I was never into the social networking scene in any way whatsoever. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and My Space all seemed uncharted territory to me, until my students from over a period of 20 plus years and from all over the globe roped me into Facebook. I have now come as far as Status Updates, but PhotoTagging, FarmVille, and a whole host of assorted activities on Facebook are still alien to me. One major reason is that I simply do not have the time for such (trivial?) pursuits. However, what I have come to be excited about is the possibility of reconnecting with long lost classmates, students, and acquaintances from my past. One thing I never realized was that I could be on someone's Friends List, without either of us having any clue as to who exactly we were(!!!), which is the reason why I'm writing this blog.
Many months ago, I received a Friend Request from Hannah David Paramanandam. The name Hannah David was very familiar to me, because I had had an English Major student at Lady Doak College (India) by the same name in the late eighties. She was one of the smartest students I'd ever had, and I automatically assumed it was her. I didn't confirm right away that I knew her, because I wasn't too sure about the last name Paramanandam. There was no profile picture at that time for me to verify her identity. I sat on the request for a while, but then rationalized that it was probably the same Hannah David I had taught, that maybe she'd gotten married and taken on her husband's last name. So I finally confirmed that she was a friend. After that, no news from Hannah David at all, no attempt to contact me. That must have rung a bell. Usually, if it's a student from India, I receive a wall post or a message saying how excited the person is to reconnect with me, but in this case, absolute silence!
Anyways, Hannah and I were on each other's Friends list, and when I eventually saw her pictures, I knew it wasn't the same Hannah I knew from the English Department at Lady Doak College. Then, very naively, I assumed that maybe she'd been a student from some other department at LDC, and maybe that's why she'd invited me to be her friend. So there we were looking at each other's pictures, making the odd comment or two,"liking" each other's updates, etc., etc. The best thing about all this was my French Professor, Ms. Maida Gonsalvez (now Thomas) from my undergraduate days in India, found me on Hannah's Friends List and got in touch with me. I was truly thrilled about reconnecting with my teacher, continents away and years apart! And then Ms. Maida (that's how we used to call her, though it beats me why we never called her Ms. Gonsalvez!) asked me the question,"How do you know Hannah?" , to which I had no answer.
The pinnacle of it all came last week, a comment from Hannah with the query,"Are you from Madurai? Just curious." So it finally dawned on me that this wasn't a student from some other department at Lady Doak College, as I had assumed her to be. This poor girl had no clue as to who I was, but yet there we were, friends in cyberspace without really knowing each other! How did I get invited to be her friend in the first place, I have no idea! I've never heard of cyber-ghosts or paranormal occurrences in cyberspace before, so how did this all come to be?!? The whole thing seemed to border on the ludicrous, the ridiculous, and the insane, but the best thing ever was Ms. Maida having found me through Hannah, and through Ms. Maida, I've now gotten in touch with five of my classmates from my undergraduate days!
I do have a few more on my Friends list that I've confirmed as my friends, only because their names rang a bell, but there's been no contact from them. I'm now beginning to wonder if it's the same case as my cyber-friendship with Hannah David...probably I don't know them at all! Anyways, about Hannah David Paramanandam... Is she a stranger in cyberspace? Not anymore, I think!
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