Sunday, October 21, 2012

Long live the Facebook Restrict List



With changing times facebook has become an essential entity of our lives. No matter whatever we do, and however we try to keep away from it, it comes back much like a lost puppy that never got lost. What has eternally been enticing about facebook is the "Restrict List". I think I am one of the those users of facebook who will forever be thankful to Zuckerberg for inventing the Restrict List.


What is funniest, is when cousins meet and ask me "Do you use facebook?"

Pat comes the reply with a  yes after a Manmohan Singh styled "lip pursing act" which doesn't manage to attract eye balls popping into a space I am wishing to defend like a watch dog. Slowly but surely I send them a friend request to not hurt the sentiments of a family that had for long been a species of siblings sharing blood and allergies, not to forget the frailty of forgetfulness that was a game nature has played on them.

Again a "no" will usually be a lie I won't be able to pull off well! I know I can't give Mulayam Singh Yadav a run for his money anytime in this life!

Then for a while, I keep a watch on when they will accept the request for that will be the fateful day when your world will come crashing down and your image will take a toss. Any new friend request I send to my relatives is often a victim of a "high blood pressure" syndrome that can make the BP apparatus burst, in all those moments of animated anxiety. And once I know they are in my boat, I immediately take action, and put them in the "Restrict list"! A doing that has been happening since long and for which I have often felt guileless, as guilty as a married man sneaking to watch Fashion TV in the middle of the night!

Now for people who do not know what a restrict list is, let me tell you it is the option that appears in front of you when you click the Privacy settings, then select "Manage blocking"  and finally tap on the Add friends to your restricted list. This way you stay in the good books of many of the people you cannot afford to give a cold shoulder to! For they stay in your facebook friend list while you continue your nasty nagging on the social networking scene and on blogger, not hurting their old world opinions.

As a girl, one has to take care of so much, especially to not irk the millions of people around you, and these people called relatives! The very first of clans who can get "judgmental" about anything under the sun that girls like me do! Thank God for the restrict list! It is the perfect place to stash away these kind, who can only frown and complain about the modern mannerisms that Indian girls have adapted themselves to, without batting an eyelid, without worrying about how the moral police will treat them?
My restricted list consists of relatives, cousins, people from the church, who have lost hopes of ever turning me into a homely marriage material and not to forget the patriarchal church fathers who might discover about my evil feminist enterprises and may someday report it to the higher authorities in the family, I  mean my parents.

Oh yes I am a bitch and plan to stay so, meanwhile as an Indian girl the thoughtless Indian theories need to be taken care of! While they have been thrashed into the Restrict list, the nose pokers and mindless moralists I enjoy my cup of coffee and continue with feminist activism on my blog and facebook, uninterpreted and fearlessly.












On second thoughts, Rinzu says,


Long live the Restrict list. It is the best feature of the place called facebook we all so wondrously wait to loiter in.

6 comments:

Indian Home Maker said...

Sharing this.

Shilpa Garg said...

Wow! That's a wonderful insight... have never used it, but now you have given me an idea! :D
Loved the way you have written! :)

Ash said...

oh its a complete blessing, the restrict list

Bhavia said...

Oh Rinzu..this is something I tell to my friends when they crib about Facebook.do you know what I have done?I have unsubscribe 90%of my Facebook friends so that my news feeds show just the updates of people I really like to know;)

Tall Girl in Japan said...

Oh yes ! If it hadn't been for the restrict list I would have been off Facebook ages ago !

Tall Girl in Japan said...

Oh yes ! If it hadn't been for the restrict list I would have been off Facebook ages ago !

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