NETWORKING AND A CAUSE:-

If the invention of electricity sparked off a new revolution in the way we humans live, I dont think it would sound audacious if I say that Internet has done something similar for the world today. With its tentacles digging deep into our lives, it has its positives and negatives but for the time being I shall highlight one of its adolescent twin offsprings- Orkut & Facebook and their cousin-The Blogging hemisphere.

I started blogging in 2005 & like Alice in Wonderland I stumbled into a whole new world full of Mad Hatters with their eccentricities, intellectuals hand-in-hand with pseudo intellectuals, psychopaths & many normal people as well. Blog hopping melted into blog commenting on others' blogs, who in turn reciprocated with their two pence worth of opinions & gradually, these bloggers became my friends...it took time but surely, blogging became a punching bag of sorts where we raved & ranted about current burning issues, where we despaired about our helplessness at not being able to make a difference...& various bloggers, from different walks of life whom we wouldn't have met in life...sitting in different cities or even countries, brainstormed with us on how to tackle various crises.

Infact bloggers are more connected to each others' lives vs. their offline real life pals and given that birds of the same feather flock together, it came as no surprise that the bloggers furiously shot off emails to each other and translated their online bonding into real life meetings and sat together to do their bit for the crisis of the year, the bihar floods.

Crossing the blog world and connecting each other to the social networking sites as well, bloggers have-with a single click of their mouse been able to convey SOS messages to dozens of friends to pitch in.

Orkut/ facebook is like this endless party where everyone's invited...you get to meet new people cutting across oceans, countries, continents away. As one's circle of friends grows, the more one has the potential to forge longer human chains and voila!you get more contributors for various predicaments.

Online campaigns too have become popular sources via which people scattered all over the world can easily contribute money within minutes without going through the tedious process of being approached by some organization that sits down at one's drawing room, takes out their brochures, talks at length about their aims...Nah, now its all about the power of networking via the online medium....