Homebody

The first time I entered an Internetchat-site, it was like plunging headfirst into a nonsense waterfall. It took afew visits to adjust to the pace and to the etiquette—or lack of it.

The first act of logging in to a website is to create a unique name for oneself.I had chosen one I thought was reasonably innocent, but it turned out that anyname even remotely suggesting nubile femininity attracted male cyberians likeants to a picnic. I had called myself SugarPlum (what, are you nuts? No, ofcourse that wasn’t my real cyber-handle) and within seconds my screen began tofill with hopeful Secret Messages: "hello! a/s/l please?" A Secret Messageis visible only to the two people involved and "a/s/l" stands for"age/sex/location".

This was seven years ago. Then as now, I always answered truthfully: "45/F/NewDelhi". Howls of "Grannie Go Home!" greeted me, followed by pleadingrequests for my ‘real’ age, ‘pix’, address, for a description of what Iwas wearing. Nobody believed I could actually be ‘old’. Fifteen or 20suitors would invade my screen at once, some waiting for responses, others goingahead despite the silence from my side, with raunchy descriptions of the variousways they were ravishing me, right there, on the Internet.

Sometimes I wrote "Nude Ellie" in place of ‘location’. The smarter onesamongst my anonymous suitors would pick up on the little joke and respond with aresounding "LOL! Good one!" It’s a strange but satisfying thing to bealone in a room yet immersed in a stag party, surrounded by a dozen far-flung,faceless strangers, while reading the sound of their invisible laughter. Veryzen. Very netiZen.