Addicted to IC !

HC = Hangout Corner in IC

IC = India Community on Orkut

Day before yesterday I chatted in HC non-stop for 6 hrs…. it was then that I realized that I am definitely addicted. I logged in around 9 pm and logged out at 3 am!! and trust me , I never even realized it for a moment that I was there non-stop for 6 hrs!!! Until I saw the time! I spend many hours in IC n still I am not bored…. There is something there which keeps you there. So, what actually has made me addicted to the place n the people… let’s explore!!! and lets see what kind of an experience it has been !

After the end of my final semester papers in June ’07 I was a total vella …. my date of joining still had some time… n till that time I had to kill time…. One fine day I joined this community of India on Orkut, to my surprise it was quite an active community compared to other communities which only had spam! There was this thread called “Hangout corner! meeting place for all Indians “ which had almost 4 lakh posts.. I opened the thread n saw people chatting like they knew each other very well…. I observed it for few minutes n then posted “Kya yahaan roz aise hee mehfil jamti hai ??” a guy named Sarkar … replied “Haan… yahaan roz aise hee mehfil jamti hai… aaya karo tum bhi” .. I remember these exact words… for the next few days I started going there and used to post a few replies too… slowly got to know a few persons.. Shugar, Anshul (khade khade), Musa bhai n a few more…. got to know them bt never really interacted much with them.

On the very first day when I joined IC I also saw some serious topics going on there in other threads.. mostly Hindu/Muslim types and North/South Indian type… I started reading them… there was this guy called Achyut… he was going on and on about how India is not a secular country and the government is looting all the money from the Hindu temples.. and that money was used for Hajj subsidy.. and replying to Achyut was a guy called ‘Sir Khurram’ (yeah this was his DN that time ).. I was quite fed up with the way things were being talked there.. I decided to post something… I replied to Achyut “India is a secular country and please let it remain that way” … and after that Achyut replied “Prove it now pushpreet” and went on to call me another “SICKULAR” person… the term was new to me but I understood it :-p…. From dat day onwards I thought there was no use in participating in such threads where people had only hatred towards each other and nothing else.

Slowly I started know how IC functioned… the “To the MODS” and “Log thread” was new to me… occasionally I used to put in a comment in the serious threads aswell but I avoided any sort of debates with a conscious effort... as the debates/discussion happening there were mostly of a very low IQ.

After about 1-2 weeks of joining IC, I had to quit it for some 50 odd days… due to my job. I used to come online only for some time and during this time I jus checked my mails and chatted with few friends never really got the time to peep into what was happening at IC.

I quit my job on 10^th sep and this was the day from which I became more regular in IC as I really had nothing else to do!! J Thus began the journey to addiction to IC! I started being more regular in HC and slowly got addicted to the place. I would avoid taking names of all the people whom I have met in IC as I am bound to miss some names. Everyday it was normal for me to login around 9 pm and logout at 4am… and what I did there in IC was nothing short of time wasting/killing. I slowly got to know about how people just fir the sake of bashing other religions created topics and made news out of nothing, I learnt to ignore such people, as talking with them was like banging your head against a wall. It is not that there are only hate mongers in IC, there are people who look at things logically and with a sane mind, I made friends with such people. At the end of the day if you want you can have fun in the community and if you want you can fight your brains out!

All said and done, I have now realized that I am addicted to this community. I am slowly trying to get over it, as orkut can and will kill your social/real life if not used prudently. Slowly I am also trying to get over this addiction and use it in a limit so that I don end up screwing up my real life for the sake of a virtual life! I don’t know if I will succeed or not… but I am giving it a try… I have started decreasing orkutting by an hour daily :-p .. he he …… orkut has screwed up my sleep cycle completely… I sleep at 4 am daily these days… I will try and bring it down to atleast 12 midnight if not more :-p…

In little over a month I won’t be able to use Internet with the regularity that I use it these days… I am wondering what will happen then :o.. am I going to miss IC and many new friends I have made here as much as I sometimes miss my real life friends after college … then only will I realize what actually is the importance of the friends from the virtual world ! Anyways, this “Virtual friends Vs Real friends” deserve a separate post, I’ll try and come up with one very soon…… and maybe a post on the new friends I have made in IC on orkut too……. Or maybe not.. lets see :-| !

Until next time

Ciao !!



P.S. - I would once again say this line - I have never seen so much hatred in my life until I joined IC ! It sometimes makes me feel embarrassed to call myself an Indian after seeing so much hatred in the community.