The Magic of WhatsApp:
Whatsapp is different to different people.
Some are the Good Morning and Good Night Types.
Some are Silent Lurkers who read and enjoy what you share but seldom say so and seldom care to share anything they enjoy and then there are others who dump everything they receive on you tasteful, distasteful and even in a language that you do not know.
As for me I am a Peoples Person, yet not keen on endless meaning less jabber talking on the phone, plus my deafness is a turn off from mobile phone chat or zoom session.
I don't like forwarding good morning and good night messages especially imagine me receiving a good morning message from USA about 17 hours after dawn in Sydney.
I can understand some one wishing you Good Morning as part of a text mnessage and saying more but not meaningless JPG and Video Forwards. I used to delete them as I received tem but these days I use the disappearing messages that purge all posts after seven days.
At one stage I used to have over 600 contacts on whatsapp and had to categorise them into Family & Friends. Friends had to be categorised further as Indians, Aussies, Americans, Kiwis, Singaporeans. Malaysians, IITians, Syd Uni Friends, Hindi Speaking, Tamil Speaking, Telugu speaking, Music Lovers, Smule singing partners, Animal lovers, People who love cooking, Like Minded people and the list goes on gets created as the need arises on a daily basis.
We were all Indians Until Modi became PM. Today families and friends have been split into Pro Modi and Anti Modi factions. I was fed up with Bhakts shoving Modi Propaganda that I have blocked over 100 such fanatics who are Blind Bhakts on WhatsApp. Waste of time in my opinion.
Their Logic is you are either Pro Modi or pro Congress and My stand is I do not believe in Party Politics and was anti Congress for endless corruption and even hosted Jago India Yahoo Group with 5000 members from 2003 to 2015 fighting corruption. So am I a Pro Congress ?. But me being anti congress does not mean I am RSS and Pro Modi does it ?
Early in the piece having been used to Yahoo & Google Groups (I belonged to 70 yahoo groups) the tendency was to create Whatsapp Groups.
Today I am wiser and have deleted all Whatsapp Groups except three groups for close family members. I stay connected with every one using "Broadcasts".
Now about the Magic of Whatsapp:
A Smule friend Suresh a Retd Army Major, introduced me to his friend who was an IIT alumnus five years junior to me at IITM - Peter Lewis. The Smule friend has moved on and has stopped Singing on Smule and I have lost contact but a new friendship has blossomed with Peter Lewis.
After about six months the minute Peter read my post about Andaman's says "Hey Ram, I did not know you were Born in Andamans" and tells me that he has built many holiday resorts in Andaman Islands and Bali and he puts me in Touch with Hari who is currently Living in Andamans.
Hari is in touch with me every day and has shares photos and videos of Places in Port Blair I remember from 67 years ago as a young boy.
I mention Carbins Cove Beach, Rangachang Beach, Aberdeen Bazaar, Jungli Ghat etc etc and the next day I receive a ton of photos and videos of these fav spots of mine as they are today.
Of course I had to share all this Andaman news with my sisters. I had to reconnect with my Cousin Hemalatha my age and her younger Brother Shantaram who were also born in Port Blair. I had lost touch with her as she had moved from Chennai to Mumbai and as she was not responding to my SMS to her I had to ask my sisters for help. This silly girl was rejecting all my messages without reading thinking they were all spam as she did not recognise the number. Now I am in touch with my two cousins and kids
Now My Andaman's Connection has grown from None in July to Seven since Sept 2021
Now here is a Whatsapp Twist that I just cannot explain.
One Morning I received a Whatsapp message from a friend who is nit on my contact List. Message says "Will call you up tomorrow for a chat. What Sydney time does it suit you. Indrajit Ray. Calcutta"
Now Indrajit is my Classmate from IITM and we were in Touch on Face Book until 2017 when I quit FB and Twitter and Yahoo Groups when Hackers had my Bank account Password and all other Passwords.
Next day Indrajit called and we had a long yarn on the phone. So I asked him how did this come about and he said I received the same forward from two buddies Ranjan and Solomon and they both confessed they had received it from Rambo on Whatsapp and so he wanted to reconnect with Rambo and did. This is te Magic of whatsapp
But listen to this, Indrajit had no clue I was born in Port Blair and when I told him that he says "after graduation I joined Usha Fans as a Management Trainee along with Dipak and Dipaks wife Dr. Nupur Chakravarthy's father Dr Chakravarthy served in Port Blair as health Officer from 1948 to 1966". My Father was there from 1944 to 1958 when he retired and they must have known each other.
Thanks to Irdrajit I am now in Contact with Dipak and Dr Nupur Chakravarthy. She is busy going through all her parents old Photo albums to share with me. She is older than me and remembers my school mate Bishnu Priya from Modern Preparatory school in Port Blair.
Now I have assigned my adopted Nephew Hari the Job of finding my classmate Dr Rajehswar Lal who has been practicing medicine in Port Blair all his life
Indrajit asks questions about my wife Mithu and ow we met and about my Inlaws and listen to this. Indrajits wife TukTuks Father built my father in laws home in Kolkata in Jatin Das Road.
I am trying to figure out why all this is happening 67 years after I left Port Blair taking me Back to my Place of Birth.
I believe all of us human beings are connected in one way or the other and these connections are so strong that they manifest and become real time experience
I often walk into stranger and get the "I know you from Somewhere, feeling but cannot remember enough to explain" has to be from our previous lives as I cannot think of any other logical reason
