Before Facebook, life was simple. I began using Yahoo mail back in 1998. Two years later, I added a hotmail account so that I could send Santa Banta jokes and discuss conspiracy theories with close friends. Then came Gmail and I have been using Gmail for work while I use the Yahoo account only to send emails to family members and relatives.
But then came Facebook and it destroyed everything. Most of my friends stopped using their emails. Facebook was the place to be. You could post something and then get hundreds of likes and a dozen comments in less than an hour. You did not have to wait for someone to read your email and send a reply a day later. Instant gratification was in, while waiting for an email or even a letter was now old school.
I still remember the days when in high school, I had pen pals from all around the world. You wrote them a letter and a month or two later, they replied with stories from their homeland. Today, most of us have not written a letter. The only writing on paper that goes on in this land is when you have to submit a complaint at the local police station regarding the noise pollution by the Dohori in your neighborhood.
Global Warming may be harming our world and the Indian Blockade is destroying our economy, our lives and everything in this country, but Facebook is the most evil of them all. It is killing us softly and we are willing to die a slow death.
My wife uses Facebook every half an hour. So do the Armed Police Force guards in my neighborhood who provide security to an international aid agency. So do the nurses working in the ICU at the hospital next door. So does the taxi driver, outside the hospital, who just sits in his taxi, using Facebook and won't take out his keys unless you promise to pay him three times the regular fare. While everybody is blaming India, I blame Facebook for all the problems in the country.
If we had no Facebook, then the nurses would have to work instead of liking all the statuses in her newsfeed. If we had no Facebook, then the taxi driver would worry about how many trips he can make in a day instead of clicking on hot Teej videos. If we had no Facebook, then the APF guards would stand still like they do at the Buckingham Palace in the UK. But of course, they are just not doing their jobs. They are not part of the crisis that is threatening to starve us all to death. Our politicians are the real culprits and they too must be busy using Facebook all day that they have forgotten how much we are suffering. If a minister's vehicle passes you by, make sure you gaze inside the vehicle and don't be surprised if the minister is tapping away on his or her phone. It might be Candy Crush but we can safely assume that they are just checking pictures of their loved ones who are enjoying a trip abroad funded by the Government.
Let's get back to my life. I used to post funny pictures and update my status every day. That was when I was single. After marriage, I stopped using Facebook. Why? Because now I don't have to impress anyone since I'm already married. I did not have to send pokes or funny jokes to the woman I had a crush on or wanted to hook up with. And of course, I do not have free time since I am busy at work and have to worry about how to make my wife happy every day.
My wife uses Facebook to check her friend's pictures and updates. She also follows the news posted on Facebook by so many Nepali online news sites and she believes them all. I tell her to stick to the major dailies but she ignores my request. A few months ago, an online news portal posted a piece that said 100% of our SLC candidates passed this year. My wife and I had a silly argument. She believed the news portal. I believed the stats for the past twenty years. Not even half of our SLC candidates pass the exam annually and here was some stupid news portal writing about 100% success rate. It was only possible if all the teachers who checked the papers were high on something or they just were so lazy that they just gave everyone a passing grade without even flipping through the papers.
The SLC result came out and as usual, half of our candidates failed. My wife lost the bet but as usual, it's in her hisab kitab and will probably never honor it and give me the Rs 1,000 she owes me for it. But whenever I lose a bet, especially about stuff that is related to Bollywood, then I have to fork out a thousand rupees in five minutes or risk silent treatment for a day or two.
I want my wife to read books. She only reads funny Nepali jokes with Yao Ming cartoon. She also shares images that talk about how one should make one's wife happy all the time. I don't even check my Facebook page anymore because I really don't want to waste a few hours a day scrolling down and liking posts every two minutes.
But it seems that we need Facebook more than ever. It calms us down when we look at funny pictures of our friends. Why is that person taking a selfie in a hotel's bathroom? Why is that creepy old uncle only liking pictures of South Indian actresses? Instead of answers, we only have too many questions and I guess that's what keeps us ticking even when the country is going down the drain and we face the possibility of not even getting a grain to eat.
What would happen if we had no Facebook for a while in this country? People would not be holed up inside their homes or office cubicles. They would be out on the streets, demanding answers from the Government. They would be protesting against our politicians for making our lives miserable. They would not be submissive and tolerant of the ways our Government is handling the current crisis. They would stand up and fight for their rights.
But we have Facebook and all we do is like some funny comment about the crisis and laugh at funny stuff written about our politicians. If a hundred likes could get you a liter of petrol then it would be worth it, but the reality is that you have to stay in line for days in hopes that the petrol pump will not run out of fuel when it's finally your time to get some.
kalumaila99@gmail.com
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