Like the obedient daughter that I am, I dully reply, “ Yes, buwa. After I complete my work.” And it’s true that I have pending work – proofing a story and editing a friend’s project and searching for a site that offers interpretation of poems. But all of these can wait for the time being. I have more pressing work, like being lost in the virtual world.[break]
Google Chat seems boring tonight. MSN messenger beckons me instead, and my fingers automatically type the password. Soon enough, my name appears in green on the list. I’m met not with a welcome but with a dressing-down, “Don’t you have to study? Sign out and get down to your books right now!”
No, it’s not my mother. It’s one of my best gal pals from Australia, whose wedding is about to collide with my upcoming examinations, and who hasn’t been able to forgive me for this. As her veiled threat fails to dislodge me, Ena softens her tone, “Please, study now, dear. That way, you’ll be ready for your test and won’t be peaky at my wedding.” I smile to myself and coax her to part with her plans, and we happily converse about the color of the dress and invitee list until it’s time for her to leave for work. “Be sure to prepare now, else you’ll pay for it!” She rushes out with a menacing parting shot.
Right on time arrives another favorite person of mine – Ruchi from the US. Now, she’s not the sort to worry about bedtimes – neither hers nor mine.
“You are JUST the girl I was looking for!” she exclaims and launches into a complicated experience. We type furiously for a while, discussing the pros and cons of her actions, remembering to switch on our webcams in the middle so we can catch each others’ pouts and frowns. She queries evilly about a long-lost acquaintance and we laugh about the snooty girl until she pauses to say, “Gossiping with you is so good for me!” And for me, too, no doubt.
She leaves to make coffee, and then I see someone blinking in the Google chat. It’s my cousin, the one who always looked after me when she was here, but who’s now in far away Denmark. “Naani, don’t you have to sleep?” her maternal tone seeps through even in the mechanical font. I distract her by asking her about her travel plans, and she cheers up, “Look up my latest pictures in Facebook, specially the one beside the lake, and don’t forget to comment!” A wicked grin settles on my face as I probe deeper into her views about the oddities of foreigners – this sidetracks her for the time being.
And then it is to Facebook that I go. It’s strange that I’ve forgotten it till now. I do look up my cousin’s pictures, stopping to make appropriate comments, not forgetting to ‘Like’ the really pretty ones. Then I move to my own page, reading up the comments left for my last status and thinking of a riveting one. This leads me to read a bunch of quotations and sift through my poems, and it’s nearly twelve by the time I put up one that satisfies me.
Then it’s time to look at more pictures, staring wistfully at the empty places besides friends and relatives where I have a rightful place to stand. Through status updates, photographs and comments, I learn of christenings and marriages and breakups; of school reunions and catfights and adventurous trips to picturesque Ladakh that render me speechless for a while. Facebook is positively bustling with energy at this time, giving shelter to its innumerable addicts, and I’m toying with the idea of joining interesting groups like “If I had a test on Facebook, I would come out tops” and “Bihanai Facebook, Beluki Facebook, Sasurali janda sasuralimai Facebook,” when I see that someone has sent me an instant message on Yahoo.
It’s Roshani from the US, whom I call the light of my life. Best friends since our gawky school days, we wept together when she was handed her visa and wondered how we would survive without talking three hours a day. Well, we’re still surviving, thanks to this boon called Internet.
“How’s your work going on?” she asks sympathetically, knowing that I stay up working late. “Uh-oh,” I open a blank document defensively, “It’s okay. Tell me the news.” She pours outthe realities of having to exist without a protective family around, and how she sees Nepal in her dreams every night. We’re joined by a mutual friend, Narayan, from UK, this time, who echoes her thoughts, “Every single thing – the remembrance of an authentic whiff of momo, the tang of pickles, the carefree bike rides, even the ramshackle buildings – keep haunting me.”
It’s closer to one now, and strangely enough, I see friends from Nepal popping into the chat. Queries about their late appearance are answered with, “Just got blessed with electricity” to “I couldn’t sleep” to “What about you?” I empathize with Rupak about his grueling bank job, chat to Rohit entirely with smileys, rib Sushant about his new status as a Captain, hanker Prajwal for a treat, crib with Laxman about the education system, request Naresh to lend me a song, plead with Rajesh to fix my computer, and argue with Bipul about his insomnia.
Then there’s a lull for a while, and I look up at random funny celeb pictures, type a few mails, window-shop for products that I’ll never use, reject invitations to join Twitter or Orkut or LinkedIn, read a stimulating blog, look at a ludicrous site that promises me to lead me to the love of my life, note down recipes that I’ll never dare try. It’s while I’m about to send a birthday card to Suryama that Amir, again from London, makes an entrance. Ever the friend, philosopher and guide, he offers a controlled response, “I’m happy to meet you here, but I’m upset that you aren’t asleep yet.” I make faces until he gives in and we chat away sunnily about our lives. He’s torn every time we begin a new topic, “Should I tell you this or should I tell you to sleep?” I coax him to do the former, and pick up sundry facts about the London weather, nectarines and the elegance of Edinburgh.
Then somebody comes in with the energy of a volcano, and confides in me, “Hey, did you know that Krishna and Arjun are actually lovers?”
“No. Really?” I’m dumfounded. Meet my sister, my twin and soul mate, who’s typing to me from the distant US. Easily the most intelligent person I meet on and off the net, she has something amazing to tell me every time we chat. Last time, it was that all the media houses in the world were involved in a huge conspiracy, and then she told me how the first two women MPs of the world were forced to sit on a single chair, then she warned me that new theorists think Lewis Carroll could’ve been a pedophile. And now this. I read with growing amusement about how her flat mate, immersed in Hindu studies, asked her if she could remember her past incarnations and she replied that she was a cat in her past life. And then suddenly she asks me if I know of a good shop where they can buy chaubandis and daura suruwal. I’m just shaking my head in bewilderment when she gently says, “Hey, you should go to bed now.”
I reckon that if it’s her, the one for whom night and day has no discernible difference, telling me to go to bed, it really must be time. I hear an alarm going off somewhere, no doubt some conscientious student getting up to study at the crack of dawn. I have just crawled into my warm quilt when it’s time to get up. Aama is calling me for lunch and muttering to herself, “What does this girl do all night?”
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