Drama in real life

Now that I finally have the luxury of taking it at a slightly easier pace, there's really nothing on my mind worthy of a blog post, except for the Nightmare that's happened in Mumbai. I've been glued to the telly for the last couple of days, trying to come to grips with the horror that's being enacted on screen. I thought this kind of thing only happened in the movies. Time was when we escaped to reel life to get away from the sheer monotony and predictability of real life. Now I watch the movies to relax; there's enough drama and tension in real life.I'm obsessed with the why of the entire senseless incident at the same time that I am overcome with sympathy for those directly affected. The irony is that it takes something of this magnitude for us to come together as a nation.

Speaking of bonds that are formed and broken in the course of our lives, I've been thinking of the friends I've made online, here in the blog world, as well as in sites like Orkut and mIRC.It took me a month-long non-functional Internet connection to realize how much they have become part of my life. I guess what makes these relationships special is that, in most cases, people don't even know what you look like, sound like, or what your bank balance looks like. Therefore, you are not judged by mere appearances, something that sadly is becoming more and more common in "real" life. Which got me to mulling over the question of what is "real" and what is "unreal". If I feel more accepted, more comfortable with people I've never seen (and probably never will) does that make my relationships with them any less real? How is it that "virtual" reality makes more genuine people of us than the "real" world, where we feel compelled to be polite, restrained, scared to err, eager to impress, and quick to judge?

Reality. Surely those terrorists had what in their warped logic was probably an excellent reason to kill and maim innocent people. What is reality for some is fantasy - and nightmare - for others. So whose reality do we accept as the ultimate "real" thing?

Of course, the lines blur now and again. Coming back to these relationships, I realized that the ones online and those 'offline' need not be mutually exclusive.There are "crossovers". It was an unexpected, but rather pleasant surprise to have some "online" friends actually ringing me up just to see whether I was okay or not since I had been out of circulation for some time. Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't worry too much about where my friends are from, as long as I 'keep it real'.