The renunciation of something that you value the most is a sacrifice that must be made during the Kashi yatra in Varanasi, a religious pilgrimage attended by countless devotees every year. Most people give up meat or some other favourite food item, but an NRI youth did the unexpected by giving up something that is considered even more precious than food and water today: his Facebook account.
“I have removed my Facebook account. This way I will save a lot of my time to spend on more important matters,” Aripirala Naga Srinivas, who went on the yatra last week, told Mirror. One of the objectives of this ritual is to increase will power.
Srinivas, a Telugu techie, has been living in the US for many years. He was in India for a brief visit for 3 weeks when he visited Varanasi (Kashi) last week for the first time. “When I thought of giving up something that I cannot resist, I realised it was my Facebook account. So, I gave it up,” he said.
“I was almost a Facebook addict. I spend most of my time on it, posting or commenting on others’ posts or liking or searching for friends. Though I realised that the addiction was taking up a lot of my time, I could not resist logging back on the moment I sat in front of a computer,” he said. Srinivas however quickly added that he would not abandon other social networking sites. The techie’s friend, VMRG Suresh, a Lok Satta activist, said, “Facebook became an addiction for me too. Vasu’s deed may inspire me some day.”
In an attempt to add more features, Facebook recently bought the messaging service Whatsapp for a whopping $19 billion to retain millions of users. While many say it is losing its popularity, a lot of youths claim that they had campaigned for voter enrolment on the site, which led to a spurt in young voters.
