THE TWEETNAGERS

Ranjan looked at the clock in his house. It was 4 PM. He was going to the birthday party of Sujit, son of his friend Sameer. He looked at the room in the first floor. The door was closed. Ragini was getting ready. It was more than 20 minutes since she was in the room getting ready for the party.

Ranjan was becoming restless. He took his smart phone and sent a message to her on Whats-app “How many more minutes?”

Reply came back “Five more”

“Ten men can get ready by the time a lady gets ready”

“What is there for a man to get ready? Short hair and no good dressing sense”

The exchange of message went on for few more minutes.

At last the door of the first floor room opened and Ragini came out dressed in a pink saree. She looked very beautiful in her attire. Immediately Ranjan sent one more message “Looking beautiful, my lady”

Ragini laughed and said “Enough of it. Let us speak to one another when we are in the same room”

Immediately Ranjan came closer to her and took a selfie on his mobile and posted on Facebook with the comments “The Deshpande's are ready to go to the party and are rocking”

Ranjan started his car and waited for Ragini to lock the door of the house and step in. A cluster of alerts came on his mobile. About 25 likes and some 12 comments came. Ranjan looked very pleased and showed the same to Ragini as she entered the car and sat next to him.

Ranjan said “Look Ragini this  message is good. Samvit says Deshpandes are made for each other and the photo is to be framed”

Ragini smiled and said “Hey look at this message from Savitha. She says she is jealous of me”

Ranjan laughed and said “Obviously, she would have said looking at me”

They were delighted looking at the messages and Ranjan started driving the car.

Sameer had invited his close friends on the eve of the 10th birthday of his son Sujit. The couple drove for another half an hour and arrived at Sameer’s house. Sameer came out of his house and with a warm hug welcomed Ranjan. Sameer’s wife smiled and escorted Ragini.

I arrived about 10 minutes later. I was greeted by Sameer and after some exchange of pleasantries, I settled down on a chair comfortably.

I looked around. About 12-15 people were sitting. I could see the kids were busy in the adjoining room. I was not surprised to see that not many were talking to one another. They were busy with their smart phones. Ranjan and Ragini were sitting next to one another. They were busy texting messages on their phones.

I got up from the seat and went to the room where the kids were playing. The kids were not playing in the true sense. Two boys were busy playing tennis on Wii, three girls were glued to the computer monitor watching Taylor Swift song on you tube. The rest of the kids were looking at the tablet Sujit was having. He was playing a video game in it.

I was not happy the way the party was going on. Sameer entered the room. He saw me and could understand my feelings. He came closer and patted my back and said “come, let us start the party”.

The kids came out and Sameer announced “Friends I am very happy today. My boy Sujit is completing 10 years today. He is becoming a Tweenager. We all have gone through the process. The tween-age phase is very typical since they have the traits of a kid as well as that of a teenager. We as parents have extra responsibility to guide the boy in this confusing phase of his life.”

Sameer completed his small speech. I looked around. Almost half of the guys were busy with their smart phones. Sameer looked at me and said “This is the reality brother. Things have changed.”

I could not take it anymore.

I started off “Friends please lend me your ears. We are very happy that we are meeting here today to celebrate the birthday of Sujit. I have a complaint. Sameer could have created a page on Facebook instead of calling us here. We could have sent him wishes over the social media page.

But that is not life worth living. Unknowingly our lives have been bulldozed by social media and all of us are busy with Facebook, Whats-App, twitter and other virtual tools. There is no true connect as we are always connected virtually.

Sujit has become a Tweenager but we all have become Tweetnagers. Always active on the social media.

Gone are those days when we used to ignore each other by books. These days we are doing the same by smart phones.

Remember the days when we used to get annoyed if any one looked into our dairy? These days the activities are posted on social media and we get annoyed if no one notices it.”

I looked around. There was silence in the room. Everyone looked convinced. Ranjan got up and asked Sameer to switch off the WiFi. He turned towards the gathering and said “Let us switch off our cell phones for the next two hours and celebrate the birthday of the new Tweenager.”

The crowd erupted in joy and the kids started running all around in the house. The women started gossiping and Sameer happily opened the scotch bottle and started pouring in the glasses and shouted “let the festivities begin.”