Man is creative. Man loves society and friendship. When two persons talk, friendship develops. Only mad people speak in monologues. Facebook encourages gossip mongers but sometimes the gossip reaches literary height, and adds new meaning to friendship. FACEBOOK HAS allowed me access into the wonderful world of Preeti Singh who has a fabulous look and one is mesmerized by her wonderful speak. Just imagine Preeti speaking this : “…when you are not there to hold me when I fall…do not expect me to connect with u when I rise….its as simple as that…” Will you call it wisdom or mystical soliloquy? One day Preeti writes: “…Any god forsaken place is a heavenly vacation for me…..as long as I carry you in my heart…” I mused on the words whole day. Another post of Preeti: “…I forgive you…coz the moments of goodness you showered upon me are priceless to me…. than the pain you carelessly dropped in my heart…” Anyone will fall in love the writer of these words. Preeti makes it clear in her profile that she does not regret her past. She just regrets the time she has wasted with the wrong people. Yes, she is like that. Words are flowing with her. Preeti is now busy with writing a novel, which is going to be named as Flirting With Fate’. During this novel’s journey…most of her daughter’s Harsheen Kaur friends desired to be in the novel…so in came Ambika Chhabra….Jaideep Beri…MuskaAn Jot…Kamaldeep Singh Jatt…and few others as naughty kids amidst the pages…..best part being their roles in the novel changed as they made up or broke off with her beautiful daughter.
It is quite interesting that Preeti sometimes looks angry but it is still her sweet words like her sweet look when she warns you not to use any foul words on her wall: “…All newcomers who have joined my world of words…please join my page and stay updated about my debut crime novel ‘FLIRTING WITH FATE’ releasing soon…..n kindly leave your comments, suggestions n feedback on my page wall….would love to hear from you and improve myself further….
Kindly refrain from any abusive comments or hurting anyone else…or you shall be sweetly blocked…This is a problem always on the Facebook. In Indian mentality a woman, particularly a beautiful woman is always a target, be she a writer or a teacher or an IPS officer. I don’t know what Preeti will do for making a person ‘sweetly blocked’. The person who is blocked by Preeti will enjoy it even though he is denied access into her profile.
On Facebook Preeti, however, thanks all the real people for making her book so spicy. I silently watch all these activities of the budding novelist. This is how a novel is born. This happened also with Jyotsna Gandhi’s novel was written in the midst of so much excruciating pain. She wrote about the composition of her novel You Step One He Steps Thousands in one of her posts : “when I started writing this book….I was a bed ridden person due to a physical ailment…my right hand was swollen…and i had no option left except to continue my writing with my left hand which was actually very tough for me!! but I have no words to express my gratitude towards HIM, that HE not only chose me for this big task but also gave me Tremendous Strength to complete this book till, I wrote its last word!!”
Preeti lost her mother just when she attained motherhood and it left a cold vacuum in her soul that no other relationship could compensate. Earlier, critics used to read the letters of the writers or poets to understand the mind and art of an author. Bhabatosh Chatterjee, the late Gurudas Banerjee Professor of Calcutta University who was my teacher and Ph.D guide also studied laboriously the letters of Keats to write his famous book Keats :His Mind and Art which is today a reference book in the Oxford University.
Can we not imagine a Keats using Facebook in the early 19th century and unfurling his mind and heart in the post of Facebook? Today, we can read the fabulous letters of Keats in which the personal thoughts are mingled with the impersonal. He gave his poetic theory in these letters quite unconsciously. Tagore was another writer who also loved to write so many letters revealing his mind and art in letter after letters. He discussed beauty and truth, life and society, Russian Revolution and his reason for writing a poem like ‘Africa’.
Had that time been the Facebook, Tagore would become a facebook addict like Preeti or Jyotsna Gandhi or Bina Biswas. The word ‘Addict’ is no bad word now after the Jazz age and the Beat generation for whom addiction is a kind of meditation. Why only the novelist, the poets are no less on a Facebook page. Just remember what the socially aware Preeti wrote on the Children Day: “Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,/Dreaming in the joys of night,/Your soft slumber is in sight,/Of the dusky misty twilight./Dimpled cheeks, angelic eyes,/Golden curls like wavy skies,/Your tender caress, your breath so warm,/Will steer away any storm./Cradling in my feeble arms/Your smile so naïve, so gay,/Treads upon my joyous heart, Like dawn…”Excellent poetry is there in the lines.
Again there are research scholars like Varsha Singh whom I am no less enamoured of for her beautiful decoration of Facebook page by fabulous pictures matching with awesome poetic lines chosen by her each day, even on the day before her NET examination. I just get thrilled. Recently, Varsha has written one erudite article on I.K. Sharma, the great poet of Rajasthan.
In this excellent article she wrote: “I.K.Sharma is the first not only to have written English poetry in Rajasthan with virtue but also to articulate himself in a more complex mode, translation. The trials and tribulations which he transforms into poetry are the issues of norm, value, culture, society and life itself. This is how Facebook brings everyday poets , novelists, painters, artists, thinkers, intellectuals and above all the readers, the gossip mongers. Yes, Syed Mujtaba Ali wrote : “Gossip has its own prestige. You have to waste your valuable time and energy for gossip. Today it is called chat or adda and the Facebook is the best platform for it. Without the gossip mongers all around , the creative people of Facebook might have felt bored. You write something and wait how many people are going to press the ‘Like’button. Hahaha.
This is normal. A poet wants readers for his poems. But many escape and try not to read the poems. In facebook it is irresistible. The person who develops friendship with you, requests for a comment. You cant avoid- that is the reason why fifty per cent posts are there. Friendship has got a new meaning on the Facebook. It is not love, not affection, not infatuation, not attraction, but something irresistible, something that chases you, your feeling, mind and heart, you log on to Facebook, visit the profile of the dear and near ones. They are not your relatives, they are not your home.
You sometimes dare neglect home for being on the Facebook. This is a great thing, a sacrifice for the middle class. Love means “L-Loss O-of V-Valuable E- Energy”. Love of Facebook is the loss of valuable energy and also of time. But still we log on to meet excellent people such as Preeeti Singh, Jyotsna Gandhi and Varsha Singh – some young, some aged, some middle aged. But all of them have young mind, young and childlike to rejuvenate you.
drratanbhattacharjee 
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