This post is two years too late! I know nobody gave a toss about Orkut when Google decided to shut it down in 2014 apart from a few #RIP or 'Goodbye Orkut' obituaries. But for me, it was more than just shutting off a then obscure social media platform. It was almost like an end of an era or passing of a friend.
For someone who grew up in a small town, where it is very hard to find a community or forum where you can discuss the latest Hollywood movie or share all 'Chandler Bing' jokes that you can remember, 'Orkut' was manna from heaven. More than the scraps and testimonials and funky powerkut scraps I remember the joy of discussing my favorite topics endlessly on my favorite communities. Also the peak of 'Orkut' was in 2007-08 ish when I could connect with all other candidates who were going to join 'Infosys' in June 2008 and could share our apprehensions.
From 2010 onward the place started to resemble a graveyard, a deserted town which was once prosperous but now eerily silent. Even after users started to migrate to FB, I logged in regularly in the 2939 Manchester United community (Which shifted to 0853 later). But now that too has stopped. But still, in Fridays like this, I look out of the window in midst of my busy schedule and feel like logging in to that community! One last time :(
Here are my fond memories of Orkut.
1. Creating a community 'Dev - Sacrifice in Love Story' after a character in Anurag Basu's magnum opus TV serial 'Love Story'. It had 50 members in the community's peak time, including few very well behaved members from Pakistan! (Strangely no body remembers this TV serial much!).
2. Wasting precious time in 'Boys Vs Girls' silly games (add +2 to the previous comment, whoever scores 100 wins the game! Duh!). ( One day I collaborated with another member and were giving each other high-fives and then he discovered that he is a gooner and I am a Manc and then we started abusing each other :)
3. Counting the number of scraps! I somehow crawled to 1000 scraps that too with generous helps from Jay. But sadly could not complete 2K.
4. The Infosys 2008 community. So many discussions and so much fear. 'Can we bring our laptops?', 'How should we prepare?', 'How's the food?'. It all seems pointless now. But we literally lived our lives through that community one point of time. The moderator 'Chintan Patel' was in our batch and it was like meeting a celebrity. The excitement of joining our first company was so much that one of our batch-mate had changed her display name to 'Infy Girl' at that time :) and another to 'MBT Boy' :) :)
5. But above all, '2939' and '0853' times. It still makes me sad that the platform is lost. I remember when we won the CL in 2008, that night all rules were off! and we celebrated whole night like crazy. I still miss those 'Tevezzz' and 'RRRROOOOONNNEEY' posts by 100 people after every United goal. Someone was always there to provide a streaming link, to lend a shoulder to cry on after that loss to Bayern courtesy that Robben goal, after that bewilderment in 2009 CL loss to Barca or the sheer disgust in that godawful Moyes year. Orkut, you will be missed.
PS: Remembered another memory with Orkut, and that was logging in from Mysore Infosys Campus. There used to be a 'Reliance' cyber cafe in GEC1 and that was the only place from where we could 'Legally' log in to Orkut. It used to cost 100 bucks for an hour or something (Did I remember this correctly?) and spending that from my hard-earned measly trainee's salary was the biggest guilty pleasure I indulged on those days.
For someone who grew up in a small town, where it is very hard to find a community or forum where you can discuss the latest Hollywood movie or share all 'Chandler Bing' jokes that you can remember, 'Orkut' was manna from heaven. More than the scraps and testimonials and funky powerkut scraps I remember the joy of discussing my favorite topics endlessly on my favorite communities. Also the peak of 'Orkut' was in 2007-08 ish when I could connect with all other candidates who were going to join 'Infosys' in June 2008 and could share our apprehensions.
From 2010 onward the place started to resemble a graveyard, a deserted town which was once prosperous but now eerily silent. Even after users started to migrate to FB, I logged in regularly in the 2939 Manchester United community (Which shifted to 0853 later). But now that too has stopped. But still, in Fridays like this, I look out of the window in midst of my busy schedule and feel like logging in to that community! One last time :(
Here are my fond memories of Orkut.
1. Creating a community 'Dev - Sacrifice in Love Story' after a character in Anurag Basu's magnum opus TV serial 'Love Story'. It had 50 members in the community's peak time, including few very well behaved members from Pakistan! (Strangely no body remembers this TV serial much!).
2. Wasting precious time in 'Boys Vs Girls' silly games (add +2 to the previous comment, whoever scores 100 wins the game! Duh!). ( One day I collaborated with another member and were giving each other high-fives and then he discovered that he is a gooner and I am a Manc and then we started abusing each other :)
3. Counting the number of scraps! I somehow crawled to 1000 scraps that too with generous helps from Jay. But sadly could not complete 2K.
4. The Infosys 2008 community. So many discussions and so much fear. 'Can we bring our laptops?', 'How should we prepare?', 'How's the food?'. It all seems pointless now. But we literally lived our lives through that community one point of time. The moderator 'Chintan Patel' was in our batch and it was like meeting a celebrity. The excitement of joining our first company was so much that one of our batch-mate had changed her display name to 'Infy Girl' at that time :) and another to 'MBT Boy' :) :)
5. But above all, '2939' and '0853' times. It still makes me sad that the platform is lost. I remember when we won the CL in 2008, that night all rules were off! and we celebrated whole night like crazy. I still miss those 'Tevezzz' and 'RRRROOOOONNNEEY' posts by 100 people after every United goal. Someone was always there to provide a streaming link, to lend a shoulder to cry on after that loss to Bayern courtesy that Robben goal, after that bewilderment in 2009 CL loss to Barca or the sheer disgust in that godawful Moyes year. Orkut, you will be missed.
PS: Remembered another memory with Orkut, and that was logging in from Mysore Infosys Campus. There used to be a 'Reliance' cyber cafe in GEC1 and that was the only place from where we could 'Legally' log in to Orkut. It used to cost 100 bucks for an hour or something (Did I remember this correctly?) and spending that from my hard-earned measly trainee's salary was the biggest guilty pleasure I indulged on those days.
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