Popagandhi

When I am sitting at a corner, waiting for transportation (yes, I’ve decided that juggling hourly-rated work between restaurant serf, in addition to Mac serf, might perhaps pay my debts and still raise enough funds to send me to India this November) - looking, colloquially speaking, at my worst: it is not a good idea to attach “Oh, Popagandhi” to your sentence immediately upon introduction. It gives me a good incentive to hop into a cab every night after work, incurring enough midnight surcharge to feed a family of four in Cambodia. The long term effects of this, you will see, are increasingly decreasing disposable income in the long run, resulting in turn more time required for employment, and an excuse not to write. (Even if I get free WiFi at both places of employment!)

If I am walking down a street, browsing in a store, reading a book by a cafe - it is more than likely I have my earphones surgically attached to my ears, at a volume designated “Will Not Be Disturbed Except In Circumstances of Apocalypse or War or Similar”. Coming up to say hi, is fine; but to do so in circumstances like these inevitably plucks me out from that surreal setting I have created for myself, and it doesn’t help that I am typically sleepy at most hours of light. Coming to say hi when I am in the state of inebriation, especially at that point when I begin to think myself so gifted at verbal (and other) exchange, would be ideal - though if you have a camera with you, it might perhaps help to jog my memory the next time I see you. Just don’t Flickr it - if you do, please don’t tag it with “adri” or “popagandhi”.

When I am on a date, and sure signs of it being some degree of hand-holding (in addition to me glowing and radiating at 700 watts), it is not a good idea to approach me and to say how much you adored a certain post. This is especially so if the entry you speak of is at least 2736 years old (in Internet time), and/or if you should recall it in every minute detail even if it is no longer available at the site. This is because it will freak out the person with me, who has already suffered great limitations to her rights to online expression (namely not being pictured in the same jpeg file as I am), and who has had to contemplate more than once upon what it involves to date me - recognition on the street does not help. It would do better to give me a nod of silent acknowledgement. Then again, being positively radiating, I cannot guarantee I will be able to catch glances anywhere outside my happily narrowed field of vision.

If you are my father - my God - don’t shock me by revealing how much you know about events in local blogosphere. I like to think anyone living in my house, 45 years and above, is unable to navigate beyond yahoo.com or fishandpetsandgardens.com. So if you do indeed know about the latest juiciest happenings, and you have advice on what I should do while blogging to “stay out of trouble” - my God - please don’t reveal it over iced kopi, like you did that night - that you know more about the “scholar fiasco” and about Acidflask, than I do. It nearly made me choke to death on the peng in my kopi peng. I don’t want to know that you know what you shouldn’t know. Asking if I have photos of myself kissing girls on the Internet (hell NO! but you didn’t ask if they were in any form of optical storage), and if that is what my cameraphone is for, right after your wife makes knowing or unknowing references to “your girlfriend”, is also one sure way to ignite that cerebral equivalent of “choking on peng”.

Gone are the good days when all they knew was to type yahoo.com into the search bar in yahoo.com, and when help was required to turn on a computer. That’s because they’re all Mac users now.