image to protect out there...I have to visit every corner of the world...after all, the world will have to know that I am happening...the pics betcha say so. In fact, in the days to come, click and upload should have the same function key...memories are a thing of the past, I have to click because I have to upload it---"out there."

 

Today, I am a happy woman in my world "out there."

 

I believe in all the love seeping through status messages, comments, and texts...
I feel secure in the presence of easily accessible (24*7, across geographies) friends with rightly worded shoulders to lean on
I revel in the celebrity status I have earned in a scrolling world
I experience spirituality in the transience of unattached ties "out there"...

 

In short, I've just been liberated. Hail Freedom!

 

My husband is now tired of working and so has suddenly found the time to judge my unbecoming inclinations. He disapproves my materialistic affiliations and raises his brow at my addiction...so he says. He says I wasn't like this...like what? Like...Fake?...so he says. Little does he realize that companies are running on this fakeness...the world over...female Internet users outnumber males, as per a survey by eMarketeer (USA).

In India, I happen to be one of the 11% of the 5.3% population of the 1.2 billion, the reason why I have not been taken too kindly about the way I am...but the fact remains--this is the way I am---partially brought up by the WWW, educated by the WWW, befriended by the WWW, accompanied by the WWW wherever I go, and almost married to the WWW...
The fact remains that I mistrust all else but Google when I need answers, the fact remains that I have found a place to hang out in Facebook and Twitter, the fact remains that the virtual world appeals to me more than the unendearing objects around me.

So when I read "Why women mean business" (Avivah WittenBorg-Cox and Alison Maitland), it doesn't surprise me when they say that  the 3 Ws (read-WWW) are the forces to reckon with in the days to come--

• Weather
• Women
• Web

 I am yet to decide whether the web has taken the women by storm or it is the other way around but one thing is for sure, women and the web have definitely arrived and come to stay together, for reasons - to each her own. And as long as they are together, they are bound to cause a turbulence in the weather--be it at home or be it at the marketplace--it could be an avalanche, it could be a tsunami but it is just around the bend. Is the world listening???