Communities...

It was a time to idle. Technology has taken its course. Time at hand is spent surfing the deep dark tomes of the web rather than stroll outdoors and enjoy the breeze(When was the last time there was any though.?). True, am a complaining sucker who hates the span of the net but cant live without either.
So as i was saying, spending some quality time surfing, I came to terms with the fact that I had managed to spend a solid 3 hrs coz of this new trend picking up with surfers; Online Communitites.
It was Orkut that kept me going. A frail invite sent by some long lost friend got me hooked for hours together. The discovery started off with me getting the entire list of college batchmates into my list of contacts. Funny a hundred different minds think alike at one point. And another community is born.
And fancy the spread. I managed to get back in touch with this kid who studied with me in the 5th grade. Oh yes it was a revolution. And the spread of communitites. Anything from a bunch of nerds sharing their common interests for puzzles and apti; to a group of freakos talking about eventually falling in love(O so mushy!It actually has 156410 members!). Then there's the usual alumni bunch forming the same community over and over again. And the list goes on. From the believers of the Gita to the lovers of chaat; Pursuers of an MBA to the ones who got there; Lovers of Abhishek to haters of Schumi. Its all in there. The weirdest one i treaded upon till today is 'Nokia'; a community for all Nokia phone users.
Then there are the geographically distinct ones. I found one for 'Coimbatore', where a bunch of 70s oldes sat discussing the CBE then and now. I bet every city has one such with similar forums going out.
And there's the 'Iyers' and 'Iyengars' community. I personally love the concept of a common repositiry of people brought up in a similar fashion irrespective of the distance and instance in time. Ones that woke up near the sun to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, renditions of the sahasranamam echoing through the long corridors of the house on the agraharam(the temple street for the uninitiated). Imbibing the taste for good food with the regular vatha kuzhambu and vadu maanga(Now I cant think of a translation to Bliss!). Oh yes. They belong.
Taking forward a tradition is quite a challenge. (I dont know why this came in. It just crossed my mind right now.!)
With terrorism and hatred raising its dirty head at every corner, it surprises me to realise that there are people who wanna unite for the most fickle reasons possible. Why else would 3246 people from different parts of the world come together and share their common hate for Mondays!
Communities Rock!