ORKUT-YOU MUST BE CHIRKUT!!

"You do not orkut!!" exclaimed Aisha,the pretty young thing in my class,whom i had been eyeing for quite some time.

"Nope.", I replied nonchalantly desperately trying to hide my ignorance confused by the strange words that were emanating from her. Maybe it was a new beauty regime for metrosexual men or a strange new planet, yet why was she giving me this information.

"But you must open an account in Orkut so that I can send you a friend request", she purred.

Euphoric with the sudden turn of events, I hastened home to solve the "Mystery of Orkut". It turned out to be nothing more glamorous than a social networking site where you had to put up an online profile. Within a short period of time I discovered that my key to success was to temporarily suspend my moral beliefs. So works of Andre Gide and Marcel Proust became my favorite books even though i had never gone beyond the cartoon strip of my daily newspaper. Symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven were pieces of music that brought me to a "state of ecstasy" (as written in my profile), even though my family was treated to daily renditions of the latest Himesh Reshammiya hits from the bathroom. Was my ethnicity East Asian with dark skin or dark with East Asian skin? Confused as ever i ticked West European and since cheese is my favorite food item, I categorised my humor as cheesy.

My efforts of creating my profile were finally rewarded when i was "scrapped". No, as you might think I was not taken to a junkyard instead Aisha had posted a message for me on my profile welcoming me to her network of “friends”. Ignorant of the fact that the message could be read by anyone accessing my profile, I was surprised when the very next day my account was flooded with messages congratulating me on my new conquest. However the joy of enjoying my exalted social status was short lived. A quick check on the history of my web browser by my sister revealed innumerable visits to the Orkut homepage and she duly informed my father. He did nothing much except taking away my rights to sleep,eat and almost everything that made my miserable life a little better.

As i contemplate the meaning of a life condemned to text books and my sister tries to kick her new found habit of "orkutting", you might ask what became of the pretty girl who started it all. Last I heard she was going around with Vikram a "mutual friend" on my profile.

NOTE: The piece is actually an article written for the college magazine 2 years back. Thought I will post it and gauge the reactions once again. So bring on the bouquets and brickbats