Adieu Orkut…yes You will be Missed..!

“We will shut down Orkut on September 30 2014-Google”

TechnoparkToday.com>> Well this was the first headline I came across while browsing some Yahoo articles one day morning, and to my astonishment a part of my heart sank as I never saw this coming. Yes I know we all ditched Orkut or rather I should say “cheated on Orkut” when Facebook was ushered in years ago but still there is always a nostalgia element associated with everything that reminds us of our good old days, like a mushy pleasant feeling which we get even today when we hear some random 90’s Bollywood song like “Tujhe Mirchi Lagi Toh Mai Kya Karoon” or the title track of Hip Hip Hurray or Hum Paanch, music cassettes of Kaho Na Pyar Hai that must be still lying around in some corner of your room, Dhara ad where the kid says “Jalebi” or that baritone voice of every Sunday 11 am that said “Mai Samay hoon” etc etc.

You get my point. Don’t you?   This exact time travel feeling I hovered into when I came across this news of Orkut being shut down. I so vividly remember creating my Orkut account during my first year of college (yes I was 3 years late at joining!) and uploading some random Google image as per the warning of my friends; “No No don’t upload your pic…people will morph it and misuse it” I still chuckle thinking about it.

I have some very fond memories of begging my friends to write 1040 characters filled flattering testimonials and returning the favor by doing the same. I remember blushing when caught red handed for sneaking into people’s profile and been asked for doing so (Gosh I am turning red now with embarrassment!!). Damn! Orkut’s feature of restricted stalking! Logging into it in spite of slow Dial-up connection at home, staying online for hours during vacations, Sending scraps across thousand miles, waiting for hours for a reply, E-greeting cards, the pleasure of coming across a long lost school friend from your first school, those promises shared to keep in touch always through Orkut, those limited relationship status options like “single” and “committed” cos you see those were the times when relationships were crystal clear and not “complicated” like today. Ah! So many sweet memories!!

We all have been there and done all these especially “we” the “Y2k generation” who have seen our teen years blossoming during Orkut era, this news would certainly be like a thunder bolt to all of us no matter if you are a Tweethard tweeting every 2 seconds, or a Facebook addict uploading a selfie every two days or a Whatsapper living at the edge of “online” and “last seen at”. You just can’t deny the fact that Orkut indeed was your baby step towards this big monstrous virtual world of social networking.

Alas! It’s closing down now and it’s hitting us right now how much we are going to miss it. I certainly will though I deleted my account three years ago cos I found Facebook more interesting. Yes even YOU will who don’t remember the password today! We all will!

Yes this is the reality of life, we take things/people/ and now social networking sites for granted and miss them when they are gone and talk about them years later in the name of so called stupid “nostalgia”. We, the wired-up Homo sapiens!
Anyways thank you Orkut for giving us some beautiful memories to cherish for a lifetime and Mark Zuckerberg; Are you listening?

– Aparna Nair

 TechnoparkToday.com