The Facebook Faces

Sitting in office cab? Waiting for food at restaurant? On the potty seat? At every other place you bow your head these days. I mean, stooping towards your mobile device.

There are only two places where you have to survive without a phone - on a flight and while you bathe.

The other day I was walking up the stairs of a plush skin clinic of our locality and texting at the same time, I actually bumped into the glass door at the entrance and hurt my forehead. The female attendees were aghast and amused at the same time. Eventually, they had to control their laughter, since I was their customer!  

Warning: You may get offended on reading this post, please refrain yourself from reading further if it happens.

Disclaimer:  This is a satire and aims only to create some fun and is entirely my way of looking at the social media universe, esp. Facebook.

Ques: What is Facebook to me?
Ans: Seeing hundreds of friends doing data entry jobs for free!

Ques: What are Facebook faces?
Ans: Simple, the one that they show you on their profile.

They range from being selectively social, social, excessively social, horribly social, entirely unsocial.

Variety of Activities on Facebook-

1) Posting photos, unlimited photos..
They post an album containing 32 cheesy couple photos behind the tree and in front of the tree. One from this side, other from that side.

Tourism has increased exponentially ever since social media came into picture. Most people go on holidays only to post updates and pictures on social media. This increases pressure on others to plan their vacation better than them, so that they can also broadcast their updates. And the vicious cycle goes on...

Posting photos of a new born baby who was in the mother's womb an hour back, unable to open eyes, syringes stung on its body, still in the incubator. This fellow has already grabbed 148 likes and 56 comments of being cute and innocent and adorable, looks like mom or dad. I wonder if it can ever be otherwise? Does a new born ever look horrible or cunning or hate-able?

2) The DP game -Forgive me girls, but the next big thing is the duck face DP which you finalized after clicking some 20 selfie snaps. No matter what, your face will remain the same.

3) The DSLR guy.. And every person who buys a DSLR assumes himself to be a PHOTOGRAPHER and then creates a photography page, uploads photos of poor hungry people, flowers, clouds, sunset and sunrise. 

4) Quotables -Most annoying is the bombardment of quotes on how they want us to live our life. It feels more like they are pacifying themselves or justifying their being.

5) The FB story of a spy- And then there are people with guest appearances, or call them spy. They come, view your posts, hit like and run away. They do not pain their fingers by typing or posting something.

6) Angels and princesses - Some girls are self proclaimed princess and angels which they show by appending or prepending these words with their Facebook Face's name. For example Angel Pooja, Priya Princess.

7) Facebook groups- If you are not the fortunate one, you will be forcibly added to one of the "all women" group or a community's group. They might sell leggings with matching dupatta or baking classes in the town at discounted price, or performing their daily ritual of wishing good morning with the image of a god at 4:00 AM in the morning.

8) The Marriage Magic -Facebook has this new feature wherein every time I open it, either one of my friend is married, or attending a marriage, has been blessed with a baby or is engaged.

9) The Twitterati Influence- And lately, the non-twitter facebook users have found that posting hash tags will help them appear witty or trendy. Some samples-  #chaiWithFriend  #bestTimeEver #feelingBlessed #blessed  #funTime #fun #happyMe #enjoyedAlot #dreamComeTrue #lyf #mylyf #hubby #bestHubbyEver...
My response- #doYouKnowTheMeaningOfHashTags
#doYouUseThemBecauseEveryoneElseDoes
#bringingTwitterOnFacebookKya
#whoCares.

10) World's Bestest Husband -One amusing kind of stuff I see on birthdays and wedding anniversaries is to read how that friend's kuchiku-swthrt-mmuaah-supporting husband is the "world's bestest husband", on her first birthday with her, and as if she had a dozen more best husbands.

11) Autoplay feature- One horrible feature of facebook is autoplay for videos. Imagine you are secretly peeping into your phone in the office and while you are scrolling, suddenly the audio gets played for one of the videos which is about how to reduce belly fat, or a recipe video on how to prepare besan barfi. You might want to bury your face below the table then!

