Internet – The +ve Side [Part I]

This is not a serious write-up about internet. I just share two of my experiences [in two parts] – one that I had at Orkut and the other that I experienced at blogspot

Looking at the subject one might very well think that it might not be worthy of a read since the +ve and –ve sides of internet are being discussed from the time internet became popular. The answer to this is that, here I am not writing about the usual things that have already been talked of. In fact, this is not a serious write-up about internet. I just share two of my experiences [in two parts] – one that I had at Orkut and the other that I experienced at blogspot. This part might very well be a good choice for a leisure-time read. [Caution: If you don’t have an Orkut account what follows might seem Greek and Latin]

It was a fine Sunday morning in March. I entered my department computer centre only to find people sitting glued to the computer monitor. Without even going nearer to any of them I could easily tell that it was "Orkut" which was keeping them busy. I had got used to seeing this. Anyhow, today I was not in a mood to study so I thought of exploring myself - what made my classmates spend all their out-of-class time at "Orkut" [I did not have an Orkut account then]. Soon, I got an invite from one of my classmates and had an account for myself. The next one-hour went in filling up the profile and scrapping some unknown people chosen at random. Then, as I explored further, I saw the "communities" feature. So, I searched for my school in the communities. My school name is - say - "Xyz Matriculation Higher Secondary School". So, I searched for "Xyz School" and it did yield several results – none of which turned out to be my school. By that time it was lunchtime and I left.

The next day, when I went to the computer centre I was eager to see if anyone had replied to my scraps. But then no one had replied. So, I thought that I lacked the skill to speak to strangers and so I wanted to delete my account in Orkut. But before doing so I thought of giving one try for my school community again. This time I changed my search keyword. I used the abbreviation for my school name. Never did I think that this one search was going to make something unbelievable happen...

That search did give a link to a community created for my school people. It had been created just 5 days before I had searched and the sole member was the owner of the community - a girl. All I could know was that the girl lived in Canada and she called herself - say - "abc" in Orkut. Anyhow I joined the community and left a scrap in her scrapbook asking her to introduce herself. I was expecting her to ask me if I had really studied in that school. But the next day she replied saying that she knew me very well. She not only told my full name correctly [I had not given my full name in Orkut at that time] but also reminded me of myself having burnt my hand during a Deepavali 15 yrs back. I was astonished at the reply but guessed that she must either be my classmate or my sister's classmate. The next day she mailed me and she was indeed my classmate.
What happened actually is that... 13 yrs back when I entered 7th standard (11 yrs old), a girl from my class left the school. All we (me and my classmates) knew at that time was that she was going to US as her father got a job there. The girl was none other than the "abc" I met in Orkut. Actually she had left for Quebec, Canada. What happened at her side once she left the school is what makes things unbelievable. Having been in India for 11 yrs, she had developed closeness with the Indian culture (basically she is not an Indian) and so when she left the school she had taken the contact addresses of many of my classmates. But, during a change of flight at Singapore she had missed the address book. From that time all she could remember was the name of majority of her classmates. Her search for her classmates began once she was introduced to the internet – with the only information of the names of several of her classmates which needed no address book to recollect. She chatted always with Indians - especially south Indians... with the belief that one day she might catch up with one of her classmates… she cross-checked every time she came across a person who had the same name as one of her classmates… and years passed - THIRTEEN in number - but with no result. So, when she opened an account in Orkut, she searched for our school - only to get disappointed to see that none of the thousands of students who had studied there had created a community. Then, she created the community by herself and to her surprise and joy the first person to join the community was her classmate (myself). It was a memorable day in her life as finally all her efforts gave some result!

But the reality was well evident only when I got a call from her from Canada three days after I had met her through Orkut. It took me some time even to understand her accent... I had to ask her to repeat what she said - most of the time - to understand her words

After that, I chatted with her through yahoo the next two days. At that time, all I was thinking was that I was chatting with an eleven-year-old girl as I had only the faint memory of her face - when she had left - in my mind. Though I did understand that she would not be the same as 13 yrs back, less did I think that 13 yrs is so big a gap... But the reality was well evident only when I got a call from her from Canada three days after I had met her through Orkut. It took me some time even to understand her accent... I had to ask her to repeat what she said - most of the time - to understand her words. From what she spoke, I could understand that she was bold, broad-minded and I felt that she would not have got even half of those characters had she been in my town in India. I promised her to get her in touch with as many of our 7th standard classmates as possible. When she listed the names of more than 10 of them (and also our maths teacher's name) I realized how many years had passed and also wondered why I had never thought about them all these years. All she says is, "for you people in India, it might not matter... but for me it is a treasure to get in touch with my classmates". The main reason she had been searching for our classmates is that we are the only people in India whom she knows (none of her relatives are in India) and she still has a liking towards Indian culture (She talks Tamil pretty fluently, likes going to the temple wearing saree, hates those Indians who come to Canada and forget our traditional values, … the list goes on). She wants to come to India some day and walk through the same places she had once walked and meet the people who had once been her classmates at school. After talking to her I could not help thinking whether we people in India do not know the real value of our tradition.

"More than just helping in getting information about various things, internet helps in building and maintaining relationships"

I still am not able to believe that someone had been searching for my classmates and me for the past 10 years - sitting at a place several thousand miles away. Without the advances in technology and the presence of internet - I don’t think that it would have been possible for her to establish contact with me. I would say, "More than just helping in getting information about various things, internet helps in building and maintaining relationships".