The Idea-smithy

My friend Nikhil (okay, no pun intended there, that’s really his name!!!) told me about a project that his firm was working on recently and I thought it would be interesting to the Gaysi community. This is Fabulis, a social networking site for gay and gay-friendly people.

Fabulis appears to sit on top of the Facebook framework (it requires a Facebook account to login) and works more like an extended application than a network in itself. I guess this has its advantages since Facebook is an Internet phenomenon now and anybody who is anybody is on it (or is that Twitter, again?).

The site asks you to provide an email address and a location. My first entry threw up the following error message:

“Oops! Please enter a valid city. Please enter text as Boston, MA or Paris, France”

But when I started to type ‘M’ (since that looked closest to Mumbai even if Mumbai doesn’t abbreviate to MA), the drop-down menu of suggestions did list other cities including my home city.

When you sign in, you are asked to identify yourself as either a ‘gay man” or a ‘friend to gay guys’. Barring the obvious oversight in leaving out gay women, it’s a nice enough start. You’re also asked to enter tags to describe yourself and your interest with a default tag of ‘friend to gay guys’. I changed this to ‘friend of gay people’ and happily found that the drop-down menu of suggestions contained various versions of it.

Fabulis pulls the information from your Facebook account (including privacy settings), imports photographs and also shows you which of your friends are already using the application. It also draws up information from your Facebook calendar and posts updates of your public events inviting responses from other users of the community.

Once you’re in, the network works a little less like Facebook and more like Twitter. That is to say, you don’t exactly befriend people. You can follow them and/or be followed by them. The privacy settings allow you to raise the bar on who can follow you.

In addition to the obvious networking features, it also has its own network currency of Fabulis bits. Fabulis bits can be earned by participating in activities. Similar to the Zynga Games model, you can also earn by engaging in side-offers. These are plowed back into the monetary ecosystem as you spend them on answering other people’s questions or helping them along in their contests. You can also use Fabulis bits to buy upgrades and cheat codes for the games and contests. And finally, Fabulis bits are what you spend if you really, really want to follow someone who is ultra-picky about their privacy and has enabled the setting that forces followers to pay for the privelege.

I also tested the account deletion options (after an unsavory experience with ibibo.com which still refuses to let me go and insists on bombarding my mailbox with spammy messages). Happily Fabulis doesn’t believe in clinging on and the detachment process if fairly simple. You just click on ‘Settings’ under your profile name on the top-right which takes you to a list of options. The last of these is ‘Close Account’ with the expected “Are you sure?” message. Do note though, that if you choose to leave the network, you’ll have to go to Facebook and delete the application from having access to your account. If not, your Fabulis account will still be connected a la social networking on life support systems.

The prizes for the contests are apparently available to users in every location and are supposed to be very attractive to the gay community. I can’t confirm this myself since I haven’t participated in any of the events but it sounds like an interesting way to target the community. I guess a social network undergoes a collective learning process. Identifying itself as a network that addresses itself to this community is the first step and it will probably depend on the user group and how they choose to utilize the features that the site offers.

Fabulis is also on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

* Cross-posted on Gaysi and The XX Factor.

The open space opposite to my building affords a number of interesting sights. It inspired this story, for one. That was about the ground as a separator. But how about the ground as a space in itself? Here’s what it plays home to.

Yesterday evening, I spotted this man walking his dog in the pouring rain.   Now, I have heard of doggy-sweaters before, in cold places. But this is the first time I’ve seen a dog in a raincoat! What was funnier was that the man himself wasn’t rain-protected. Some people sure love their animals more than life itself!

The summer was full of screaming kids, playing crazily in a way that only children on summer vacations do. In one of those brief lulls, the park looked almost desolate. Except for its lone guest, a solitary bicycle parked right in its midst.

The same thing a few weeks later, right after a particularly rainy night yielded this sight: a log right in the middle of the empty ground, now lush with grass.

The weather hasn’t deterred our young, budding sportsmen.

Any semi-green patch in Mumbai acts like a magnet for all the children of the vicinity. This particular park doesn’t belong to any one housing society and doesn’t have an entrance fee either. So it often plays host to impromptu cricket matches, rainy football games, bat-and-ball toss and sundry other games that appeal to every boy under the age of 12 (and most of them above to, in retrospect). The kids come from the surrounding colonies and also the adjoining slum area. I’d like to say it’s a place where they all mingle but that isn’t really the case. They play in their own groups but at least they all play within close vicinity and I haven’t seen any territory battles happening.

