I am not bugged at all for being bugged

Take the recent news about US snooping on the world through the emails and social networks. Many would crib that their privacy is getting lost. But I would look at it very positively. I am happy that someone is interested in me. I have always felt that being ignored is the most traumatic experience one can have. Take for instance my case. No one has been paying any attention to me ever since I took retirement from active job. I am being ignored totally by my son, my daughter, my wife, my neighbor, his wife and his dog included! My people do not even know whether I am at home or not. They are simply not bothered.

The other day there was a conversation at home that went like this:

My wife:  “Hi Prashy, since you have successfully completed your Engineering Degree, let us celebrate. We will have dinner outside”

Me: “Good. Let us go to some restaurant for a change rather than ordering food at home thru Door Delivery. Let us enjoy the ambience”

My Wife: “Oh… come-on… in the recent past we never visited a restaurant. We have always been ordering food to be delivered at home. Prashy, don’t listen to him. You tell me… we should go outside to a restaurant”

Prashanth: “Yes mom… let us go out and eat”

Me: “That is a good idea. Let us go to Punjabi Daba or Door No. 27”

Prashanth: “No dad… we will go to some good restaurant like Punjabi Daba or Door No.27”

My Wife:  “Prashy I will go with your suggestion. Let us go to Punjabi Daba"

Me: “Ok…Let us have some Phulkas and some non-spicy mushroom or panneer side dish”

My Wife: “Prashy ignore him… let us not have Butter Naans because they will be very greasy. And let there be no spice in the side dish… he probably can digest that but we can’t. Let us order some Panner Butter masala”

You would have observed that in the above conversation I did not exist to them. In my childhood my mom sometimes used to keep a tab on me… what kind of friends I have, what films I go to, whether I study properly etc. I used to get a little pissed off then. But now I realize that she cared for me. And I have none to do so now... or at least till this news came! I thought I have become a non-entity, an object, a thing…

But now I am happy. Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders are listening to me. I won’t be surprised if Obama reads this blog entry and sends me a reassuring message that he is around for me! He may even suggest my dinner menu and the restaurant. Cameron may share tips with me on my spondylitis problem. NSA and PRISM could secretly promote me as an 'indispensable entity' to my family.

I always thought that the only people worth spying on were world leaders, scientists experimenting with ways to breed a new specie that will wipeout the human race, or, most frequently, H(B)ollywood stars who were having affairs with other H(B)ollywood stars. But now apparently since some video cameras have shrunk to the size of a shirt button and have proliferated like rabbits, and also sophisticated surveillance technology comes bundled with your internet browsers, it has become possible to spy on everyone. In fact surveillance has become so commonplace that we all spend more time on camera every day than Sharukh Khan or Katrina do.

Satellites can probably count the hairs on my head... oh…no... hairs Sprouting from my ears. I heard from my brother that my nephew in Delhi picked up a fight with some indecent gang of youngsters for catching young girls from every angle with obscene, ubiquitous cellphone cameras.

But I digress. Every click, every place visited, and everything we do is recorded, analysed, and disseminated between the internet service providers, search engines such as Google, and other interested parties. This data is sold and re-sold, and used and re-used. And you know what…as I get older I make Grumpy, the dwarf in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, seem like a party animal. I am happy that some telemarketer knows many things about me (more than my wife, son and daughter put together!), but I get very aggressive when I realise someone or some organisation who I have never communicated with knows many PERSONAL things about me. The most intimate details of my life such as, how much do I owe the credit card companies, why haven't I taken bath for the last three days, how often do I and my wife in a week… well, don’t let your imagination run riot… quarrel.

Ok… now my serious opinion on surveillance. I share the naive faith - If I've done nothing wrong, I've nothing to fear. So I am happy that I am under scrutiny. For those who are unhappy, I want to say this. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So you should shift to Vegas, if privacy is important. Or better still… take vengeance and infect your computer with virus that can latch on to PRISM of NSA!