The Orkut days! :)

Once upon a time, we used to socialise virtually on Orkut. I thought typing this would make me laugh, but I feel a sense of nostalgia instead. Remember that fun time when Orkut was a breath of fresh air after the very insipid Hi5? How we used to compete on how many scraps we had collected on our scrapbook & how many fans we had. We would wait eagerly for a testimonial to come in from friends (filled with words that over sold our normal selves to potential virtual friends! :D)  and would count how many we had collected. Gosh - how jobless were we and how much time we had for things that didn't matter at all! :)))) I remember how we would join various communities and comment on threads, and keep checking regularly on what comments followed ours and if someone disagrees, or has picked up a fight or is in agreement with your views. Okay - now I am laughing!! How ridiculous! :D     What is it that out of the blues made me write about Orkut now that he/she/it (never know which one to pick for the likes) is no more (God bless the departed soul that served us so well when alive!).    

  I recall that, in a community called 'Kashmir' that I had joined, there was a thread by the name, 'My Dream about Kashmir', where I had written down my thoughts on the matter and I happened to land across the piece yesterday. On reading it I went into the, 'awwwwwww how cute' mode instantly. It was the time when I was still very idealistic about life and things that can happen in it and the piece reflected that. I feel I have to share this with my readers purely for the sake of its innocence.    Pasted below - enjoy!! :)  

   

    I was in the fourth grade when I grabbed onto the Children's Bible one day, for he first time ever. I was a kid....innocent, untouched by either the realization or the importance of the word "RELIGION"!!!!! I did not even have the slightest idea that the book that i was holding had anything whatsoever to do with religion....i just started reading it as if it were a story book i could feast on (becoz i LOVED reading) and was fascinated with the wonderful pictures it was filled with. I remember clearly to this day the first few chapters which described some breathtakingly beautiful place called "The Eden Garden" and the relevant pictures that they contained. Looking at those pictures, my naive mind thought that, perhaps "The Eden Garden" was actually metaphoric to my homeland "Kashmir". I was living in Switzerland in those days, yet my mind could compare the beauty of "The Eden Garden" to but one place i had seen to that day, and that place was "Kashmir". With the sheep grazing on the pastures, the birds singing sweet nothings flying all over the place, the air of love and peacefulness till wherever ones vision could take them, the beautiful lake with fish swimming deep and low( which by the way i thought was “the DAL”....heheheh...silly me), and no sign of panic or fear whatsoever anywhere......in fact, i don’t think people living there had ever even heard of these words(that is a different aspect altogether that at that time only Adam and Eve lived here)!!!!!!
 Then one day Eve committed the Original Sin somewhere in the next couple of chapters, and the stunning garden transformed suddenly into living hell, with hate, worries, tensions, and bloodshed everywhere. That too led me to compare the place one more time with what was becoming of KASHMIR.....only I had no idea who was Eve in this case.......because if i DID i would have begged her not to listen to Satan disguised as a snake and not to eat the apple from the "forbidden garden", when there were plenty of apples to eat from our own garden!!!!
 I had visited Kashmir a year back, after a span of 16 years, and believe me, when i boarded off the plane and placed my first step on the land, there was this sense of serenity I felt in the air ever since the aircraft door had opened, and everything was so pleasant, that I actually wanted to bend down and KISS the land before I placed my foot on it. I know people who have not been there must be thinking I’m dramatizing all this, but believe me, you will know that flow of adrenaline and that bittersweet emotion, only once you personally go there and feel exactly what I did.. Those days spent there have by far been the most memorable days of my life. There is something in the air of Kashmir( aab-o-hawa as they say) that makes you instantaneously fall in love with it and a sense of possessiveness takes you over, like maybe for a man, as hey say, a thunderbolt strikes u and u fall in love with a beautiful and innocent girl, without even knowing anything about her (Ref: The Godfather). Guys, now I know what emotions you go through at those times…..LOL!
 Since the beginning and the next part of the Bible was almost allegorically similar to what Kashmir went through, my dream about Kashmir would be that its end be that way too. The Bible ends with a promise of God to all His children that one day He shall return us “The Eden Garden”, a place where sheep would graze beside tigers, all people would live in serenity and harmony, and there would be love, love and only love all over the beautiful valley. The love for Kashmir would take over all other things like politics, religion, and the list is actually endless. Kashmir is more important than anything else and I just hope God answers my prayers while I am alive, and someday I go to live in that heaven with my family and all my friends.
 And that is all I have to say about that (Forrest Gump style)!  PS: The irony is that I was referring to myself  as a kid in line two, whereas now when I read the post, I feel I was still a kid when I wrote it! :D Also, I have left the post unadulterated and not run it through spell check.