This will be my second post today- quite a rare event. Could not stop thinking why am I spending so much time blogging. More blogging == less productivity. Do you believe in this equation? Nah, I don't think this equation holds and truth.
I blog partly because few of my good friends assure me that they are regular readers; besides the fact that I feel I am heard. And this special one today comes as I am idling after my lunch break and thinking what to do before I start working again some boring stuff.
This thought of "Why I blog" was triggered today after I read a good blog post by a graduate student on "why graduate students should blog" ( here is the link). Now, I am neither a grad student nor is this my professional blog, so why should I have it in the first place?
Well here is why:
We lived in CA before coming to Texas. There, we did not belong to any Indian community(or any other community), So our weekends were generally very boring with regular calling home stuff in the morning, followed by shopping, cleaning. In the evening, we will go mountain hiking(We lived in beautiful Simi Valley in Southern CA overlooking few mountains). I would often complain we know nobody and it is so boring here. We came here to Texas about 2 and half years back. We had some old friends here already, joined a big Oriya community. Life seemed to be perfect, lot of activities during the weekends and no free time absolutely. This is exactly what I wanted when I was in CA. Now after getting to know people little bit, I am surprised that people living in this community for over 10 years, hardly know anything about each other!! Here, I will describe a typical social gathering scenario by Indians in US.
Event 1:
Emails are sent: There is a potluck this weekend at Mr/Mrs X's house, please bring in a dish of your choice.
Event 2:
20 family's agreed to join in (lets say A to X).
Event 3:
Family "A" is the first one to turn up. As family "A" arrives, family "X"(host) offers them drink appetizers etc..
Event 4:
Then, family B,C,D,E,F arrive together. X family gets over worked and often can't pay personal attention to each member. Serves appetizer, drink etc. to all the guests. Soon, all other families arrive. House then becomes houseful. Then, people having affinity(read political affiliation) to each other sit in clusters. Note here, in Indian gatherings Male cluster and Female clusters are distinct with a very few exceptions.
Event 5:
It is now time for social interaction. The male folk often discuss politics, US, and electronic gadgets. Being female, I only know what is discussed at the female clusters.
Cluster 1:
Now as curious was Ms X, as she has some breathing time, goes on and joins cluster 1. In this particular cluster, say there is family S, H, I and T. S begins to speak on some interesting event that had happened at work yesterday.
S:(begins to speak) You know what a funny thing happened at my work place yesterday?
H: Go on.
S: There was this girl...(interrupted by I)
I: Looking at her kid - come here what happened?
S: (Now looking worried/confused)Oh, what happened?
I: No no nothing happened, kid is fine.
Mrs V interrupts: My kid has to go for Zumba class now, so X please give food to my kid.
X leaves to give food to V's kid.
T: (hurriedly interrupts) You know my kid is learning zumba dance lessons too.
S: Really?
I: (Intercepts) My kid goes to this amazing math class.
S:(Looking confused, tries to revive the discussion) Where was I? This girl at work... (Again interrupted - this time by H)
H: My kid played Piano yesterday
....... Meaningless discussion goes on for 20 minutes. To summarize, it was just on whose kid goes to which class, which school and good at what at best. Other than that there are no content.. X leaves the place disappointed. Soon X joins another cluster, but again the same story repeated. So, weeks after week, months after month, year after year the same events repeated multiple times..
Now, in the end after socializing for 10 years many people in this group still don't know what is the surname of some people, which place they belong to, whether they had an arranged marriage or a love marriage. How many siblings they have and many more vital information.
This is exactly what happens in most of the social gatherings involving Indians in US and most of the interesting stories remain unspoken. Nobody really wants to hear the other person, with ofcourse a very few exceptions. I would say the attention span of the adults is just few seconds at most. That is exactly why I think everyone should write their blogs. At least you will be heard by someone somewhere. Internet is a very powerful medium that brings people together despite geographic limitations. So go blogging..
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