A cricket game had just begun. First, a lone ranger staked out the pitch. Or perhaps he was sentenced to a remote fielding location. Either way, he didn’t look too bothered by it.

I was most intrigued by the batsman, being as he was the same height as the bat he was holding…just about.

They were watched by a cosy duo sitting on a log in a corner. I wondered what these two had to talk about that was so important. *Sigh* The good old days of a bestest friend to share playground secrets with!

In another corner, I spotted a bunch of boys practicing dahi-ka-handi for upcoming Janamashtami (which also kicks off festival season in Mumbai…hooray!).

Childhood is never out of vogue, even in a concrete jungle. It stakes out its own spaces and finds plays to jump and play.

My smile is like a neon light
Lighting up all around
And drowning out all else
Brilliance in person
It says, “I’m happy!”

Yours is like a candle flame
A single flicker in the darkness
Enveloped in a warm embrace of shadows
Gentleness personified
It says, “I make you happy.”

And you do.

Indiblogger hosted a blogger’s meet yesterday at Hotel Sea Princess, Juhu. It was touted as the biggest such event and I think that’s a fair claim. The event actually began a half hour late, at 2:30p.m., by which time the hall was almost completely packed.

Registrations were done online by logging into the Indiblogger site. A display screen at the front of the room picked it up and kept a running tally on who had just walked in, a live feed of tweets tagged #indimum and those that mentioned the event. This feature was a really plus for a blogger meet since it allowed people to connect across the room and ‘interrupt’ or get into discussions just the way they would be able to online. It really kept the conversation, quite literally, running and the mood upbeat.

The first familiar faces I spotted were Arcopol, Chhavi, Mahafreed, Sahil, Payal, Teatattler and Netra. This event had all the hallmarks of a ‘typical’ bloggers meet with old friends catching up, people meeting offline for the first time, new connections being made and URLs/Twitter IDs being exchanged. The past meets have all been more like parties with people making random introductions and conversations. For an event of this magnitude, the Indiblogger team started with a loose agenda, which really worked.

The event kicked off with a ‘few words’ from the organizers and the sponsors. The HP session may actually have been quite interesting but the presentation was really boring and scheduled as it was, right at the beginning, I’m not sure they received much attention. BigRock’s presentation was much better, light and peppered with internet jokes and just enough information to keep listening parties interested in coming back for more.

The next item on the agenda was introductions (of the audience) which took the better part of two hours considering how many people were there. This may have run into boredom but the team worked it well by announcing a contest for the most interesting introduction. So introductions would happen, there would be gasps of recognition (and waving) from various places in the audience and live-tweeting. I spotted Kalyan across the room and a short while later, another person introduced himself by the same name and very similar profile. Normally I’d have had to keep quiet and wait till the end of a long session to connect up, by which time I may have forgotten or even lost interest. But I instantly tweeted him, which came up on screen and he replied. We got into a conversation about another member in the audience who suddenly saw his name pop up on the timeline and joined in too. Fun ?

I had a lovely surprise when I entered the room to find my Punekar friend Poonam, whose visit I had not known of. Later, during the introductions, I was deeply thrilled to hear a sweet-faced lady across the room introduce herself as the writer of Toerag. It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and down in my seat and yelling, “Here, here!! Remember me?!” Sangeeta and I have been readers of each other’s blogs for years now, right from back in the day when one visited every single link on the blogroll every day to check if there were new posts. In this day and age of instant updates, feed-readers and link-sharing, those seem like hallmarks of a bygone era. There’s a distinct pleasure in connecting with someone who remembers you from the days of yore.

One of the last introductions was a lady who claimed to have failed her 10th board, run away to Italy, fallen in love with one of the masters, left him to backpack and having run out of interesting things to do, began blogging. She ended by saying, “And I’m a storyteller.” She was the unanimous winner of the most interesting introduction. ?

