Good Morning Ji

We Indians seem to be not tired at all in sending Good Morning messages. I was watching a show, where they talked about these GM messages slowing down the internet and they went on to say our population helps in adding to the problem

We have plenty of people typically new comers to the internet keen to share the knowledge which they have just gained as enthusiastically as only they could be. On top of it these are the people who are part of family groups or their own Alumni groups. They have so much of time the limit of 5 forwards per turn is just not a deterrent.

While it is easy to blame them for slowing down the internet, we have to look at their compulsions for doing what they are doing.

1. They are typically reached a state of mind of a retiree and are finding lots of time at their disposal.

2. They have moved away from a routine and need to occupy themselves with activity

3. Smart phone makes their life easier to connect with people

4. Calling may not be an option as they don't know what the other person is doing

5. Reading as a habit has died down

6. TV is dominated by the lady of the house

As we get, we forward, we are so confident that what our friend has just shared is the absolute truth and most believable news. Our confidence in what we receive makes us forget that February has typically 28 days and all days come four times a month and stupidly think it comes only once in 823 years. Common sense be koi cheese hai bhai

Many of us are not aware of the rules framed under the IT Act and innocently forward fake news too, putting ourselves in the danger of being punished for our probable innocence.

Based on the community, we have now designed ‘message for the day’ Starting from Monday till Sunday with a God’s image/symbol added to the well designed message. You can be rest assured these are forwarded with impunity and needless compulsion.

Thanks to the developers of messaging platforms like WhatsApp we have disappearing messages just to ensure chat thread is cleaned up on regular basis. Due to these needless forwards many an admin is forced to set the group with disappearing messages. Only con is we might miss out on important communication as they too get disappeared.

Family groups which have a mixture of age groups have a different kind of problem. If they restrict forwards, compulsive people feel suffocated, what remains is the greetings for birthdays and anniversaries. An admins job becomes very delicate in such situations as it is family after all.

If we dont forward will we miss out on something, absolutely nothing, we feel keeping in touch is posting good morning messages. No that is not true, we can find many ways to share information as to how we manage a day.

• We could talk about our family and encourage other to do so

• We could share the joy of good tidings within the family and get friends to respond

• We could exchange meaningful banter based on the closeness with the other person

• Avoid topics on politics and religion in a group as all of us may not share the same ideology

• Alert friends about how a neighbour/self got cheated in the ‘online’ age and how they could learn from this experience

• Encourage the silent to express (they choose to be silent when there is too much of junk shared)

• Puzzles/riddles are a good way to engage all age groups, they respond too

• Talk about your activity and how you keep yourself engaged this could motivate others to emulate

• Ensure short communication to make it easy to read and comprehend, avoid long stories

• Share jokes not pictures (cartoons), pictures occupy larger space in the recipient’s phone

• Vulgarity, abuse is avoidable in all groups

We have to make it a habit of the following:

• Sending Good Morning messages is not the only way to tell your friends that you are alive and kicking

• Forwards are not a measure of your intelligence or social commitment, so avoid forwarding everything and anything

• Cross check the news/incident/event before you forward

• You can ‘react’ instead of ‘replying’ to messages which you receive, saves space

• Spread cheer instead of sorrow/grief

Ji, let us stop slowing down the internet, let us improve our bonding with family & friends, Trust this effort of mine will make at least one person change his messaging habit.

Cheers n bye

Story of a Reunion

I have studied my intermediate (Plus 2) at Jawahar Bharati College, Kavali during 1976-78. This was the first time I had to stay away from my home, in a  hostel. In my life it was a curious period of living in a hostel, making your own bed, washing my own cloths etc.

Coming from a land holding and political family, had certain advantage in terms of allotment of a large room (bigger than what others had) an ever obliging roommate etc. However, it seems I was seen as a rich boy and people had generally kept away from me (a fact which I got to know when I was interacting with people for the reunion)

After the eventful two years, we all parted ways in April 1978 after the public exams. Now thanks to technology and in particular WhatsApp, we managed to start connecting with each other after 37 years and met on the 31st October 2015 near Kavali.

I was in touch with about 7 people from that period and had their phone numbers. Just formed a group with those numbers in WhatsApp and started interacting. Slowly people started telling where others are living etc. It was a slow process and getting the numbers was not that easy, it is almost like, people were holding them close to their chest. Most of the people were still on good old feature phones and didn't use WhatsApp, we had to communicate through SMS with those people.

Slowly the list of contacts started growing and local level interactions started happening. We had frequent get togethers at Nellore, Hyderabad etc, in small groups. It was catching up time and very interesting learning experience.

It was really heart warming when you get to know, most of your friends had passed various Public service exams and got them selves some good posts and some have chosen to enter the teaching profession etc. More heartwarming was the fact their children are now well educated and settled down in India or abroad.

Luckily some guys came up with the group pictures and to make life easier, I tried to number the people in the picture, which helped in identifying the person. With these pictures, first exercise was to name them and after that set the ball rolling for the search. Though people had few contact numbers, they were not shared earlier, probably for sheer lethargy, this delayed the process of getting to trace few more. As we had set the date long before, coinciding with a batch mate's visit to India, we were working feverishly to get more people on board. Luckily the tempo picked up in the month of September and October. Thanks to WhatsApp profile pictures, we were able to see their latest pictures, how they look today and compare from the group photo how they looked then.

