The Other Life..... Or is it?? (Sam)

Hmmm......... where do I start??

Virtual Relationship??

In my book relationships are always real..... for relationships are made up of emotions, thoughts, feelings. What's so virtual about them?? Are they not real..... do they not live a life just we all do?? They do........ Then what's virtual in a relationship?? My take, nothing!! "Virtual Relationship" is a term a phrase coined by individuals with a garbled line of thought. For them, the time spent on the Internet is nothing but a waste of time. Interacting with unknown people is stupidity..... leave aside the fact that, you may end up being very close friends, fall in love.. and god knows what not!! So, if these people are correct then the lot like us are absolutely demented!! Right?? But then, we are not!! And that proves the theory. Now, if there's any skeptic out there reading this post, then for his/her benefit I shall state certain facts ........... from my own life. Decide for yourself after that, what is a virtual relationship. Does it really exist?? Or is just a terminology which has no grounding in the real world??

Incident 1: 1800 hrs, Year 2006 - Occassion: Mahasaptami (Durga Puja)

A group of 20 meet up and spend four days in each others company celebrating the spirit of Puja. And since then they are nothing but friends.. always there for each other. Is this virtual?? One of them today is my flatmate.

Incident 2: 0030 hrs, 27th January, 2007

5 boys speeding along the roads of Pune in driving at a speed in excess of 100kmph, towards a remote corner of the city, to save the life of another fellow. They succeed. Life has taken them all to various places since then, but they are still what they were that night... Friends!! The roots lie in Orkut, the relationship shared is real.

Incident 3: 2330 hrs, 26th June, 2007

A girl and a boy, quarrel over the phone...... Loads of words were exchanged. And when things settled down couple of hours later... things were better than before. The reason for the debacle - some one told the girl that the guy was cheating on her. Now the fun part, the couple are yet to meet. They know each other more than perhaps anyone else in this world, yet they've never met and are crazy about each other. Is this virtual relationship?? They too started their interaction over Orkut......

Incident 4:

Two of my close friends were together for 2 years before the girl's family put it's foot down. They met over yahoo chat. Is that virtual??

Incident 5:

I get a call in the dead of the night... and all I hear is sobbing. Reason, she loves me and I can't reciprocate the same. And that is making her miserable. Is this virtual??

There are more. But in all the cases above, every though, every action, every word typed or said, every emotion were they not real?? In that case, is not the relationship shared by them real??

Then what is virtual relationship??

*****...............No answer...............Silence...............*****

That's what it is................ nothing!!

Oh btw, the most glaring example of so called virtual but actually real thing..... BUF!! :)

For me the entry into the virtual world started with my first yahoo id after school, before I joined college. Since then till 2005 October, the net was basically a place where I would mail people I know, and after grads, start on my job hunt. But in October, 2005, my colleague and now best friend Sailee, introduce me to the concept of Orkut and Blogs. I started, lost interest and moved on with my professional commitments. Again, it was her transfer from Pune to Mumbai which caused me to seek sources of timepass (we were together almost 24x7), and I started being active on Orkut. Ended up being a prominent member in quite a few communities. This phase has been written about over here : "A Time to Make Friends". Found so many friends, and the river of new friends in my life keeps flowing..... the one who caused all this, Sailee is dumbfounded at times when she finds me mentioning someone she hasn't heard of, and invariably I have met that person over Orkut or Blogs. lol..... Drives her crazy.... And when it comes to blogging my second innings here would have died out, had it not been for Isha. She egged me on to write and finally to blogging herself. In fact, this very girl caused me to explore new styles of writing, it was at her idea that I tried to inject humour into my writing and most of the posts are an answer to a chanllenge thrown by her or to surprise her. My fav reader and critic, the way she woudl dissect leaves me wondering was she sitting beside me when i was thinking or writing?? lol.... a gem of a girl, again she hardly gets to blog now thanks to her professional committments, which her drained to think about anything else other than rest. And now the best part, I met her over the net. And our relationship is as real as it gets!! :)

This virtual world has brought real people in my life where their life slowly but surely merged int mine..... Isha (Gini), Aashi, Neal (my roomie), Ipsy, Debasmita, Buddhaditya (Adi), Varsha, Xavier, Avneet, Vigs, Kritika, Divya, Monica, Pooja, Shubh, Arunava C, Soumi, Smita, Arunava G., Bishwanath, Sharmishtha, Ritika, Ria, Ishita C., Adrita, Amitabh... (not for get the BUFers!! :D)gosh the list can go on and on..... almost one fourth of the people on my phone book are people whom I've met on the virtual world..... and they are my friends in real world. Some I'm yet too meet.... But, I'll rectify that soon!!

Virtual is just a matter of belief. If for someone interaction over the net ends the moment they log off... and can actually remain impersonal throughout.. may be for them the relationships are virtual... but then to be honest, by these parameters even "real life relationships" can be termed virtual......

So.... the conclusion is..... the funda of a relationship being virtual lies in the beliefs held by an individual. That's it..... For me.. VR points to a non-existent thing.. And for you??

A collage of friends.... they all met over net