Friday 26 December 2014

Dear FB! It was not a Great Year

Many of you have shared the Facebook-’innovated’ slideshow which proclaims  this has been a “Great Year”. But I did not bother to look at those photographs. When this “innovation” called ‘Year Review’ popped on my wall as well, with my photographs, I had already ignored some 100 such Year Reviews of FB "users". I ignored my Review as well.

FB again stuffed my wall with my 'Year Review'. Ajeet’s Year: “It has been great year. Thanks for being part of it,” FB wanted me to share this manufactured slideshow. Though I did not want to say, I knew it has not been a Great Year, with any standard, at any level: Personal, national or international  But Facebook kept poking me with album of my pictures saying, “It has been a Great...” asking me to share the slide.

Let me tell why this had not been a Great Year and request FB not to use its "users".

How can you term any year a “Great Year” when the ocean and the sky had been competing with each other for who will engulf maximum number of human lives.

We lost over 300 people in the Korean ferry disaster. Photo: Wikipedia 
This was the year when flight MH370 took off and flew to nowhere. This was the year when MH17 was blasted mid-air. This was the year when South Korean ferry sunk into the sea leaving, not only Koreans, but the entire world sulking and sobbing.

This was the year when floods washed away whatever little beauty J&K was left with and Ebola switched off Christmas lights in many homes across Western Africa

This was the year when seven armed gunmen stormed into a classroom, asked the students to stand up and shot them point blank. A classroom with over 700 students, kids cornered and gunman firing, The helpless kids, as young as six-seven-years, faced the horror for over seven hours. What sort of horror takes for you to say this was not at all a Great Year?

How can a year be a Great Year when humanity killed humanity.

This was the year when over 2,000 people were killed on the Gaza Strip. This was the year when so-called Islamic State butchered journalist and civilians alike. The beheading were recorded and released on social media by the killers. The world saw, the world cried.

How can such a year be called a Great Year? I’ve seen those videos. You see it and you know why I am arguing this was a very bad year.

When all these happened one felt like hiding and crying hard somewhere,  privately. Certainly it was not a Great Year.

How can I forget the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, ongoing ethnic clashes in Assam and death of women in Chhattisgarh sterilisation camp.

I don’t want to mention that over 20 people were blinded during a botched eye-operation camp in Punjab. This perhaps does not matter, for we have “endured” far greater intensity of losses this year.

I have no problem with FB's “innovation". But clearly there is a problem when you pick and choose some photographs, arrange them randomly and declare, "It has been a Great Year", world wide. You do it on FB and the world sees it. And when the FB does it, world shares it. You cannot simply throw away the more telling photographs into the dustbin of history.

This attempt of FB reminded me of the horrific year 2014 had been.

How can I forget the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar. Photo: Google
We have lost many in 2014. Kids have been killed. Mothers have been murdered. Fathers have carried their sons to funeral. Humanity has been buried.

To those who are still around I’d just say, I want to hug you, I want to clinch you, And I want to say you, “We have just managed to survive a very bad year. Hopefully 2015 will be a Great Year—on Facebook and otherwise”



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