As they say, social media connects you to folks at a distance from you but distances you from those around you. There has to be a phone-life-balance.

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Book Review: Kuch Wo Pal

Kuch Wo Pal is a collection of Hindi poems by the debut author Subrat Saurabh. The author is an Engineer and works with an MNC in Bangalore. I can very much relate to him being an Engineer working in Bangalore. He is very popular on twitter and facebook.

Thanks to Blogadda for sending across a review copy of this book.

This is a 75 page book which can be finished in one go. However, reading a collection of poems is unlike reading fiction. When you read fiction, once you finish it, you have no fixation to read it again. This book, demands reading it over and over to understand the essence of it. Every time you browse through the pages of this book, you get to dive deep into the ecstatic world of words woven so beautifully. It is like a web from which you would deny to escape.

The poems are mostly about the author's experiences of staying away from home and working in a distant city and some exhibiting a broken heart's pain. All of these are penned in contemporary style of writing. One good part is that none of these seem to be inspired by any other poet's work, they are all afresh. The poems are all composed in different writing styles. I especially liked the ones that are based on nostalgia, the ones that depict the pain of being away from home and family, the remembrance of childhood and the fragrance of memories of one's native place.

One thing that I expected from this book is something more than a lover's pain and sadness. The poems could have been set in vivid moods. Although, every poet has a genre, a way of writing and thinking. However, I am anticipating all this in the subsequent books from the author.

I underlined a few lines from many poems, which I liked very much and read again and again. I was willing to add them to this post but that would have been a spoiler :) Hence, I refrained from doing that! The shayari at the end is like cherry on the cake, quite mesmerizing.

I myself am fond of reading and writing poems, and hence, can sense the immense efforts put on to write what is apparently a thin book. In the world where you have easy access to poems and prose online, it is a endearing experience to hold one such book. These days, when you can easily type in your thoughts on the web, it is hard to find one such collection as a book. You cannot replace the feel of holding a book over any other digital media.

Overall its a quick read, recommended for those who understand and admire poetry rather than SMS and Whatsapp jokes. Those who are into writing poems can also get a lot of inspiration from this collection. I rate this book 3.5 on 5.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book. I am not paid for writing this review.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

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Book Review: And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None, a murder mystery by Agatha Christie. I had been going through reader's block since long and the review I am writing is breaking my writer's block.

First things first. Agatha Christie who is dead long back, as Wikipedia says. I have started admiring her writing skills after reading this book. The kind of reader I am, I generally despise all that is archaic, written long back and has pale pages. But this one has changed my perspective to some extent. I am going to get another Agatha Christie book now.

About the book, its a murder mystery. Ten people are invited by the murderer on an abandoned island for a house party and are murdered one after another. The only clue for every consecutive murder is a childhood prose. As and as the plot unfolds, reader's curiosity to know the murderer grows. The end is unexpected. The mystery unfolds itself unpredictably. The end will amaze you.

If I write any further, it would be a spoiler!

I rate this book 4 on 5 and recommend it to those who want a shift of genre from fiction to mystery. This is my first mystery novel but not the last one for sure.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book. I am not paid for writing this review.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com.

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"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?"
-Anonymous

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“If you understand others you are smart. If you understand yourself you are illuminated. If you overcome others you are powerful. If you overcome yourself you have strength. If you know how to be satisfied you are rich. If you can act with vigor, you have a will. If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting. If you die without loss, you are eternal.”

- Lao Tzu

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The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometime back last year, PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik adorned the name of India with medals in Rio Olympics. Apparently, the streets of Indian cities lay galore with flex banners painted in passport size pictures of politicians welcoming and congratulating the proud winners. That makes me wonder, what about those 118 other athletes who represented India but were less fortunate than Sindhu and Sakshi.

Undoubtedly the conclusion is- "No one ever talks about you if you don't win! Either be the first or the forgotten".

