The Face book Manifesto..

“Proletarians of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!” thus wrote Karl Marx in one of the world's most influential political manuscripts - “The Communist Manifesto”. It took 100’s of years and dozens of editions of the book to popularize these words among the people across the world.

Precisely 162 years later, a 26-year-old woman worried about the state of her country wrote on her Wall: "People, I am going to Tahrir Square". This writing on the wall, unlike the scores of writings that you see on the walls elsewhere, didn’t go unnoticed. There were hundreds of thousands of people who followed her to the streets of Egypt, shaking the roots of the thirty year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. This demonstrated the power of one of internets recent innovations, the Facebook. The ‘wall’ where she wrote these revolutionary lines was the virtual wall of Facebook.

Facebook, which started as a college website seven years ago, grew to become one of the biggest establishments in the world of internet. With over a 600 million active users following, it is next only to Christ who has a following of 2100 million worldwide. It won’t be long before it overtakes Christianity to become the world’s biggest ‘religion’, and remember it won’t need any popes, bishops or pastors to do so. It is often said that three Jews – Christ, Marx & Einstein has influenced the thoughts of the world and any individual that you come across in life would be a follower of one of the three. It may be coincidental, but Mark Zuckerberg – the founder of Facebook, also happen to be a Jew.

The fact that Facebook competed with internet giant Google’s Orkut to gain the first slot in Social networking speak tons about the acceptability of Facebook. Even in India & Brazil, where Orkut remained at the number one position for quiet some time, Facebook has taken over. Though people often point fingers at facebook for wasting time of youngsters, recent incidents has revealed that there are more things to do using facebook than just being in touch with your childhood buddy or keeping a track of your ex-girlfriend.

When Zuckerberg was declared the Time’s Person of the year, edging out Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, there was a public outcry against the decision. People went on to say that Facebook has robed more people of their privacy than what Julian Assange has done. An accusation which was always being raised against Facebook – that it’s a major threat to our privacy. May be the accusation is true, may be it is not but the fact is that your presence or absence in facebook won’t give you the privilege of privacy. The recent events that unravel before us stand testimony for that. When the phone records of India’s most respectful business tycoon can be tapped at will by sleuths, when names of depositors in Swiss banks is available with media houses, when classified official communications of governments are published in websites, how can we even dream of privacy?

A Slight modification of the famous lines of John F Kennedy would be apt in this regard - "Ask not, what Facebook can do to you. Ask what, you can do with Facebook”. The fall of Hosni Mubarak is just a curtain raiser. There are hundreds of Mubaraks’ who are waiting to fall. It’s just an initiative from one of us that matters. Gone are the days when enterprising journalists go around media houses trying to publish their news item. You are free to put your views on facebook and if your view has content, it goes without saying that it will be circulated among the pool of 600 million users.

Facebook can be used as a medium for social revolution. If you come across any corruption or malpractice, take a snap or shoot a video in your mobile and publish it. Let no corrupt person or practice go unnoticed. Expose them; bring them to trial in the court of the people. This is what you can do and this is what you should do, other wise……

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

On that day
the simple men will come.

Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they’ll ask:

“What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?”

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.

Last summer of La Boyita

Latin American Films were always the highlight of International Film Festival of Kerala. This time, in the 15^th edition of IFFK, the movie which bragged the Rajata Chakoram (silver pheasant)award was “Last summer of La Boyita”. Last Summer of La Boyita is an Argentinan movie, directed by Julia Solomonoff. The movie portrays certain facts which are often considered as stigma by mainstream film industry.

Nature always treats men and women in different manner. When women always have milestones in the various transitions of life, men never have it. Men often slip into their adolescence without knowing when exactly they became an adult. What if the symptoms of transitions started appearing on a boy?

This movie traverses through the life of two people – a boy (Mario) and a girl (Luciana), who are in their early days of adolescence. The transitions that adolescence makes in their lives are viewed through the viewpoint of the younger sister (Jorgelina) of Luciana.

Jorgelina realises that Luciana no more considers her as a playmate and she is being treated as a nuisance. Annoyed by the treatment meted out to her, she decided to take a break and moves out with her father to his farm in the Argnetinan countryside to spend the summer. Here, she befriends the boy – Mario. Mario is often too busy with his daily chores – assisting his aging father, training for his horse racing premiere- that he has little time for childish recreation.

As the story advances, Jorgelina comes across a fact in Mario’s personal life that his parents always had preferred to deny. Mario shares with her the secret that he's been raised as a boy, but he appears to have the sex organs of both a male and a female, and he's not sure what he is and what he should do about it.

