Real Virtuality?

Lately I’ve been noticing, therez a lot of blog space being devoted to Facebook, Farmville and Farmville Addiction… I must confess that I never wanted to join Facebook, coz I already had an Orkut account and most of my friends hung out at Orkut usually. Plus who had the time to juggle two social networks? But considering the hoopla that was engulfing the Farmville syndrome, I decided to take a dive into it. 


I already had about 20 friend invitations pending when I signed up for Facebook…. It took me about 2 days, 3 cups of late night coffee and hundreds of my precious megabytes allowed by Data One Broadband to finally figure out the wonder that was Facebook… 


Turning my attention to the games… I’ve always been an avid gamer (you may have noticed) and I usually don’t get bored even if the game becomes monotonous or even if it has only one level!
Now now… I’m a guy who is not addicted to anything… yes… ANYTHING! No smoking, no drinking, no drugs, NOTHING. So it pretty much pisses me off if someone nudges and tells me that I’m doing too much Time pass on the net (“You’re addicted to the net dude”) or I am always found playing games etc etc… And when I read about this whole Farmville thing, I thought, why not check it out?


So that was done… I started with Farmville, inviting neighbors, planting crops, and harvesting them from time to time… And then it started hitting me hard…. I was getting hooked! But I couldn’t stop. I tried explaining the game to my mom but she started laughing the moment I told her that you grow strawberries in 4 hours. To this day she asks me sarcastically about the strawberry thing. Shez even offerred to sell some of my produce in the local market!


Ok back to the game… I went on farming, harvesting and moving up the Agro-ladder. Then I built some Dairy Farms and Poultry units to keep my precious cows and hens. Secretly I would check the blog posts of fellow farmers in which they shared their addictions and smile to myself involuntarily.


But a week back I had the scare of my life! It happened so, I was supposed to go to Pune to attend a wedding of a friend’s bro. I decided to keep my Rolls Royce at home and travel by the State Transport bus to experience nature first hand… The route was through mountains and typical rural terrain… After catching up on my dear, priceless sleep, I woke up to the countryside… The sun had started to shine as everyday and half sleepy, half awake, I glanced at the view I saw outside. It was a farm. Not just that, it was blooming with ripe grains. A though crossed my mind, “hey! Just like Farmville” *smiles again unknowingly*


But then a strange thing happened, as soon as the bus passed the next farm, this big strange steel sickle appearing in front of me. (The one that the cursor changes into when the crop is ready) It was like asking me to harvest the crop. I could see the number of coins and XP I was gonna gain after harvesting it! I jolted back to my senses. Was I going crazy? Hallucinating? What was happening to me? I mean I won’t deny the fact that previous night I had planted artichokes (harvest in 4 days) considering that I wouldn’t be able to harvest anything when I was in Pune. But is it enough to call me addicted? I looked around to see that the uncle besides me was staring at my face since the time I was smiling to myself (“iska jaroor kuch chakkar hoga”) Rather than addressing his suspicions; I decided to listen to some music and switched on my Music Player. (Thank god I’m not into country music.) Just when I was about to close my eyes, a Hay Bale sped across my window. Instantly an inner voice started shouting “5 XP! 5 XP!”


I was like, “What the hell is happening to me? Am I so much into Farmville that I’m seeing it everywhere?” Is this what people call love?
Thankfully the journey ended soon and I went to the marriage and got back to my normal sane state of mind. But it was one hell of an experience!


PS: While typing this post I have fertilized the crops of about 15 neighbors.