Sick of wrongly attributed motivational
messages, today morning I posted one for my close relatives on the social media
application WhatsApp. My message had the photograph of Abraham Lincoln with a
mobile phone in his hand, stating "The problem with quotes on the internet
is that no one can confirm their authenticity." Considering that the
recipients included some very active contributors to the group, I had hoped for
some reaction. No one reacted.
My brother, then a big shot in a
petroleum behemoth, wrote a thriller four years ago. The modestly priced English
novel was available for sale on Amazon. He ran campaigns on social media about it.
Counting on his colleagues, friends and relatives, I assumed at least a hundred
copies to be sold. I was wrong in my assumption – very few copies were sold.
His other novel, a social drama in Hindi, suffered a similar fate.
Last year I compiled a collection
of short stories written by my father, an award winning author. My friends and
close relatives were very excited about it, some being "unable to wait for
the release" of the anthology. Moving with the times, I got a soft version
of the book published, available for download at Rs.200. In the six months
since its publication, three friends have downloaded it; relatives have stopped
talking about it.
My stories and poems are regularly
published on internet magazines and newspapers. A year back I used to share the
links with all my relatives and friends. Not any more, after I realised that
most do not share their views even if they read the piece.
संदेश