The Last Summer of La Boyita is an intimate and emotional tale that delightfully unravels the mysteries of sexuality amongst youth. It’s a visually stunning movie and the young actors have given brilliant performances.

Following NASA

It’s not the fever or the running nose or the itching or the Body pain, but it’s the seclusion that hurts you the most when you are down with chicken pox. The varicella zoster virus, struck me down. Stranded up in a room, quarantined from your dear and near, you wonder what you are going to do during the next two weeks of imminent boredom that awaits you.

As the feeling of being an untouchable or outcaste started seeping into my bones, I looked for options to engage myself. In today’s world, where your existence on earth is acknowledged only if you have a Facebook, Orkut or Twitter account, the thought that I am an untouchable only to the physical world but not to the cyber world, brought some relief. It was then that I remembered about my quiescent Twitter account.

Twitter, which was popularized by the likes of Shashi Tharoor, Lalit Modi & Sunanda Pushkar, doesn’t need any introduction in India. But for all those who are not much updated on Twitter - technically speaking, it’s a microblogging site, where you can publish your views on anything in just under 140 characters and figuratively speaking, it’s the biggest social revolution that has happened ever since Internet was conceived.

It was during the initial days of Tharoor controversies that I got attracted towards Twitter. I created an account and started following Tharoor. I was amazed by his knowledge, jealous about his travels and happy about the controversies that he created every other day. First the Holycow, then the Interlocutor, Sweat Equity, Sunanda Pushkar, Lalit Modi, the controversies were boiling one after the other and made my Twitter sojourn interesting.

However, the interest didn’t last for long. After the IPL scam was sorted out and Lalit modi and Shashi Tharoor was shown the door, there were not many controversial high profile guys who could make my Twitter days interesting and I slowly became inactive in Twitter. But thanks to chickenpox now, I reinvented Twitter.

On my comeback I found out that it was not just Holy Cows and Cattle class, but from Barack Obama to Sumit Kumar (he is a member of Team Voyage), everybody was in Twitter. I found many interesting profiles, Rajeev Masand – India’s most popular film critic, Lalettan – Malyalees favourite actor Mohanlal, Harsha Bhogle – Cricket Commentator, Vir Sanghvi – one of the leading Indian journalists, the list went on. I started following many of them and started receiving updates on my mobile about what they are upto at this moment, their views on important issues, etc. So one day, got a tweet from Lalettan saying that he was having shooting at Ooty for his forthcoming movie “Kandahar”, the next day he was flying to United States. I wished him a Happy Journey…Yes!!! I wished my favourite actor a Happy Journey which I never thought was possible in my Life. This is what you call a social revolution. You can put your point to any damn guy in this world, let alone Lalettan, you can even scold Obama for his Afghan misadventures.

As I ventured more into Twitter, I realised that there are more valuable profiles like NASA, ESA etc. I joined them as well, and to my astonishment found that they update every minute detail of the activities carried out by their centers. I was stunned by the social responsibility they exhibit by sharing every piece of information in the public domain.

Now I get to know more details of NASA and its activities through their updates in Twitter. Last month they faced an issue with the Cooling system in the space station. Every single detail of the issue, including the problems they faced while rectifying it was updated in real time.

The experience with ESA was also not much different. They were updating a minute by minute detail of the recent Ariane Launch which put two Arabsat satellites in orbit. They even reported a last minute hold at T-7 minutes. Thanks to Twitter, BSNL 3G and Smart Phone, I could enjoy the 198th launch of Ariane lying down in my sick bed. The transparency they follow in their launch program justifies the credibility they enjoy in the international commercial launch sector.

I searched for similar profiles of ISRO and ended up in finding a dormant profile of Bhuvan. It would be nice if ISRO also have a Twitter account; it would help lot of our people in getting more details about the activities of ISRO and thereby generating more interest in space technologies. As the new age saying goes, “If you are not in Facebook/Twitter, you don’t exist”. Even JAXA has a twitter profile, but they put updates only in Japanese. It seems they are interested to share the information with only their countrymen.

As I was winding up writing this article, there came a tweet from ESA saying “Arianespace to launch GSAT 10 for India”. Hope the day is not so far when we get a tweet from ISRO saying “gsLVM3 to launch Arabsat for ….”

Raidurg - The Unpublished Travelogue

Every trip to shar has been adventurous, starting from standing in queue from 4'o clock in the morning for booking tatkal, boarding the train with a waitinglist ticket which never got confirmed, traveling in general compartment, trips in state transport buses, catching late night trains, eating out in the unhygenic environment in dhabas, ..the list never ends. ...but nothing was never so adventurous than this particular trip of ours..and so memorable too...