The chai break that followed was really livened up by a cute little game organized by the team. Every member in the audience was given a chart to hang on their back, equipped with pens and asked to go around ‘leaving comments’ on other people’s charts. A simple enough idea but tremendously useful in bridging the gap between wanting to talk to someone and making the actual connection. I spoke and was spoken to by so many people, that I’d really have lost track if I didn’t have their twitter handles or URLs on my chart.

My Indiblogger meet chart!

The post-break session began with an impromptu quiz (hosted by a truly beautiful lady from BigRock) and prizes being handed out. This lead into a discussion moderated by celebrity participant, Gul Panag. I really have to give it to the lady for being way more than a pretty face. Managing a group of 200-odd people, all with opinions jostling to be heard and ensuring that people stuck to the point, stayed interested and didn’t get into fights – that’s no mean feat and the lady accomplished it with aplomb. We discussed self-censorship, comparisons with traditional media, authenticity of content, new trends, social activism online and citizen journalism. The discussion was carefully kept short enough so it didn’t peter into wasteful arguments.

The last thing on the menu was a select preview of the movie Soch Lo. I’m rather afraid I didn’t understand a thing and it didn’t enthuse me enough to want to watch the full movie whenever it is available. ‘Nuff said.

This is an account of the events as they happened but it doesn’t capture the essence of the fun and energy that marked the full day. So I’m posting some of my tweets, as they were live updates of things that happened (and because Twitter archiving still sucks).

• Indiblogger meet under way. Intros on. #indimum

• Bangalore accents are to Indian women what French accents are to Westerners. Ooh, yummy! #indimum

• Gadzooks! My crush-ey tweet just popped up on screen at Indiblogger meet. Eep.

• Pleasant rush of memories happening. Why did the blogger meets stop? #indimum

• HP talk at #indimum. Fairly interesting talk but blah ppt. Form does matter. Content is invisible if audience loses interest.

• BigRock does 140char intro. Agenda says ‘vision mission blah blah’. Am listening already. #indimum

• Celebrity spotting at #indimum! @Netra just walked in!

• found an envelope under seat saying Collect prize from prettiest girl at reception. Heh, nice. #indimum

• Intros of audience happening at #indimum. Next to me, @arcopolc taking notes.

• Amrish blogs abt mumbai since it is his life. Life, leverage and limits. Cute. #indimum

• Honest admissions at #indimum Ppl blog to up Google rank, earn on ads, bcos friends do it, bcos its the new geek thing to do.

• @finelychopped Hey, that sounds like you! #indimum

• Keema from Mizoram ‘as in Chicken Keema’ Lol, I like! #indimum

• Really good to see ppl blogging abt whatever comes to mind, stories, pictures etc. Tired of hearing of SEO, Tech etc. #indimum

• Heh, an Arsenal fan intro’d self as that and ended with ‘BOO you!’ to two ManU fans. #indimum

• IT IS TOO COLD HERE! #indimum

• Yay! @Sahilk plays knight in plastic armour & loans me his windcheater. #indimum

• Heard an intro from toerag.blogspot. Iv read her for yrs! Wish id caught her twitter id. #indimum

• SunshineMom is now Freaked-out Mom. #indimum

• Hardik Shah at #indimum wonders why everyone staring at him. @hardik, eh?

• Passing charts with strings and sketchpens. Everyone loves new stationery. Intros getting missed unfortunately. #indimum

• Next item on #indimum agenda: SWITCH OFF THE AC!

• Hot baldie alert at #Indimum. Men should not be allowed hair above the eyebrows.

• #indimum Screen refreshed after 15min. Bcos @gulpanag walked in? Her name still hasnt come up.

• Okay now we get to play with the new stationary. #indimum

• Hot girl in great haircut conducting pop quiz at #indimum

• This quiz in damn tough, ya #mahafreedstyle. #indimum

• All the guys rush to front of room. #indimum

• Ageism at #indimum. Am sulking in the left side. Grmph.

• @gulpanag speaking abt why UGC scores over mass media. #indimum

• RT @rati7 And d guy just wont shut up..

• Do bloggers self-moderate? I think the democracy of blogging does that already. #indimum

• @shrikant Stop hitting on the pretty lady, Neanderthal!

