All the world’s a status update

SIPPING my morning chai, I was staring alternately at the newspaper and my phone. A banner headline about inflation caught my eye before a witty WhatsApp forward drew my attention: “Woh din door nahi jab deewaron par likha hoga — Facebook, WhatsApp chhudvayein guarantee ke saath, milen har budhwar purane bus stand ke paas.”

I nearly choked on my elaichi chai. My grandmother used to narrate tales of quacks advertising miracle cures for everything from baldness to broken hearts. “Sirf teen hafte mein baal, pyaar aur izzat wapas!” The style of those wall-written promises had been borrowed by the memes of this millennium. How seamlessly satire survives, slipping from chalk on brick to pixels on screen!

Somehow, I began to imagine a future where entire mohallas would be adorned with graffiti not about elections or embroidery classes, but deaddiction centres for Facebook and WhatsApp. “WhatsApp Chhodo, Jeevan Jodo!” painted in bold red letters, right next to a paan-stained corner.

I remember an anecdote from my college days. Our professor of English literature, a serious man who quoted Shakespeare with the gravity of a judge, once declared, “All the world’s a stage.” At that time, we obediently nodded. But if he were alive today, I am sure he would amend it: “All the world’s a status update, and all the men and women merely contacts.” Had Jaques from As You Like It lived in our lanes, he would have scrolled endlessly, sighing, “Seven stages of life, seven seconds of reels.”

The absurdity of modern obsession struck me at a family function. A cousin, glowing like a Diwali lamp, ignored all relatives to upload a filtered selfie captioned “Blessed.” Ironically, she did not bless anyone with her actual presence. Another uncle, lost in the labyrinth of forwarded political theories, proclaimed loudly, “Bhai, yeh sab WhatsApp pe likha hai to sach hi hoga.”

A signboard at a tea stall read: “Free Wi-Fi with two samosas.” The samosas vanished faster than the Wi-Fi signal. A youth sitting there solemnly announced, “Data hi asli daata hai.”

Humour, however, hides a hint of helplessness. In every forwarded joke there is a silent sigh. We know we are trapped, yet we giggle. Imagine a rehab centre where counsellors ask, “Beta, kitni baar check kiya blue tick kal raat?” and the patient replies, trembling, “Sir, chhattis baar.”

In that imaginary moment, I felt our times distilled — half tragedy, half comedy. A lyrical lament painted with paan stains and emojis. Perhaps one day, historians will look back and write: “The 21st century was the era when walls, once meant for revolutions, became billboards for memes.”

And until the day when the walls finally fall silent, perhaps our only redemption will lie in learning to laugh at our own lunacy — before even laughter, too, becomes a licensed app. After all, if walls could talk today, they’d probably just ask for Wi-Fi.