I had first heard the term 'Global Village' during my journalism course, long time ago and had felt amazed at how the technological advancements are going to shrink the vast world into a small global village. Though we still talk about it much more casually, it is only recently that I could identify the real village in the virtual world - the facebook.
As I was going through my facebook, I was struck by how we behave just like those village simpletons. The "Wall" was just another name for the ubiquitous village tea shop. One could get a bird's eye view of what was happening in our village and could easily join any of the discussions going on. One could also be a bystander and silently observe how each event is developing. But here we have one more advantage. One can partake in all this, incognito, which is a mindset truly rustic. If the facebook developers had added a mechanism to secretly record those footprints silently walking through its pages, it would have been real fun.
Just like villagemen innocently celebrating their small achievements, the Wall too brandishes such announcements in all forms..be it birthdays or kids performance.. the celebrations require no special reason.
A villageman is bound to visit his neighbours occasionally and personally enquire about their wellbeing. Otherwise he becomes an outcast in his village. The modern day villageman also visits the homepage of his friends, but he does it mostly undercover and curiously scans what they are upto.
The newly-wed couple are a sight to behold in a village. All eyes follow them jealously and so are the visitors to the albums. The ones uploading and the umpteen ones downloading are equally happy.
Those who value their privacy in a village and built a six foot fence around their houses too find their counterpart in the modern day village. They bluntly shut their doors with a no-entry sign and friends of friends are left high and dry.
But the real boon is for that evergreen lover, the pareekutty of every village. His lady love may have settled with a lad long back, but through facebook, he continues to watch her... at a distance.... and watch the fairytale life he had dreamed of unfold before him....albeit without him.