• Are we back on censorship?! #indimum

• If ur content is wrong/offensive/misleading, ull lose readership. Why are we still discussing censorship? #indimum

• @shrikant scowling at me for calling him Neanderthal hitting on @gulpanag #indimum

• ‘Good ppl are not visible & visible ones not credible’. Does that mean bloggers are incredible? #indimum

• @mahafreed says we are her eyes, her twitter timeline, bloggers. FTW! #INDIMUM

• The Banglore boys leaving! #indimum

• Now @gulpanag gets background score! #indimum

• @_alps and I giggling

• Soch liya, kuch nahin samjha. #indimum

• Much fun was had at #indimum. Old-style blogger hookups (face to DP/handle) in newer settings (live tweeting, posh hotel, freebies, contest)

• @abhinav_hee_haw Ah. Just the live timeline was a party in itself. #indimum

• #indimum made me fall off compulsive-tweeter bandwagon after going clean for weeks! Someone asked if I was the talkative one on the hashtag!

• @sahilk is funner in real life than on email. #justsaying

• received a delightful surprise when @_alps turned up at #indimum today. And another on meeting longtime blogger-pal @sangeeta_kini 1st time.

My congratulations and thanks to the Indiblogger team for pulling off a complex and really fantastic event. My only suggestion would be to consider proving WiFi access next time to ensure even more live coverage during the event. I’m looking forward to more from you guys!

Other coverage of the event (will be updated-drop in a link if you find something not featured here):

Mizohican: Chp.314 Indiblogger Meet Mumbai

Magali: The Wonderful Indiblogger Mumbai Meet (#indimum)

Firoze Shakir: Flickr

Anubha Bhat: The Indiblogger Bloggers’ Meet, Facebook Photos

Manav Dhiman: Indiblogger Mumbai Meet #indimum

Naveen Bachwani: Indiblogger Meet 2010

Jaydip: Once upon a time Blogger Met in Mumbai

Kalyan: We don’t need no chutney sandwiches

Juhi: Mumbai’s Indiblogger Meet from my camera

Renieravin: Flickr

Phoenix: Indibloggers Meetup

Shrikant: Deflowered by the sea-princess

Harman: The Indiblogger Meet

Viyoma: Indiblogger Meet: 15th Aug 2010

Ojas Mehta: An eventful Independence Day!

Neha Silam: Anything for a tee

Milee: A Place, Some Bloggers and Fun

“I miss the good old days when portrait painting was the only form of visual reproduction. But of course, you are too young to remember that.”

I read the words in a tiny glass screen in the palm of my hand. Not a muscle moved, not even an eyelash flicker.

You don’t show emotion, reading an SMS. And yet, those stark words behind a scratched window, no bigger than your palm, tie you to another person in another frame, another time. How can you not respond?

I wonder how to say it’s not déjà vu if you remind me of an emotion, not a place. And it’s not who you remind me of or when or even why.

It is that you do
and that connects you
to things
and times
and places
that you never were at,
through me.

It connects you to me.

I didn’t remember what it was like to feel this way and you reminded me. And all those memories that lined up behind the me that you know, of the me that you never did? How young am I if I can remember all that you don’t even see? Time is marked by the trails it left and not by how quickly it passed. And what else is nostalgia, but tracking those trails, with the imagination following them back as far as they go?

And all of that can be said in one look but not an SMS. I put down my cup and type,

“I have memories, alright. Sepia-toned ones.”

And underneath my words, a swirl of cream turns, speckled with tiny spots of coffee.

I ring the doorbell and it’s opened by my friend Salim, bouncing up with all the energy of his 21-year-old self. It is his birthday and the gift I am carrying is a book I know that he’ll enjoy. Salim and I have been classmates and bonded over a common love of stories. We’re buddies and we spar in the way good friends do. The ace in my sleeve is the two month headstart I have over him, in life. He introduces me to his other guests as the girl who gave him his personal Bible – Mario Puzo’s GODFATHER.

In a little while, his mother arrives, wiping her hands on a towel and we strike up a conversation. Grinning, I tell her that her son promised to marry me the day he turned 21 but that he has jilted me that very morning. She grins back and says,

“Yes, I heard. I told him he’s being a fool and that he won’t get such a great girl again!”

And we laugh together. The birthday boy comes back and starts to tell us a story.

