Social networks......

So I’ve been a victim of some seemingly bizarre encounters thanks to Facebook, blogs, random meetings, etc...and I was wondering if any of you had similar experiences. I must preface this post with the fact that I sorta have a photographic memory, which means I remember faces, names, and events (of my own random choice) vividly.

Meeting 1: When Adam and I were exploring the idea of moving to India, I started reading blogs of people who were doing fellowships in India. At that time I had a friend (amazing writer + photographer) who was working in India, blogging away her experiences. Through her blog I read the blog of other fellows in her cohort. There was one from Bangalore, where the fellow there talked about her colleague at work... the kind of colleague with whom you are always having a good time laughing and giggling your day away. Anyway, there were also a couple of photographs of this colleague.
It’s been about a year now, and when I was in Hubli last week, I ran into him at the Development Dialogue... and without thinking twice if I should even talk to him....tried to explain to him how I knew him! I know you through a friend of a friend’s blog?! Sorta, maybe...Ufff!!! Eeeish!!! Spiff!!!Splat! He was really nice about it though, and invited Adam and me to stop by his NGO in Bangalore to check out his work.

Meeting 2: Well this wasn’t really a meeting per se.... Adam and I were hiking in Gokarna, when we saw this couple lugging their luggage down the hill...and they looked so familiar, like I should have known them and said hello....but I just couldn’t place them....thankfully I didn’t say a freakin’ word!!!!! After racking my brains for a bit, I realized they were couple whose wedding photos I had seen on Facebook on another friend’s profile... freaky! Well...I sorta feel like one....please tell me I’m not the only one though :(

Meeting 3: Adam and I attended the wedding of one of the eighty-five of my dad’s first cousins’ daughter. Got that? Good! We arrived fashionably late and went straight to the receiving line at the reception. In front of us stood a very familiar face....so familiar that Adam smiled at him (he did smile back) and then loudly wondered which cousin of my dad’s he could be. Only he was no cousin, he was Nandan Nilekani, the previous head of Infosys and currently a cabinet level minister in India...he looked oh, so familiar cause his face is on just about every magazine, book, or newspaper in India. My dad happens to know him (which is no surprise given the extent of his own network) and we did get introduced to him....and as it is with meeting famous people, it was awkward, and there wasn’t much to say....but I did ask him how his project to create identification for 1 billion of India’s people was going...I don’t think he was too excited to talk about work....and said it was just at its beginnings and ambled over to the buffet line...oops! Tip: Ask about work when you no longer want to carry on a conversation with a famous personality.

The world is definitely seeming smaller......