By
Bubbles Sabharwal : It’s amazing how social media brings out the best side of every person! On Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter...people discuss their life with total strangers and at home are locked away for days in their bedroom. I sat at the kitchen table dead tired at 10 am on Wednesday, in my dressing gown, nursing my third coffee and since the newspaper was missing , reached for my phone. Every member in my family was in such a hurry to get out, you would have thought the world was coming to an end. My husband and daughters were messaging me from the next room... “where are my black pants MA!!!???”... “Has the drycleaning not come in???”, asked my husband, “or is it being shipped from New England in ghastly freighters?” (sarcasm at 8.30am!!). While the golden Labrador, Cesar was on the floor with his mate Rafa, the black labrador, fighting over the box of Honey Bunch oats. They are both very partial to cereal like my daughter Tanyah, who messaged me, “ where the hell is the cereal, why is nothing in its place ma????? That’s the ONLY thing I have in the mornings. Can someone not understand what I need.” As I heard the door banging, the dogs must have rushed off to have a proper breakfast under the living room sofa. I messaged all three back that I was in a Russian submarine in Swedish waters and not in a “peace loving” zone. So messages were not reaching me! They would have to fend for themselves, which must have sent their adrenalin soaring. That is how I landed up at the kitchen table, where no one would think to look for me and reached for my phone, only to see Facebook open up and the photograph of a cousin pop up. Looking all cosy with her husband sending the world and him a message, “ happy anniversary to a darling of a husband who has kept me happy for the last ten years... so happy I couldn’t thank him enough!” She was now 35 years and was having her third child by default, I think. Being pregnant was the only time in your life you can do absolutely nothing and know you are doing something very productive. The other posts suddenly kept popping up. I kept the Christmas pudding recipe aside and went back to look at her face again. Was this the girl I had lunch with last week? Why had she bitched about her husband never being around while she felt ill. Was this the girl who had left him a year ago to “see how things could work out....with a little bit of distance between us”. Was this the girl who couldn’t stand his drinking habit? This looked like alright. Yet, here she was on social media professing her love in the open. Or maybe my fatigue made me think these were poison tipped words to get to him....loyalty in the family and all that thing. In public, being loyal always means going against your conscience or concealing your deepest fears, or beliefs or whatever. I say to all who listen to me, “post no pictures, tell no lies!”. Why do we have to look so loving in all pictures and pout to cover the fangs. Okay! so I jest. But honestly, I even know this friend whose daughter got married recently and we had a day to day post of the going ons of the mother two months prior to the event to two months post the event. I still read about when she woke and how cappuchinos “hit the spot” at midday. Why would anyone want to post that?! There were more photographs of the mother than the bride. Yearning for the gifts of life! So, I decided to post a picture of myself in a black gown with a mixed martini and caption it, “yours truly! In the kitchen face down!”. (The writer is a theatre director and novelist)
Source: mydigitalfc.com
