written by Anna, a Georgian Actress in Shekhar's Blog

It’s 4 AM at night and a frightening nightmare wakes me up. I am wearing outdoor clothes, that is not very comfortable in bed. But at that moment, I can’t feel it, since I am too scared...too scared that a huge noise might pierce my eardrums and brightness invade my whole vision. I stand up and look outside from the window. I look at the dark, cloudless sky and I look at the street lamps. I look at the deserted, empty pavement and then back at the sky. Then I turn around and go to bed. I hug my pillow tight and try to sleep as much as I can. But I can’t stop thinking about it...all those images of horrible scenes from the TV are flashing into my mind. Then I hear noise of a jet, flying above somewhere and I feel as my heart starts to beat faster and louder. Fortunately, that night goes well. Nothing happens in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

The next day, I wake up and I am happy to see the sunny day. I am happy to be alive. I turn on the TV to see the news, hoping that the situation is getting better. But instead of that, it’s worsening. I see and hear how more and more villages and towns have been bombed and how more and more people have been killed. I see injured innocent people, crying, looking for their family members in ruins or on the list of dead people. I see young reservists, dead. I see blood and violence, grief and tragedy. My sister enters the room, crying. My niece is sleeping, so that’s why my sister has dared to cry. She won’t cry in front of her daughter. She does not want to scare her. I ask her what happened. And she tells me that a 19-year old cousin of her best friend has died due to the bomb explosion. I did not know him, but it still hurts me. It gives me a terrible pain inside, here, somewhere in the chest. It gives me a lump in a throat. The boy will never see his family and friends again. And his family and friends will never see him again. Because of what? What is the reason? Nothing! A complete absurd. I wonder how many young boys will never see their family again. Hundreds...thousands...

The time flows so imperceptibly fast. I have been watching the news since early morning. Now it’s midday. And suddenly I hear screams and cries from the neighbor’s house. The police is taking their son to the army. And his mother is crying and desperately begging them to let him stay. The father is not going to let his son die for a nonsense and he is shouting at them. But using force the police brings the youngster out of the house and puts him in the car with the rest of the boys. I am not a writer and I can’t describe what happened. I can’t express those emotions and feelings. I don’t know the exact words. The scene was ... it was just... horrible... unspeakable...

News: The United Nations proclaims to Russia to stop the violence, stop the fire, stop bombing the territories of Georgia outside the conflicted area, South Ossetia. But Russia turns a deaf ear to them. They keep on bombing more and more places...

Vladimir Jirinovsky says: “Bomb the whole Georgia day and night!”...

US Vice President Dick Cheney says that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."...

Russia is “way out of line!”...

The USA and the EU needs to save Georgia from annihilation...

Russia is waging ‘terror’ against Georgia...

Russia wants the president of Georgia to resign, otherwise they won’t cease fire...

Russia wants to invade Georgia in 21st century...

What’s going to happen? Will it finally end? Will it stop soon?

I am packing rucksacks together with my sister and mother. It is expected that Tbilisi may also be bombed. So we should be ready for it. If it really is bombed, where should we run? Everything’s so crazy.

It’s night again. This time I am too exhausted to be dreaming nightmares. But I still wake up all of a sudden. I hear an awful, deafening noise of an enormous explosion. We all jump from our beds and leap to the windows. There’s another noise of a second explosion. My sister runs into the room all white as a sheet, asking what shall we do. We decide to go somewhere with her car. Outside there are so many people. Almost everybody has left their house. They are all so scared in a state of total panic. After some hours of drive into the city, we return home, since we don’t hear any more explosions. The things that’s scarier is that we are on the top floor, that means that if our house gets bombed, there’s no chance to survive. Heh... This fact always gives me a nervous, weird laughter.

The next day, we find out about it. Thanks god, nobody was harmed. Russian jets have bombed military base and radar installation. Suddenly I hear a telephone ring, that startles me. These days I feel so edgy, that everything startles me. I pick up and it’s my father, calling from the USA. He has heard about the Tbilisi bombing and wants to know how we are. From his shaky tone I notice that he is very nervous. He sounds so frightened. I have never heard my father in such state... Life is so strange.

And now I am sitting in front of a PC monitor and typing a boring, illogical article. I don’t know what I am trying to say...what I want to say... I just want to express my emotions somehow. I keep them bottled and it makes me feel like a heavy load.

I hope everything will get back to normal soon enough; soon before more thousands of people die; soon before Georgia completely collapses.

A good number of people i know, complain about my negligent nature...in handling my mobile phone. No, i dont dare to drop it 'n' number of times, for it is not a Nokia...but my negligence lies in sticking around it..or vice-versa. The handset i own spent about 2 years with me, of which, it has been in silent mode for atleast 75% of the time. Though i do not argue about the utility of a mobile phone, i find it really annoying. whats annoying is not the calls but the fact that i have to constantly carry this little-weighty external device. the sense of botheration associated with it, is even more irritating than the botheration itself. I was probably 23 when i got my first mobile. and i have stopped using it in between, when i was 24-25. what a peaceful period it was. I still have this urge to discard my mobile phone and i am tempted to do so, if not for the sake of few reasons which bind it to me. Afterall, i have managed without it for 23 years in my life. Discounting the years when i really didnt need it, probably i survived well without a mobile a phone, for atleast 10years. Not bad!

i recently read a couple of articles in the magazine - 'The Economist', which spoke about the evolving changes in the patterns of human behaviour, be it in offices or in social circles, as a result of the growth in mobile communications. One article starts off on a rightly profound note - Sometimes the biggest changes in society are hardest to spot because they are hiding in plain sight. This article deliberates on the how the rapid changes in mobile communications are giving way to what is called as 'Digital Nomadism'. Faster cellular networks, Wi-Fi hotspots and new gadgets to connect to these networks are probably the new vehicles of changing social behaviour.

Nomads, in ancient times, were wanderers who carried all their belongings along with them. Digital Nomads, quite contrastingly, do not carry anything except for their most precious belonging - Wireless Gadget. Thats it, we have business professionals who need just a BlackBerry to avoid going to office. Another interesting thought discussed in the article was the comparison between cars and mobile phones. Cars, apart from other resources, did have a role in the division of cities - into residental areas and office areas, atleast in the west. Such a trend is now catching up in India too. It is now predicted that the wireless technologies would be mixing up these divisions again. With increasing road-traffic problems and related health hazards, future professionals might as well adopt 'work-from-home' concept, all with a hi-fi dedicated network. Should such a trend arrive, there would an interesting change in the dynamics. People would feel liberated from the coccoons of office cubicles. but what about the relationship between people in the office. the word 'colleague' typically means much more than 'we work in same place'. it also stretches to across to someone with whom we have a relationship whose bandwidth lies between 'official acquaintance' to 'friendship'. if people rarely get to visit office, thanks to improved wireless communications, would the word 'colleague' hold any signficance? How would our social perceptions change, if we get to interact through (or with) only emails, instant messages and avatars? if we get used to such a kind of working environment, how would we see the concept of 'Human Contact', in the context of 'Office culture'?

to be continued...