When the Building Came Alive

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Kasturi Dhama Apartments — the play area where many evenings came alive. The lights would go out without warning. For a brief second, the entire building would fall silent. Then, from somewhere in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, a chorus would erupt. “Yayyy!” It is difficult to imagine children celebrating a power failure today. But in the Bangalore of the nineties and early 2000s, a power cut did not always feel like an inconvenience. Especially in the late evenings, it felt like permission. Permission to stop whatever we were doing, leave the darkness inside our homes, and step into the building outside. Before Kasturi Dhama became home, we had moved through a few different parts of Bangalore. My family had begun in Srirampuram and Vyalikaval before gradually cementing ourselves in Malleswaram for the next few decades. My earliest memory is of living in a vatara —a Kannada word loosely used for a building or a cluster of homes—on 15th Cross, near Karur Vy...
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The social syndrome

My friend told me that he never blocks any of his friends on his Facebook news feed because that's the way he gets maximum fun on Facebook.

"It's a great way to pass time.  Most of the guys I barely know.  Half of them are jokers."

But, I somehow don't have the time for most of the nonsense that goes in the name of updates.  I don't even have a dedicated Facebook app on my mobile phone.  I just use the People Hub to get updates of people who are there in my phone book contacts.  Otherwise, I just don't care.  Most of the important updates in my friends' lives still come via emails or phone calls.

Anyway, last week, we had been to the Sunnyvale Hindu temple.  After the renovation work, it's all the more beautiful.  And as is the norm, we met someone we knew.  As I said earlier, you just have to step out of the house, and you'll meet someone you know.

We exchanged pleasantries.

I knew he was in the bay area.

Then, he told me, "I did not know you were in the bay area."

"Oh, surprising! Are we not connected on LinkedIn? I always keep my profile updated", I said.

"I see.  I am not very active on any social network", he said.

Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and decided to catch up sometime later.

We walked towards the car, and I passed on a few details to my wife about her new acquaintance.

Immediately, she called up her friend.

"Hey, you remember yesterday, we were talking about a guy who had posted pictures of him carrying his wife on Facebook? "

"Isn't he the guy who had also altered the Kolaveri lyrics to include some cheesy lines about his wife on Facebook?", the voice on the other line added.

"Yes, it's the same guy."

"Imagine the sheer coincidence.  We just met him today."

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