The idea of the trip to Raidurg came when someone lamented about the tastlessness of food at SHAR. Our 'always ready to help' driver Muniraju suggested that he will bring food cooked at his house. That was an offer we couldn't resist. He mentioned about a fishing village on the border of SHAR's northern territory where we could get fresh fish. There was no second thoughts, the illtreatment metted out to our tastebuds by the canteen cooks was crossing all limits. We started our journey towards Raidurg in search of fresh fish which ultimately would satiate our desire for good food.

After traversing a few kilometers, we felt as if we were having a jungle saffari. The road had electric fensing on either

sides. Beside the fencing was thick forest. The forest, at times give way for beautiful lakes and backwaters. The road ahead of us looked as if it never ends and its not going to take us anywhere. There were no buildings in sight, for that matter there were not even a sign of human existence.

As milestones passed by, we even started doubting the intentions of our driver. As these ominous thoughts were engrossing our minds, the vehicle stopped in front of a giant stone gate. That was the entrance to an old temple. As we tried to enter the beautiful old dilapidated building, scores of bats came out. The sight resembled something like that of a ghost house. We roamed around the premises, appreciating the scale of stone work in the building and wondering why no one tried to preserve this, something like the church building in VSSC. Our driver asked us to speed up warning us of the difficulty in driving during late hours. We got into the car, partly heeding to his warning & mainly to meet our culinary requirements.

The pucca road gave way to kachha roads. After a few minutes of drive, we reached the last watchtower of CISF. Our driver stopped the car, we got down and walked a few steps to reach the river front. There in front of us unveiled the most beautiful place in SHAR.

The sight of "Raidurg" was so captivating that we forgot the whole purpose of our trip. In front of us was a vast river, and on the other end a beaitiful island. There was a boatman on the other side with his small boat which was the only way to reach that island. We communicated our intention to awail his services by using the only way of communication available there - 'whistling'. He responded in the positive and in a few minutes we were onboard the boat, propelled by the most fuel efficient method, by pulling a rope tied to a tree on the island.

As we ventured more into Raidurg's territories, our astonishment saw no bounds. We felt as if we were travelling back in time. There were no roads in the village, no motor vehicle, no schools, no hospitals, there were just walkways. On either side of the walkways were beautiful huts, walls of which were made of mud and the roofs thatched with palm leaves. The houses were too short that we wondered how people can stand inside them. The houses had beautiful fences made of tree barks, the likes of which is very difficult to find in our world.

The whole village was like a big family.As we walked across the village we could see eyes popping out of the huts, watching us as if we came from some other planet. Women were seen busy doing their household chores. Men were sitting in groups, engaged in some discussions. After a few steps we came across a small shop. There was nothing much for sale at the shop, except for a few packets of biscuits, two cigarette packets, bundles of beedis and half a dozen small snacks packets. A few men where sitting near the shop and were busy chitchatting. As they saw us, they enquired Who we are? Where we are from? Why we have come tere? and What they can do for us? Ofcourse all questions were posted in a polite manner.

Before we could say anything, our driver replied. "we are scientists from Kerala & we came there in search of toddy"of all the other reasons toddy. We stood there stumped at the answer which was never our primary intention. We thought we are screwed - comming to a village in groups and asking for liquor. Oh god!!! Who is going to save us from their fury?

Before we could react, one man from the group asked as to follow him. He took us to a small hut. In front of the hut was a lady who was sitting in front of a big pot. The man conversed to her in Telugu, the meaning of which we could not decipher. She took a mug and using a measuring glass, she took a mug full of toddy from the pot and offered to us. Oh! we just realised that we are in a village where toddy is a small scale industry & women work from home by selling toddy. We proceeded to take more mugs of toddy but was not impressed by the taste. The man who guided

us to the lady, understood our displeasure and told us that he will take us to a place where we will get better toddy.

After paying 5 rs per mug of toddy, we moved on to our next destination, wondering at the cheap rates at which toddy is offered and cursing all the liquor barons in civilised India for exploiting poor drunkards. At the next hut, the toddy was tastier. Number of mugs went up exponentially and before we could reach astronomical figures came the next warning from our driver in the form of a gentle reminder.

We winded up our trip and proceeded to go back. While waiting for the boat in the serene beach, we collected some beautiful shells from the shore. With hands full of exotic shells and mind full of sweet memories, we bid good bye to Raidurg.

We postponed our plan to buy fish as it was too late and went back to hostel canteen. The notorious dosa and sambar, the worst any cook can make, was waiting for us.