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MUMBAI, Maharashtra / The Times of India / News / September 6, 2009
By Joeanna Rebello Fernandes, Times News Network
Why Facebook is for Old Fogies' ran a February piece in Time Magazine. The author, a bit long in the tooth himself, listed ten reasons why. Reason Five read: `We're lazy. At our age, we don't want to do anything. What we want is to hear about other people doing things and then judge them for it.'
India's Old Folk on Facebook (OFOF) (and by old we mean the over-65) have not logged in to be priests listening to e-confessionals. They're too busy making declarations of their own.
"Controversy again over the Asiatic Society of Mumbai. Great institution and imposing architecture. I love it. But we need a big network of libraries at the grassroots. That would be democratic." Sixty-five-year-old journalist Vidyadhar Date received 14 responses to his status update. Weigh that against "My boyfrnd sucks'' or "Back in office cough cough'', the more prosaic posts of the 20- and 30-somethings that typically populate social sites.
For pensioners like Date, cyber thoroughfares offer a handy surrogacy of the physical world-here's where they hook up with forgotten friends, make new ones across the age ambit, cotton on to what's happening in art, culture, politics, etc, enlist with a cause and give in to frivolity once in a while.
Ask Don Chitre, aka Dilip Chitre, as he is famously known in the straitlaced world of poetry and letters. Chitre's homepage says the 71-year-old has graduated to level seven of the online game Mafia Wars. "I seem to have inadvertently become part of the game by accepting certain tokens,'' says Chitre, whose translations of Tukaram and Namdeo Dhasal have earned him international plaudits. On Facebook, however, another side emerges-he sends out Rainbow River Hearts and high-fives, pokes his 899 friends and saves rainforests by cultivating `green patches'. "There's nothing frivolous about sending chocolates (the pixel kind) to friends,'' he says, over the phone from Pune. "I think it's thoughtful, and people love it.'' Encumbered with a "nasty cancer'', Chitre uses Facebook to post updates on his health. "Many people want to know how I'm doing, and this is an easy way,'' he says. "But I don't upload my poetry here. My poetry is not frivolous.''
Haribhau Kedar, the 74-year-old former vice-chancellor of Nagpur University and politician, shoots the breeze with friends younger than him because "my own generation is ignorant about such things''. Many of his friends' kids read the writing on his Wall-the cumulated wisdom he dispenses in capsules. And pointedly, in the language of his youth. "I don't understand the abbreviated speech of today,'' Kedar sniffs. "I continue to use old idioms and phrases, and hope my young friends pick some of them up.''
These vintage facebookers channel Longfellow, Gandhi, Churchill and Valmiki in their comments and opinions. Their photo albums are crowded with pictures of their grandkids and watery prints of their youth. And when they take one of those quizzes like `Which Famous Poem are You?', they usually end up as the personification of a Robert Frost offering.
Kitty Darbary, apparently the animate embodiment of Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, is a teacher with the Cumballa Hill High School. She hasn't deciphered all of social networking but trial-and-error gets her around. "My grandkids showed me how to use the internet,'' says the 69-year-old, who has joined a literary group but doesn't really know what to do there, just like Kedar can't figure how to atomise old Wall posts. "I've added many of my ex-students to my friend list,'' Darbary says, "and even present students want me to admit them, but I need to maintain some distance I think.'' After all, which teacher would want to be roadrun by online queries on what to expect in the geography exam?
Scholar of anatomy, Dr Eustace de Souza, lost little time in acquainting himself with email, cell-phone, camcorder and digital camera. The social networking site was simply a natural progression of his curiosity. `There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook' claimed Time. `That time has passed'. For 89-year-old Dr de Souza, who doesn't know how to navigate the "blooming thing", but has his profile on it, `cool' is only as cold does. [
rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
"Controversy again over the Asiatic Society of Mumbai. Great institution and imposing architecture. I love it. But we need a big network of libraries at the grassroots. That would be democratic." Sixty-five-year-old journalist Vidyadhar Date received 14 responses to his status update. Weigh that against "My boyfrnd sucks'' or "Back in office cough cough'', the more prosaic posts of the 20- and 30-somethings that typically populate social sites.
For pensioners like Date, cyber thoroughfares offer a handy surrogacy of the physical world-here's where they hook up with forgotten friends, make new ones across the age ambit, cotton on to what's happening in art, culture, politics, etc, enlist with a cause and give in to frivolity once in a while.
Ask Don Chitre, aka Dilip Chitre, as he is famously known in the straitlaced world of poetry and letters. Chitre's homepage says the 71-year-old has graduated to level seven of the online game Mafia Wars. "I seem to have inadvertently become part of the game by accepting certain tokens,'' says Chitre, whose translations of Tukaram and Namdeo Dhasal have earned him international plaudits. On Facebook, however, another side emerges-he sends out Rainbow River Hearts and high-fives, pokes his 899 friends and saves rainforests by cultivating `green patches'. "There's nothing frivolous about sending chocolates (the pixel kind) to friends,'' he says, over the phone from Pune. "I think it's thoughtful, and people love it.'' Encumbered with a "nasty cancer'', Chitre uses Facebook to post updates on his health. "Many people want to know how I'm doing, and this is an easy way,'' he says. "But I don't upload my poetry here. My poetry is not frivolous.''
Haribhau Kedar, the 74-year-old former vice-chancellor of Nagpur University and politician, shoots the breeze with friends younger than him because "my own generation is ignorant about such things''. Many of his friends' kids read the writing on his Wall-the cumulated wisdom he dispenses in capsules. And pointedly, in the language of his youth. "I don't understand the abbreviated speech of today,'' Kedar sniffs. "I continue to use old idioms and phrases, and hope my young friends pick some of them up.''
These vintage facebookers channel Longfellow, Gandhi, Churchill and Valmiki in their comments and opinions. Their photo albums are crowded with pictures of their grandkids and watery prints of their youth. And when they take one of those quizzes like `Which Famous Poem are You?', they usually end up as the personification of a Robert Frost offering.
Kitty Darbary, apparently the animate embodiment of Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, is a teacher with the Cumballa Hill High School. She hasn't deciphered all of social networking but trial-and-error gets her around. "My grandkids showed me how to use the internet,'' says the 69-year-old, who has joined a literary group but doesn't really know what to do there, just like Kedar can't figure how to atomise old Wall posts. "I've added many of my ex-students to my friend list,'' Darbary says, "and even present students want me to admit them, but I need to maintain some distance I think.'' After all, which teacher would want to be roadrun by online queries on what to expect in the geography exam?
Scholar of anatomy, Dr Eustace de Souza, lost little time in acquainting himself with email, cell-phone, camcorder and digital camera. The social networking site was simply a natural progression of his curiosity. `There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook' claimed Time. `That time has passed'. For 89-year-old Dr de Souza, who doesn't know how to navigate the "blooming thing", but has his profile on it, `cool' is only as cold does. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
