Being nosy is not a bad thing. People are generally curious by nature. We like to know what others are upto – good or bad – so that we can judge. Either we wow, emulate, gossip or ignore. But the best part is finding out.
Despite all the excuses I had prepared to avoid being sociable online, including – I like to hibernate during winter – I realised resistance was futile. ‘Writers are supposed to write, so why aren’t you blogging?’ one friend queried. ‘You’re not on facebook?’ Another stared at me in horror.
So, last year, when I saw all the stuff happening on social networking sites, and after much cajoling, I followed. I took the plunge and jumped into cyperspace. I’m not a social animal in real life, so it was hard to make a committment to people online. I mentally prepared myself to get onto facebook (will not reveal all pics and…bitch), twitter (okay, will not bitch), and blogging (will not write about easy recipes…and…). I drifted in and out of the social sites.
But there was something niggling at the back of my mind, like an itch on a hot summer’s day.
I pretended e-books did not exist. And when it reared it’s (sleek) e-head, I made up all sorts of excuses why it just could not survive. How can anyone enjoy a book unless it was experienced with all the four senses? A book in hand is like unopened treasure chest. The enticing jacket cover, the storyline, and the most exciting of all…flipping through the pages…closing your eyes and inhaling the fragrance of a new story and knowing there’s a feast of delectable words, waiting to be savoured. I just knew it wouldn’t last.
But it is happening…like those swimmers who remain in the periphery of my vision…the e-book has comes into focus. I just cannot blink it away.
And….the aargh moment came…my dearest friend, a writer who has done many exciting things in her life, is really cool at fifty-plus and wears nailcolour that’s never paler than electric blue or neon green….has gone the e-book way. I was devastated. I had suffered enough angst with the other e-thingys and now this? My own friend! And then the bummer…at drinks the other night, this guy who wears Gandhi glasses peered at me and said: ‘When can I download your book?’
‘zxdgrrrr***bwqpxrvex.’ I gritted my teeth and said: ‘Very soon.’
I need to get a book on ‘getting over the e-book phobia.’ Bet it’s not available in bookshops and one needs to download it…breathe…
Another friend, a sci-fi writer, besides having such a gorgeous book in print with a great story and all, has signed up with this online bookstore and says it’s ‘so convenient’ to be e-book -ed. And just the other day, she emailed the quick-and-easy instructions on how it’s done.
According to Wikipedia – In July 2010, online bookseller Amazon reported sales of ebooks for Kindle outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010, saying it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there was no digital edition. In July this number had increased to 180 Kindle ebooks per 100 hardcovers.
I thought I was done learning about new e-stuff, but it’s not over. And I realised this after watching a scary movie called ‘Social Network’. The eye-opener was when my son at university sends emails about beautiful algorithms, I used to sit with him teaching him the timestables, and now I don’t understand a word he says, unless it’s related to something he likes to eat.
It’s all happening too fast…but I’m a survivor…a soldier…and I shall make it through the e-jungle with my mind sabre and firing neurons, and I will e-learn everything I need to know so that I can rub shoulders with the young-ones and not look at them like they speak Klingon.
But for now, I think I shall paint my nails cyberpink.
Shobha Nihalani: Meanderings 