“How are you doing?”

Last night was quite a memorable night for me as after a very long hiatus I had gone out partying with my all my cousins. It took a lot of planning and co-ordination specially since there are so many of us and now all married with spouses and kids to worry about. In fact it was one of the recently married spouses who took on the humongous task to get us all together. Despite all our planning, we left home a bit late but finally did manage to reach the venue. After all the hugs, kisses and greetings we settled down well into our respective seats and then the dreaded thing happened. One by one, slowly-slowly, each person started to take out their smart phones and started tapping something into them vigorously –whether it was to respond to a what’s app, click a photo and quickly upload the same to facebook or mail it to the person sitting opposite, we all got ‘very busy’ with our ‘extended social circle’ while the family sitting right in front physically got ignored. Of course snacks and wine kept flowing but while one hand held the glass tight, the other was busy sending out tweets. The main purpose of meeting up started to fade away when suddenly we were rescued! An invisible hand came out of nowhere and started collecting all our phones. At first we thought it was a joke, but later we realised that our phones had been ‘phone-napped’ by our very adorable recently married young groom – the same one who had taken all this trouble of getting us together in the first place (so technically he did have the right)! After our initial irritation I realised that he was absolutely right. We have got so glued to our distant friends and family, so addicted to sending out the latest status update, so crazy about checking how many ‘likes’ we received after that, that we have completely forgotten our social etiquette. In an earlier era people would meet up at a park to socialise or maybe go for a nice walk down the beach and actually listen to each other’s joys and troubles and share their views. But nowadays all we want to do is adverstise what we are doing. “Having a ball at CoCo Cabana!” – although you might be going deaf with the blaring music, feeling woozy due to all the alcohol intake and are having a lower back spasm due to all the standing all night. But have you had a real chat with your long-lost relative? “How are you doing mate?” “Great and you?” “Oh me too…all well!” That ends the conversation! At the end of the party“We couldn’t chat properly today….we must catch up again” — to do what – repeat the cycle all over again?

I admit that I am one of those facebook-ing, twitter-ing people who wants the world to know what’s going on in my life, but last night was an eye opener and I am going to change….are you?