On my road to Damascus...

Today I am completing one year in IL. I have been part of an internet community for one full year. With an ear to ear smile and with eyes wide open for far too long!

An internet community can be likened to a park. The people who visit the park are as important as the green trees and the clean benches in it, if not more. To be a decided success, it needs to be positioned as a facility in a proper neighborhood for fine folks to frequent. We naturally gravitate to the park that provides a levitating experience.

But the greenery and scenery will avail nothing if it constantly attracted convicts and con-artists in large quantities. It is true that you cannot avoid running into bullies or irate, indecent, boisterous and hysterical people sometimes, even in the finest of parks. They draw particular pleasure in picking fight and nit. Many a times the bullies do that just to attract attention or to address an uncared for emotional need. They vent their frustrations that are pent up from elsewhere on us. They make us wonder if we are just drainage in disguise.

The truth is that, however nice we are, we don’t willingly look forward to be of such self-less service to the excretive behaviors of the emotionally undernourished. But then, martyrdom is thrust upon us. We are martyrs by force.

On most occasions of this community cannibalism, we are not directly involved. We are just the bystanders to the atrocities committed, usually, on the simple and unassuming and the unsuspecting. When we witness this emotional slaughter, we writhe in justifiable indignation. But, other than gritting the teeth and pounding the fists there is little else any one can or will do.

One thing is certain though. The blood and tears shed in parks of all types, including internet communities, make people flee.

So, the neighborhood is the single most important element in parks. The utility or futility of a park depends largely on the quality of the people that frequent it. A great neighborhood, on the average, takes care of the atmosphere. In such a park, the number of captivating experiences far outweighs the number of cathartic ones.

You come to the park to relax and be rejuvenated. A nod here and a word there make you feel fresh. After a soothing experience, you walk out of the park and go back home to face the world with renewed energy and ready peace.

IL has been such a park for me. And the neighborhood could hardly be more proper.

And now, ‘proper’ is a very subjective term. One woman’s ‘proper’ is another woman’s ‘cropper’ and vice versa. Unless I tell you something about what type of a woman I am, I will not be able to communicate what I feel as ‘proper’ about IL.

But, in a way, I am very uncomfortable doing that. I have always felt that however hard one tries to be careful, a self-description snugly slips into snobbery. Others will unfailingly spot the trumpets you thought you were not blowing. While flaunted arrogance is anathema to others’ sensibilities, false modesty is seldom silent. And of all the people in the world, I am the last person awaiting sainthood. So, to balance, I shall attempt to be mindful of the abrasive elements in the personality, while I try to depict the person behind the feelings.

Coming from a corner in South India, I can’t help but being a southern fish. Pisces Australis, so to speak. Despite living in a country of corn-fed capitalists for some time, I am still a curd-fed conservationist. I believe that I take a conservationist approach to the world and not a conservative approach. Or, that is what I would like to believe.

Though I can’t pretend to be pure to the core, I try to preserve and conserve some of the wonderful ingredients that were part of my upbringing. Not because of an intrusive dictat from an unruly Sri Ram Sene, but because of the sheer joy I find in perpetuating the experience. Simplicity, dignity, kindness, pluralism and friendship are the most appealing baits to this Pisces Australis.

I have felt during my window-shopping for online communities that many of them are too pompous, too pretentious and too shallow. Many are emotionally draining. Many are faction ridden, directed and dominated by ideological cartels, divisive in their approach to caste, community and language. As much as I uphold their right to their views in the true voltairean tradition, I have also observed that such divisive tendencies are carcinogenic in nature. They are typically Indian, with the same filth that decorates our streets.

We know that India does not need an external enemy for its destruction. The divisive and retrogressive politics of some of our temple builders, moral police and state-level scavengers are enough to destroy the fabric and framework of a country that need necessarily be pluralistic. Their expediency makes them conveniently ignore that India is a liberal democracy. These cancerous cells will most certainly do the task of destroying our country. A house divided against itself will only implode. Pakistan need move no muscle.

Many of the online communities of Indian origin are a statistically significant representative sample of the so-called educated but illiterate India. The parks are full of poisonous snakes. They spit venom in Victorian English. The hysteria and negative bias are unparalleled. Leave alone the male of the species who are driven by testosterone. Even the fair sex is not so fair, after all. That is depressing. They changed my pride in the sense and sensitivity of feminity.