We originally thought of having the meet at Nellore, the district head quarters and visit Kavali, but for logistics reason we decided to move it to Kavali itself. However the challenge was to find a place where we could have the reunion. One of our batch mates, offered his home for the meet, after looking at the option for suitability, we had to move it to a place where a larger number could be accommodated. A strong feeling there will not be more than 30 for the meet was in the mind of most of the people. 

However, as we entered the month of October, the tempo started picking up rapidly, more and more effort was being put and more people were being located. Happily the new reconnects were more than happy to be part of the reunion. Those who confirmed for sure they will not make it, had a change of mind.

Few people made the extra effort to locate the batch mates, ideas started flowing as to what we should do after the meet etc. As we approached the 25th, had very strong indications the crowd is going to be more than 50. out of about 135 from the science groups, with 10 not living anymore, we were able to gather about 80 numbers and hope had increased for a better participation.

Couple of visits were made to Kavali from Nellore by our chief co ordinator and things were put in place. I decided to visit the place myself on the 30th, a day before the event. As I was talking to the hotel people on the likely number, our sponsor could not believe the numbers being touted by me could be true. 

A program was made out, time was given from 8 AM starting with Breakfast, it looks like our Indian mindset will not allow people to believe others will be on time. While we landed up in two cars from Nellore by 8.15 AM, locals were confident it will not start on time. Our own daredevil of the yester years lived up to her reputation by driving down alone from Tirupati all by herself. Breakfast that was to end at 9.30 AM, went on till 10.30 AM and we finally managed to start the program.

We provided two bigger size pictures of the group photos of the 1976-78 times, so that people can look at each other and see how much change had taken place. Numbers had surged and some surprise participants, who got to know about the program just the previous day having turned up. As we started we had about 50 people as the program got about few more joined.

We paid homage to those who are no longer with us and then asked the people to tell us their life progress since we parted ways. As one by one took their turn talking about themselves and their families, few made us laugh, Few got us tired with long speeches, few made us feel sad and few got us excited with their success and there was time for few apologies too for the behaviour in those days. Probably it is the story in every reunion as life takes its own turns (Clicktotweet). During this part, It was time for felicitation to few of us for forming the WhatsApp group and getting the reunion to happen. We took some group pictures at the venue.

We broke for lunch at about 1.30 PM and and reassembled by 2.30, in the meanwhile few more joined. Best thing was one of the participant joined us with her Husband (on our request, driving down all the way from Hyderabad after a midnight celebrations the previous day) and that the day happened to be their 31st wedding anniversary.

Post lunch we felicitated two teachers (who were able to make it) who were part of our learning days and then celebrated the anniversary by asking the couple to exchange the garlands and cut an anniversary cake. We distributed the mementos for each and every participant to remember the participation.

Then we headed to the college, interestingly college had an another program on that day and they had the Dy Speaker and a MP who is a old student of the college present for that event. We were able to catch up with them. One more round of group pictures and we started roaming about in the college. For us hostelries it was sad to see the hostel in such condition.  We were served some tea and snacks by one of our batch mates on the campus. We had few more joining us at the college taking the total number to 60 participants.

Later in the evening we started assembling at the house of one of the batch mates, sans those who had to leave for various reasons. It was once again time for some fun and regale. He arranged some planting of trees in his compound and he also handed over one plant (picked up from the college campus) in a new pot to take it home as a memory. Those who chose to have few drinks were treated to it by our NRI batch mate who brought some Single Malt for this occasion. After a good meal, people started saying bye to each other with a hope for an early next meet.

While we had intentions to discuss the future for this set of Alumni of the college, we could not make much headway since the program was tight and got delayed due to the late start.  

Everyone was happy to see 60 of their old friends again and catch up with the good old days. Learning's are how to handle egos, understanding expectations, getting people to handle things, managing the show without any contributions and only with sponsorship.

What's up WhatsApp?

In November 2009 WhatsApp was launched on the iOS platform as a iPhone app. It was converted from a free app to a paid app to cover the costs of verification which WhatsApp does. By January 2010 it was made available on Blackberry too. From there on there was no looking back for this app. It reached the 200 million user mark by February 2013 and rocketed to 400 million users by December 2013. When Facebook took over the company formed by Koum and Acton by paying 19.5 billion USD it had touched 500 million users.

What is significant is, in India the growth has been phenomenal and has not just kept pace with the overall growth of WhatsApp but probably set a trend by itself. We love to chat and if it is free then we can do it for hours together. It is estimated that 9-10% of the overall WhatsApp users are from India and if we include the PIO's probably we would be about 12% of the overall user base. Indeed we will have to wait to see what will happen when WhatsApp goes subscription model, which it hasn't on Android platform

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Today we have become slaves for WhatsApp. There was a time when we sent a mail we used to sit and eagerly wait for the reply. Today thanks to the smart phone revolution we are totally been enslaved by WhatsApp. We send a message look for the second tick to appear and then the waiting is for the 'Double Tick' to change its colour to Blue to indicate to us that the message is read.

