2009 – The Year that Was (Part I)

2009 is but a blur in my mind, it is the ‘whoosh’ of the wind when you put the window down in a speeding car, it is the flash of an angry green eye (with flecks of hazel). It disturbs me immensely that I cannot remember much about this year; I only know that it happened because 2008 couldn’t possibly have led to 2010.

This (now) first of two blogs is thus dedicated to remembering 2009. It is not premeditated, it is not preplanned. It may well end with this sentence (or not...) It is a flow of consciousness, a deliberate and determined mining of my subconscious. In short, these blogs are being written because 2009 must not be allowed to get away.

My Face or Yours?

If TIME magazine can declare the iPhone ‘Person of the Year’ for 2008, I have no hesitation in declaring Facebook ‘Phenomenon of the Year’ for 2009 (thus also improving on TIME’s dumb if self-consciously clever noun). Yes, Facebook has been around a bit longer (as had the iPhone in 2008), but 2009 was the year, in my impression, that it gained critical mass with Google-like domination. It’s the year when everyone (and their aunt – literally) wanted you to be their ‘friend’ – if only in cyberspace.

My countless attempts to explain Facebook to my father have failed because there is simply no parallel, no pre-Internet paradigm. Its not like email which even 4-year old Kyan can understand (thanks to mildly annoying characters like Postman Pat). So I tried to rely on the newer lingo. ‘It’s, umm, a, social networking platform….where you can find old friends, and people will post their pictures and things…’ was the best I could manage but my father wanted to know why you couldn’t simply email pictures to each other (I think he finally figured out email in 2007). Facebook is not an easy phenomenon to explain because it fuses technology and sociology to create a brave new world that even the most timid can navigate - unlike its foolish predecessor Orkut and equally bizarre cousin Twitter! Where else in the world do you reconnect with long-lost friends like Jane Ashley Barr (last seen in the 1990s…)? How else do you host a party without sending out any voice, paper or email invites – yet know exactly how many people to cater for? And how else would you keep a tab on what hundreds of ‘friends’ are up to (if you’re that way inclined…), who’s ‘tagging’ them in strange photographs, and what their kid’s new hamster is called – without exchanging as much as a ‘hello’? And talking of friends – how on earth does one have 438 friends, anyway? So bizarre is the sociological phenomenon of Facebook that people who may normally ignore you in person seem to have no hesitation in sending a Facebook friend request – yet ignore you next time round! So it makes one wonder – is collecting friends on Facebook a badge of honor? (I must confess I am more than a little insecure about my humble list of 145... but then enter Ayesha Kasuri with 550 ‘close friends’!)

Facebook is also an unexpected bonanza for marketers, allowing them to launch new products and services with zero budgets and viral prowess, as experienced recently by my sister-in-law Mashal Jawad whose first clothing exhibition was a complete sell-out thanks to Facebook’s modus operandi. (Yes she had to return a couple of outfits but that’s another story!)

But Facebook, like life, is not perfect, because 2009 was also the year when the uncles and aunties discovered Facebook with a vengeance and started sending friend requests to an unsuspecting lot of ‘youngsters’ not quite ready to share their latest diversions with their friend’s mom – or indeed their own! I of course have the added challenge of receiving countless ‘friend requests’ from Beaconhouse students and parents who fail to comprehend that this is not the best forum to advise me that the toilet paper has run out in North Nazimabad Primary III. So you do what you do in life: ignore.

In short, Facebook is great, but is it insidiously dismantling the very order of human society? After all, is it really necessary to meet people any longer?

Dishing it out

2009 was also a culinary delight thanks to DISH- a beacon of understated elegance on a new road named after my very overstated and highly accomplished grandfather. I am not quite sure what drew Sophia and I to DISH in our nightly feeding frenzy – the fabulous entrees and desserts, that the insecure foodies of M M Alam would instinctively avoid it (ultimately, though, a self-defeating blessing), that the owners were friends and my then-GM HR the landlord, or that the road bore my last name. Regardless, there were many excuses to frequent DISH, and we exploited each with relish!

That DISH did not succeed is a sad comment on the vacuous and utterly tasteless residents of the city I live in. Shame on us! But kudos to J&S (and their unamused investors) for giving Lahore the resplendent DISH!

The Immortal King

Fast-forward to June: how does one explain the phenomenon of Michael Jackson to a 5-year old?

I was in San Diego, California when we were dumbstruck by news of what had just happened in neighboring Los Angeles. The initial disbelief was followed by simultaneous impressions of coming of age with the King of Pop at the helm of all that was hip. We were confused, like a generation that had just lost an imperfect icon, not sure whether to dwell on the probable truth of the imperfections or the undeniable truth of rhythm. When Sophia’s moonwalk stories of Omar Javaid were (finally) exhausted, an even darker thought surfaced: what if Madonna also died? It seemed crazy but entirely within the realms of possibility after MJ’s unthinkable demise. We imagined dismay at an entire generation left orphaned.

I was oddly reminded of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, when another larger-than-life figure was instantly canonized. It seemed like untimely tragedy was the ultimate redemption for both our fallen heroes. Was it fair that poor Farrah Fawcett, whose life ended a few hours later, was all but eclipsed by Michael Jackson? Cleary being an angel (if just Charlie’s) was not good enough for a media that thrives on scandal.

I was at a loss on how to explain the MJ phenomenon to Lina and Kyan, and not sure how not to, since there was nothing else on TV but images of ‘Thriller’. I just explained that he wasn’t really a zombie, and left it at that. I have no doubt that one day they will discover his music, as I did Elvis Presley’s, who also died when I was five. Such is the immortality of some people.

End of Part I