“Irfan was 24 when he left home with Rs.200 in his pocket to make a career in the film industry. Vijaya was studying for her masters in law, living as a paying guest till the day she could return home to Mangalore and follow in the footsteps of a her father, a respected judge. Anybody seeing these two would imagine that they had nothing in common. They did, actually, have something in common – they were both in Mumbai, living in the same building.

They’d smile at each other, then they got to talking. It wasn’t until Vijaya went home for her vacations that Irfan realized how much he missed her. Then she came back and they began a whirlwind romance, movie theatres and beach dates.

Vijaya knew her family would never agree to a love match, with a North-Indian, with a boy who didn’t have an impressive degree and most importantly, a Muslim. And yet, they persisted. The couple endured the backlash, even the death of Vijaya’s father and managed to get married. They say that time heals all breaches after all. And the parents usually come around, once they hear the word ‘grandchild’.

A few blissful months later, Vijaya was pregnant. In the time-honoured tradition of South-Indian mothers-to-be, she left for her own mother’s house to go through the pregnancy. What she was completely unprepared for, was the family’s continued resistance to the union.

“Don’t worry” her mother assured her, “We’ll take care of everything.”

“Abortions are possible.” her sister chimed in, “ And there are still boys lining up to marry you.”

“We can just forget everything and put it all behind us like a bad mistake.” finished her mother.

Vijaya was trapped, a prisoner in the house she had grown up in, the place that she once called home. Frantic, she managed to send off a letter to Irfan, back in Mumbai.

A few days later VIjaya’s mother received a letter. She opened it and something fell out.

“A plane ticket” said Vijaya’s sister, picking it up.

It was from Irfan and was accompanied by a note.

‘My wife is over eighteen years old and a legal adult. She married me of her own free will. I will be waiting to collect her from the airport. If she doesn’t arrive, I’m filing a police complaint for kidnap and unlawful detention of an adult.’

Salim stops his account suddenly and gives me a huge grin.

“And then?!”

I cry, caught up in his story.

His mother comes back into the room with a tray balanced with snacks and juice for all of us. She smoothly flows back into the discussion, weaving in and out of conversations about books, our futures and our jokes. I look at her, deep admiration. She’s a cool lady, the modern mum, a real role model for my generation.

Then uncle comes by to pick up a magazine. Salim introduces me and he turns to me, a slow smile forming on his face as he says in Hindi,

”Yes, beta, I remember. We have spoken on the phone a few times. You are Salim’s friend.”

I smile back at him. He’s the traditional papa, warm but reserved with women, even his kids’ friends. And I wonder just how two people, so different from each other could get along, what they would find to say to each other.

I turn back to Salim, willing him to complete his story. He smiles again and says,

“And that is how I was saved, in the nick of time. That baby was me.”

And I think to myself, there’s no doubt from where he gets his flair for drama.

~O~O~O~O~O~

*Based on a true story

If I had to write a book on ‘Things that they never told me about in b-school”, it would run into volumes that no one would read. I suspect that a lot of these things that ‘they never tell us about’ are not meant to be known to us at that time anyway. Some things you realise only with time, some things are experienced and understood only in the context of the right time-frame.

Being a student is something that is a way of life for most people under the Indian education system (only because I don’t know if it is different elsewhere). From our earliest memories, we are used to being the low life in the complex matrix of teachers, assignments, back-benchism (yes, as a noun), bullies, exams, practicals, notes, lessons, grades, degrees etc.

At twenty-something it abruptly comes to an end and you suddenly have to learn to live your life as ‘not a student any more’. Oh, yes I know there are people who go back to school but once you’ve had a taste of this side of things, you are transformed for life. I particularly feel it when I attend an alumni meet. The transition from aspirant to candidate to student to alumnus is not a smooth one. It hits you in sudden doses.

I worked for some time between my graduation and masters so I went back to college with a certain “must keep my eyes open and not miss a single minute of the experience” attitude. I had realised that old adage about ‘the best years’. Even so, the stark differences take some getting used to.

Attitudes change. Drastically. People and times change of course. But I’m talking about universal attitude towards a person when he/she goes through this aspirant-candidate-student-alumnus cycle. Suddenly the higher powers-that-be who couldn’t be bothered with granting you five minutes of their time to discuss your admission/work/placements are queuing up to shake your hand. Of course all of this is dependent on what you’ve done and how you’ve done it since they last left you.

