Family WhatsApp groups are a conundrum. They remind me of the chakravyuh in the Mahabharata. Abhimanyu, the great warrior and the son of mighty Arjun, knew how to enter a chakravyuh but was clueless about how to leave one. This lack of a proper exit plan on his part cost him his life. One should always have, in their arsenal, a way out from tricky situations, and one of my uncles learnt this important life lesson the hard way. My mother’s side of the family decided to start a WhatsApp group with great gusto, and the initial few months went by smoothly. Everybody had so much to share.
On the whole, it resembled the great Indian family of a Barjatya film—boring, but harmless. My uncle decided to add some much needed spice in the now-insipid group. The general election campaigns of 2019 had also started. This general election was fought as much by the real foot soldiers of various political parties on ground as by the artificial ones in the virtual world.
His exuberance was palpable, especially after he used to get spiritual—pun intended—every evening at 8 pm. His constant sharing of doctored videos and vitriolic memes offended one of his other cousins in the group, who was against the political leader my uncle favoured. Swords were drawn, sides were taken. The once Barjatya film family now resembled an Anurag Kashyap production. It was total anarchy. A majority of the others in the group didn’t approve of the provocative and divisive behaviour of the two.
Like true citizens of the largest democracy in the world, they decided to take a vote on whether these two trouble-makers should stay or be shunned from the group, and it was unanimously decided to banish them. My uncle was heartbroken at the ill-treatment meted out to him by his near and dear ones. Countless apologies were tendered by him; his case was even taken up by his sister.
However, no one agreed to welcome him back. The once high-strung family WhatsApp group has gone back to being boring, and the only messages shared now are the morning and evening salutations. My jolly-old-man uncle has, since then, found solace in spirituality, much to his wife’s displeasure; he now starts at 7 pm.