By Sebastian Davis
About
20 years ago, the difficulties in life for a teenage boy, were measured by the
kind of course taken, the number of exams, how to talk to a beautiful girl and
the methods on how to catch a smoke or drink without your parents catching you.
My
name is Sharath Kumar. I’m your average middle class teenage boy. Everything
about me is so called 'middle-class'. My dad works at a bank and earns just
about enough to buy me a gift worth Rs.5000 every year on my birthday. My
mother is a housewife who like every other mother cooks the tastiest food in
the whole world. I have 98 friends on Facebook, 32 of which are my family
members!
Final
year at engineering college was a really boring time for me; loads of exams and
countless enquiries about my future plans. To make things worse the people who
were worried most about my future were my neighbours, the milk-man, the paper
guy and even the temple guy who comes every month for donation. Engineering has
taught me everything that a certain forwarded message says: opening a beer
bottle with my teeth, experiencing getting drunk to the maximum level of
intoxication and still trying to stand straight and pee, getting depressed over
the same girl a zillion times, and also developing a habit of smoking a cigarette
daily. In short I was enjoying my perfectly going imperfect college life.
The
only thing that kept bothering me was that I’d never had a girl-friend. I had
been single since the day I was born. It’d been 21 years and not even a one
week relationship! All my friends kept telling me that when the day came, I
will find the perfect person.
August
6th 2011 was the day that the most horrible imaginable thing that could happen
to me, happened. I and a couple of friends were having the usual end of month
booze party. Just before the party had started I had borrowed a friend’s laptop
and gone through my Facebook notifications. Nothing great, just the usual Farmville
notifications. The booze party went on till 3 in the morning but tragic me, as
usual, passed out after two shots and three rounds of puking before 10 pm.
It
was around 9 the next morning when I got up hearing my phone ringing. With the
extremely bad hangover I picked the call. It was MOM.
Mom:
“What is wrong with you? This has become a disgrace to our family.”
Me:
“Mom, what are you talking about? I’ve told you about the monthly booze
parties.”
But
she barely heard what i said and she went on...
“...never
thought you would do such a thing. When you said you wanted to stay with your friends
I never thought it was to have privacy to do such things. We have loved you in
every way and is this what you're giving us back?”.
Oh
God. How do I stop this?
“...if
you had any kind of feelings for Rani, you should have told us first place rather
than telling the whole world about it.”
“STOP
IT”, I shouted.
Shit.
Rani was the Tamilian maid who came home every day to wash clothes and clean
the house. What the hell was Mom talking about?
“What
are you talking about?” I asked. “Why are you talking about Rani now?”
“Don’t
try to pretend in front of me now. Indrajith uncle called early morning....”
And
she slammed the phone on me.
I
stepped out of the bachelor pad, took a deep breath of fresh air and put a
cigarette in my mouth before I could take in my next breath. I was bewildered
as to what exactly could have gone wrong? Why would Mom say anything about Rani
at this time of the day? Ah chuck it, she's probably pissed off with something.
But still...feelings for Rani? Oh no...something’s not right.
The
cigarette wasn’t working, so I took the laptop and logged into Facebook.
Actually i didn’t have to log in, it logged in automatically. 2 Notifications!
“John Mathew and 20
other friends like your status.”
“Anil Uk and 35
other friends commented on your status.”
Status?
When did I even put up a status? I Clicked on one of those notifications and
there it
was,
“I
LOVE RANI...CANT WAIT TO MARRY HER...APPA AMMA OK.! :D.”
Closed
the laptop in a second and put on pants in a hurry. I looked around at all the
bastards drunk and sleeping peacefully. I know one of them did this. I was in a
hurry to get home and convince Mom that it was a huge mistake. But by the time
I got home, my whole family was there, including my cousins and their children
who were already running around the place. A whole group discussion went on the
whole day, and finally my history was sealed. My first love – Rani the servant
girl. However I try, it’s not going to change.
Even
a week later I was getting “Hope you have thought well about it” wall posts.
Moral:-
Make sure you log off your Facebook account after use.
A status can change your life.