I initially thought of this as akin to the ‘leaving the nest’ syndrome. But family is different. At a professional level, one’s alma mater is the equivalent of family but they aren’t bound to you emotionally in the same way. Hence you get used and abused and when the roles change, its time to return the favour.

Do I sound cynical? Well, it is disconcerting to find that the same people who misplaced your certificates (and ensured endless running around to universities, registrar offices et al for you), graded you badly because they thought you should have been home learning to cook instead and did so many other callous things…are introducing you as ‘someone the students would do well to follow, a fast-track professional, someone with a bright future, a worthy alumnus of this college etc etc’

But that is still bitching about faculty. One of my early mentors told me “You’ll find lots of contacts in college that could lead to jobs, business opportunities and such useful things. But you won’t find friends.” It really hit me at the alumni meet. Six months out of college and very excited about meeting my old classmates again, I arrived at the alumni meet. I’d been on the other side long enough, the organizers, the alumni group, the nameless, faceless students who ensured that the institute had links to all those who had walked through its halls. And now, I was about to sign my name in the Visitors book for the first time. I felt like a moth caught in a chandelier. Someone I didn’t recognize called me to invite me, someone else had a name tag ready for me, disembodied hands stuffed a bag of college paraphrelia into my arms and pushed me into the hall. And inside the hall, there was the same gathering I’d seen in the past years. Except the bunch that used to sport the Volunteer tags now had respectable Visitor passes. And everyone was flashing visiting cards.

I have attended several alumni meets now. And there are patterns that I didn’t catch at first. Patterns that repeat. The person in the centre of a crowd isn’t the one who was the most popular student. It is more likely to be that slimy lizard who stole your reports and who was the first one in the batch to get promoted.

What about your seniors? Ah, this is really interesting. Some of those creeps who bullied you all through the first days and then forgot you when you needed a mentor, suddenly want your email address. Oh and maybe ‘get together sometime for a drink and discuss some business opportunities’. And those great people whom you had fun with, who did give you some tips about your interview seem to be avoiding you. I guess it isn’t easy to deal with the idea that someone you gave a leg up to, zoomed past you.

What of those who fared more or less the same way as you did in college and now too? They are there of course….with uneasy looking smiles they tell you that they want to ‘circulate’ and that they’ll catch up with you later. Which they don’t. You may bump into them over dinner and conversations are guarded. And probing. No friends in this game, rivals it is always.

Of course all conversations revolve around who is doing what, who switched jobs and why. Everyone joins in, even those who haven’t worked since they quit college. Everyone has an opinion. And an agenda. Visiting cards are passed out, phone numbers exchanged. Everyone knows everyone else as well as someone’s boss, colleague, client, supplier. There is this seemingly casual camaradie while they bitch about a common contact. But each one is storing what the other is saying to be circulated back to the subject of common scorn.

I was stripped of my illusions at that one meet that happened the year I took a break from my job. It was close to the time I quit and a lot of people hadn’t heard about it. So I greeted the usual wave of handshakes coming my way and prepared for the charade ahead. Except most of those smiles visibly faded when they realised that there was no job/sale/contact coming their way. A few people actually cut me mid-sentence and walked off ‘to say hello to so-and-so’. The next year of course changed again. A new job, a new visiting card brought a few new handshakes and all the old ones too.

I still attend alumni meets. I guess I’ve become a part of the system too. There really are useful contacts to be made and maintained, even if I can’t stand them at a personal level. I no more get that very juvenile kick out of seeing my teachers faces when they realise I didn’t turn out a wastrel after all. Some things don’t matter with time I guess. I do like meeting the new kids on the block. I particularly enjoy talking to students. Maybe I just like advising people but yes, I do remember that there were a few people whose words changed the course of my life at one time or another. If sharing an experience eases someone’s way, I consider my debts repaid.

After each alumni meet, I like to take a stroll through the old campus. A college always looks weird when it is empty. But it feels even funnier to see strange faces sitting inside classrooms, lounging in hallways and generally belonging to the place that used to feel like second home to me once. The empty building just looks like I stayed back for a late class, after everyone left. I used to do that sometimes. And after I finished up work, I’d relax over a chai and dream about my future. Standing in that future right now, realising that all those dreams came true….is a good feeling. It makes even the alumni meet worth it.