“Rehan, what has happened to you?”
“Nothing, what would happen to me? Why did you ask it? Am I not looking good? I am alright. You think too much these days.”
“Don’t fake yourself, if you were alright, you wouldn’t have replied so many questions as an answer to my simple question.”
“Actually my feelings for Sanaya are increasing day by day, and I don’t know how to confess it to her.”
“Oho, that means our Rehan is in love. Dude, it’s simple, propose her on Sarahah. An app has finally come to your rescue.”
“Yar, but this way, she won’t be ever able to identify if it is me.”
“Idiot, if she loves you, or has even little bit of feelings, she’ll identify the way you write. Go ahead and speak your heart out.”
Gathering all the courage that he had, he started writing on her Sarahah profile –
“Hey, I know I can never ever confess my feelings to you in person. I can speak all rubbish things in front of you, but I become short of words as I am about to confess my feelings. Finally, Sarahah has to come to my rescue today. I couldn’t have ever proposed you had this beautiful application not there to read whatever my heart couldn’t say all this time.
You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life, and I want this most beautiful girl to be my side forever – so will you be partner-in-crime as I commit a crime called ‘love’?”
He finally sighed relief and clicked on the send button.
In response, all Sarahah could say was, “Thanks for your honesty ?”
He waited patiently for few days, and then waited anxiously for few more days but he never got a reply.
Whenever he would see her, he would fall in love again – with her, her smile, her innocence, her black eyes, her hair and her beauty.
Many times, he thought of just kneeling down in front of her and proposing his feelings – but then he controlled himself because he thought his best friend ‘Sarahah’ was doing it for him. Whenever she would come to him for something, or they would meet, she would always discuss how somebody had proposed her on Sarahah and that she was clueless about the sender.
One fine day, she casually asked him, “Did you ever send me that proposal message?”
“No, why would I?” was all he could reply.
She didn’t force him, he didn’t confess her. They both had feelings for each other. But she kept waiting for him to tell her face-to-face, while he relied on technology to convey his feelings to her. And a love story finished even before starting.
Thank god, Sarahah never came in previous eras, if it was there, Laila – Majnu, Shiri – Farhad, Raj – Simran wouldn’t have been possible. Imagine a scene in DDLJ, “Agar wo mujhse pyar karti hai to Sarahah par message send karegi; kar, kar, kar! (If she loves me, she will message me on Sarahah)
‘I auctioned your anonymous letters publicly’ – this defines the Sarahah app perfectly. Say anything to anyone – without revealing your identity, claims the app.
Why are we adapting ourselves to this virtual world?
Has Sarahah become so popular just because personal conversations have vanished? Are we really in a phase where an app should assist us in confessing our feelings? Are we so into technology that we can’t speak the truth to someone’s face?
We have reduced our conversations so much that we are requiring the ing help of an app to confess our feelings. There isn’t a comfort zone any more, and if there isn’t a comfort zone, naturally only an anonymous app can accomplish the objective.
Almost everybody has written something that doesn’t require an app or anonymous identity, like “you are so cute”, “you are very sweet and really lucky to have a friend like you”, “you make me happy every time we meet” etc.
If you propose or confess your feelings face-to-face, what worst can happen? – He or she will deny at your face or will say, “you are so strange.” That’s it!
Do we really not have enough courage to confess this? Are we really living in an era where appreciating someone requires anonymous identity?
We travel in metro and trains, travel with several co-passengers but never converse with them. Wherever you are feeling bored, in bus, class, on station, or any place of boredom, talking to people is the best solution, but we aren’t doing that anymore. Physical conversations have been replaced by mobiles. In a college campus, a student gets introduced to several others daily, but they don’t talk or interact – or even if they do, it is confined only to his personal group.
The sender is confused if receiver will identify his way of writing, and the receiver is confused whether they are guessing the rightperson, and amidst all this, the beautiful feelings have been replaced by screenshots.
What could the possible solution? You can’t hush your feelings, and it takes a lot to profess them face to face.
If you can’t confess your feelings face to face – write letters – it is an old-fashioned tool but still effective! Let him/ her feel through words what you feel for him/her. Let her feel your way of writing – but don’t make her guess your way of writing – write your heart out for her and let her decide if she wants to go ahead. Else, take a shortcut – write an article or a story as I am doing, post it publicly, and sail in the boat with several others – falling in love with her when she is busy texting somebody else!