Success is boolean- Similarly, either you succeed or you don't. If you are doing good, you are doing injustice to the better. Although there has to be a tradeoff between what you are, what you think you are, what you should be and what you think want to be. At that point satisfaction comes into picture.

As Voltaire quoted- Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)

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Book Review: Arranged Marriage

I picked up this book as my third one from the author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I was fantasized by the feeling of reading all her books since the time I finished these exemplary ones- The Mistress of Spices and The Palace of Illusions (which I have reviewed here). But this one broke my heart and shattered my dream of sinking in another supposed great work of hers.

This book is a collection of short stories on arranged marriages. But let me first tell you, it is not solely about  "arranged" marriages, but marriages, and not even marriages, sometimes complicated relationships. It highlights the vices like live-in, infidelity, affairs,suffering, pain, injustice to women, distress  etc. I was expecting it to be a collection of sweet and sour stories of arranged marriages in India, of which some might be successful and some unfortunate. But this is entirely different, not even a single story created aura of positivity- all ridden of happiness. Moreover, most of them are not narratives of India but mostly of the US- Indians, mostly Bengalis in the US.

However, if asked to choose some stories which I liked a bit are- The Maid Servant and Meeting Mrinal, which are little lengthy but captivating. After every installment of reading the book, I felt dull and gloomy, and upset for no reason! It gives off a negative vibe. Strangely, people have given so good reviews to this on the web that I was hopeful that at least the subsequent story would be different, but disappointed later.

The way marriages are portrayed here let you feel as if arranged marriages are the worst that can happen to women in India, with a demanding spouse, atrocious in-laws and the patriarchal mindset of Indian culture. It almost did not focus on the other side of it, which is progressive and fairer to women.

I give it 2 on 5 stars and do not recommend this book to anyone.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book. I am not paid for writing this review.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com.

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हीरा

नाज़-ओ-हिफाज़त में थे अपने शहर की गलियों में,

तिजोरी में तो सोना भी पीतल हो जाता है,

रखे कदम जो चौखट के बाहर तो समझा,

तराशे जाने पर तो कोयला भी हीरा बन जाता है।

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They say "life is difficult", I ask "compared to what?"
-Source unknown

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Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns- another marvel from THE Khaled Hosseini. He has inked the inhumane realities of Afghanistan in such a heart warming manner.

Before this I have read and reviewed The Kite Runner from the same author, which was so compelling that I bought this one too. And now, I am treasuring his third book, And The Mountains Ecoed as well.

The story is a narrative of the struggle of two female protagonists, Mariam and Laila going through the situations where even basic human rights are forbidden. This is the story of the time when Soviet were ruling Afghanistan and later arrived Taliban. The periodic political shift affected the lives and "deaths" of the citizens of the country.

This fiction is a nice portrayal of the grim conditions in Afghanistan which were not known to most of us otherwise. The main characters Mariam and Laila had to struggle through their lives bearing the sin of being born and that too, as women in that society.

To me, this book gives one message, and that is, we often tend to mourn over what we haven't got but forget about what we have. We must appreciate and thank god for giving us this wonderful life, giving us birth at the place where we are, and above all FREEDOM which is the foremost requisite of human existence and unfortunately not available to many.

I rate this book with 4.5 stars on 5, and recommend to all fiction lovers with a disclaimer that this book will give you a gloomy feeling throughout, and is not a happy-go-lucky account! You may sleep with a sad mood at times. It may leave you thinking for long. I personally got attached to Mariam and Laila so much that I used to repent on what was happening in their lives, as if they were some live people around me. Such is the magical spell of Khaled Hosseini's un-put-down-able writing.

(PS: the reviews expressed here are based on my personal reading experience, and do not intend to defame, derate or 

degrade the sale or vice-versa for the book. I am not paid for writing this review.)

If you are an author and want your book to be reviewed, drop an email at bookreviews@mansiladha.com.

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