Facebook and masala bhangra

(Be patient; the streaming is a bit slow, or alternatively go straight to YouTube)

In this cyber age, a great number of people, if not all, rely so much on the Internet. It seems to be the end of the world to some of them when they cannot access their e-mails, on-line forums, instant messenger services or social networking websites to 'communicate' with others.

I read an article in the Guardian about the networking site, Facebook. The author, Tom Hodgkinson, argues that Facebook isolates people from the real society by trapping them in cyberspace with nonsensical virtual applications. By giving details of 'who is who' behind the scene, he believes that Facebook is actually an heavily funded American neo-conservative libertarian plot to convert its users' personal preferences and relationships with friends into commodites on sale to giant global brands.

As I'm not a Facebook addict and only connect myself to those whom I have already known but do not meet on a regular base due to geographical limitation, I am not concerned with the author's contention. However, I do learn a lot from the Internet, mostly from news sites, on-line magazines and web content in all sorts of format forwarded by friends. Seldom worrying about being gullible or manipulated, I am oftentimes enraptured by news articles or feature reports which cast new ideas into the cell where my mind dwell.

Yesterday Eric forwarded passed one me the link to a special report in Forbes on the 20 trends which are sweeping the globe, drawing particular attention to K-Pop among those 20 items.

I read K-Pop carefully, but was soon caught by Naachercise when browsing through the rest. Naachercise, also known as Bollywood aerobics or masala bhangra, is a mix of Indian folk moves and Western booty-shaking, created by Sarina Jain. I've never been into dance (As I'm super slim and not short, I suppose I look like a spider when dancing), but this is so attractive that I rose from the stool and started shaking my stiff torso and limbs with the video clip.

Perhaps because I've recently given a lecturer on Indian classical and film music in a World Music course, I'm really fascinated by those shakes and steps of masala bhangra. It's really fun and I don't care whether I'm bewitched or misled or something in cyperspace on this occasion.