On the auspicious occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, I decided to see an idol of Lord Ganesh in my city Patna. The social media had already created a plethora of reels, videos, photos etc. about the much anticipated idol having been directly sourced from the original makers of Lalbaug in Mumbai. I reached there with much excitement to see the ecstatic idol through my naked eyes. However, I felt that I already had the picture at the back of my head.
I tried to focus on the crown of Ganesh, which was embroidered with multiple diamonds on a gold base, but remembered those “zooms” in various reels which showed the clear picture of every fine diamond along with a delightful song of the almighty. I felt my excitement being faded away because the level of enthusiasm of seeing a novel idol was not present at all. No doubt, the experience of being present was unmatched but with a sense of repetition. And this feeling is not limited to any one particular aspect.
What do we do when we have to go to a restaurant? Firstly, we search it on the internet, then check the ratings, reviews, address, best routes, ETA, photos of ambience and food, menu, and cost for two and so on. Then we might call them to reserve a table also. That’s like we just converted all possible unknowns to knowns to avoid any hiccups later. And once we reach the restaurant, we just confirm the things which we had already seen without much excitement. The excitement was there but at the time of browsing for restaurants on the internet.
Similarly, we already know the places to visit with multiple travel vlogs channels bombarded all over social media creating “bucket” lists for people. I remember first going to Puri (Odisha) in 2004 with my family. As a child, I had never seen an ocean and expected that the waters might just be outside of the railway station! Since it was not there, obviously, my excitement reached an all-time high when I saw it after 2-3 hours. I don’t know how such excitement can be there if we already have the picture in mind before visiting.
On a positive note, we do get to know the place and then proceed accordingly. The planning of events has been made crystal clear with all sorts of information. But still, the excitement of seeing and experiencing something new is entirely a different human experience than watching the posts in social media.
Disclaimer: This article has been published at Reader’s blog of Times of India with the link: https://bit.ly/3BaSR8e .
It was as exciting as I thought to be. Nice concept and nicely penned down 😁
Actually you have written what exactly happening to us.Very nice and yes social media exaggerated our excitment to the next level and at the ground we are not getting that exciting side of anything.