The Blue ticks have made many a person's life miserable because they would be questioned as to why they didn’t respond even after seeing the message. Other problem is the message 'Last seen' that appears just below the name or number of the person. This instantly tells us that when our contact was online in WhatsApp. In spite of these small irritants the usage of WhatsApp has been very extensive in India and uses have been innumerable.

WhatsApp has got features which make us use it extensively, on top of all this no cost for sending messages or chatting. Cool thing about this is to add variety of Emojis for flavour. Latest release also helps you choose the skin colour which you might feel comfortable with. Have you checked it or not? They have about 5 shades to choose from depending on which part of the world you are from, i.e. in case you wish to choose.

Let's deal with some of the features one by one.

Chatting: today a lot is said by using the right emoji of WhatsApp than typing, Imagine quizzes n puzzles are being designed using the emoji's and it is a big pass time for the users, un-raveling the mystery of the emoji based questions.

Photos: There is a whole lot of pictures (700 Million at the last count) being shared everyday on WhatsApp. Range of pictures is left to one's imagination, it could be a cute new born to a cartoon to a Good morning picture with a bunch flowers in the back ground. We Indians love to share the God's images in plenty. Erotic pictures too get shared in the process like other pictures.

Videos: Today if there is one place where you need not worry about copyright violation and share a video it is only on WhatsApp, however there are or some constraints on the file size, however that might be changed in the near future. Talent shows, News stories, Sexual videos to speeches and discourses of Guru's are all shared on this platform. Biggest worry is the lack of monitoring on the content unlike in the case of a computer (Parental Control) makes the viewing of sexual videos on WhatsApp easy and this is a threatening feature.

Voice Chat: This is one feature which helped 'Wechat' app to establish it's presence, however once

this was introduced in WhatsApp, it took the steam away from their campaign. This actually helps when you want your kid to respond to some wishes or a grand parent Who cant type on a smart phone.

Groups: Unlike in Facebook, WhatsApp groups help people to connect more instantly since smart phones have become part and parcel of our lives. There are any number of innumerable variety of groups. I myself have set up multiple family groups, simply choosing how wide you want the audience to be. Family, Friends, Alumni of College/ School, Job, Association you name it, people have groups being formed and enjoying the fellowship. It has actually helped connecting the disconnected lot.

We do see some amount of misuse of this group feature by people, who want to carry out marketing activities. One way is blocking such people and reporting them so that WhatsApp can take care of them at their end. Today group membership is restricted to a maximum of 100.

Voice Calling: This is the most disliked feature of this app by the telecom companies. The moment WhatsApp announced this feature, telecom companies increased their voice, which they didn’t when the same feature was available on Viber, Hangouts 

etc, simply because it was not threatening their income. WhatsApp calling after the initial glitches has picked up clarity and is being extensively used. WhatsApp has even come up with, low bandwidth enabling so that you can talk even on 2G bandwidth and not just Wi-Fi broadband.

Broadcast: This is a feature meant to make announcements, send out wedding/event invites to many (256 people) at one go from your contact list. Only requirement is the recipient should have you in their contact list, otherwise, this message will not get delivered. This is in a way good red-herring, so that people don’t misuse this feature for marketing activities. Any message sent through 'Broadcast' will be delivered like a regular message, with , ,  markings to tell you whether the message you sent has been seen, read etc.

Web.whatsapp.com: This is a feature to integrate PC/Laptop with your phone so that you don’t miss out on WhatsApp activity. This is particularly convenient when you want to send some attachments from your computer, which you do not wish to have on your phone. Integration is a simple procedure, however for this feature to work effectively phone has to be connected by Wi-Fi with your PC.

With WhatsApp, even senior citizens are getting into the play. My 74 year old mother, shops sarees for her business when the supplier sends the images by WhatsApp, similarly she sends the images for those who seek to buy from her. Marriage proposals have been made, by sharing pictures & profiles on WhatsApp. Medical reports including X ray images are shared on WhatsApp. Uses are left to your imagination these are just but few examples. You would be commonly hearing people telling take a picture and send it on WhatsApp.

Thanks to WhatsApp voyeurism has increased with sexual videos, pictures being shared rampantly, the convenience of viewing in privacy, sharing without any worry etc make this app a handy one for the youth and those who are young in mind. This indeed is a worrying factor.

WhatsApp is seriously concerned about the user, their recent version includes a 'Mute' option for silencing notifications, in case you find a person or a group sending you too many messages and you don’t want to get disturbed at your work. This problem is faced in a different way when you have members of your group living in USA, your constant messaging disturbs their sleep due to time difference.

Similarly, it doesn’t encourage spamming, if you try to send messages to too many numbers from your phone, where you are not listed in their contact list, automatically you will be barred from using WhatsApp for a period of 4 hours and if you continue to do it, then your number could be deactivated for WhatsApp activity.

This is an effort to share info which might be useful for many who use WhatsApp but don’t know about many of the features in it. We will talk about WhatsApp emojis in my next blog.