Another type of online Indian communities is completely delusional. Though this is a much better group than the incendiary group above, my sympathies and empathies stop there. For them anything western is straight from the gut of the gods. Faking accents (with Indians!), applying knife and fork to Dosa, leading a life of self-denial, imitating western life, more worried about H1Bs, greencards and citizenships than Mangalore, they are not my type. Of course that kind of life is an agreeable choice. And it may appeal to perfectly normal people. But I opt out. Thinking a little more deeply, in the way of life in the west, I like the language but little else. Again, you may call me Pisces Australis.

Understandably, I was so totally against online communities that I grouped them all together for the convenience of loathing (I am excluding niche communities from this discussion). In short I was like Saul, the ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews’ who assaulted and persecuted the Christians for their faith. Though my dislike for online communities had never been expressed - neither physically nor verbally - I could understand how he might have thought and felt.

But then, Saul undertook a journey to Damascus, apparently to arrest the Christians living there. On the road to that great city, he was talked to by the resurrected Jesus in the form of a divine light. He was blinded by the light and for three days could not see a thing. Nor could he eat. A Christian from the city, at the behest of the Lord in his dream, made the scales fall off from Saul’s eyes. Thus, having seen Jesus, Saul became an apostle. He became Paul and later St. Paul. In his own words, unlike the other apostles, he was not preached to. He realized. He became a convert to the Christian cause on realization.

I am definitely not comparing myself with the great St. Paul. I do have some sense still left in me not to make that ghastly mistake. I am comparing myself, in thought, with Saul, the opinionated persecutor. On my road to the IL Damascus I was talked to by a friend of mine. She showed me IL and I too, well, what was the word…? Yes, realized! I was blinded by the aura of the IL folks much later!

It was a revelation to have such a great collection of people in one park. An unbelievable bunch of witty, broad-minded, smart, forgiving, caring, sharing, guiding, leading and comforting people. They come and cross each other in the lush green meadows of IL. It all starts with some simple gesture. And with a nod and a smile. Soon, they become familiar without even making a conscious effort to do so. They realize how close they have gotten to only when they do not bump into each other. One’s absence makes the other wonder and eager to find out. Love has happened! Valentine is back from vacation! What a beautiful feeling!

IL is a confluence of the aged and the young, the wise and the not-so-wise, the in-laws and the yet-to-be-in-laws, the sensible and the silly, the adorable and the arrogant (yes, you can’t avoid them. So, deal as little as possible with them and you will be fine), the no-non-sense and the non-stop-non-sense, the great and the cute, the pious and the princesses, the home keepers and the home makers and all other sorts. There is the whole gamut of life and it is truly egalitarian. If Noah were to populate his ark Today, IL would be the most efficient place in terms of time and effort for him. He can choose two of everything in a jiffy. A pluralistic, non-stifling, liberal democracy that makes the southern fish smug.

And my prerequisite for a brand-value-park, ‘the good outweighs the bad’ holds so supremely good in IL. Many people in here are gods in the chrysalis. But they don’t know it yet.

Some may argue that we are whiling away time. I shall disagree. The best use of time is in the enjoyment of it. If we stop to think about it, it is a no-brainer that time and other resources are always intended to be spent, either in here-and-now happiness or in investment for future happiness. I agree that you can not put a dollar value to our feelings. But, the purpose of any economy is to maximize consumption and pleasure for its constituents. In IL, there are stories, poems, advice, art, religion, language, friendship, drama, encouragement and other things we consume. And, our coming together nourishes souls, gives us pleasure. In that sense, it is very much an economic activity. Yes, I can’t put a dollar value to it, but does it matter? It already serves the purpose of the dollar. What makes it all the more adorable is that it is inflation-resistant and fiasco-proof. No one loses shirt here!

I feel that some of the friendships forged in this community - that of mine and that of others - have the potential to last beyond the confines of IL. That is IL’s grand success. A superlatively designed window lets in adequate air and sunlight without much ado. It rarely draws attention to itself. IL is our kaleidoscopic window to the world. I peek into the island of Singapore this minute, and into the Arabian Peninsula the next. Kashmir, Egypt, Chennai, Bangalore and Boston are only seconds away. IL is ‘the world offered in a hand-kerchief’, as my favorite poet Vairamuthu might say. Like a window, like the world, IL never draws attention to itself. For each, IL is a different set of people!

Well, let me stop. In my enthusiasm for IL, I may have got some of the points with misguided logic. We women are prone to be very emotional. So, please, take whatever I have written ‘cum grano salis’ – with a grain of salt! You may also subject it to a little more seasoning to make it palatable. I may not have cooked it well.