Swiping left to right and back again, Sailesh was in a quandary. This decision-making caused him more distress than the outside temperature of 45° C. Here, he was seated in his bedroom sweating over which reel he should upload first- the one where the train was inches away from pasting him to the tracks or where he perched rather precariously over an abyss.
Post the ban of TikTok, this fourteen-year old was addicted to Instagram. Being a shy child with hardly any friends, he hoped that one of his reels would strike gold and pave his way of becoming an influencer and his popularity skyrocket among his peers. To this end was his relentless quest in shooting and uploading his #shorts in the hope of them turning viral. He knew that the common thread running through most videos clocking maximum views were ones that were death-defying and awe-inspiring.
Now, he wasn’t sure which to select. Both were close-ups of his face reflecting the studied, yet exaggerated round of surprise befitting someone finding himself in the throes of danger. The first one had a terrific soundtrack of the approaching train as the driver almost stood on the horn with a horrified look that was in stark contrast to Sailesh’s blasé look. But then the one over the sheer drop was equally spectacular. Frustrated that he couldn’t ask Ashish who had shot the reel, he frowned at the sheer pettiness of his friend when the latter realized that his videos weren’t as spectacular as Sailesh’s. He stopped hanging out with him despite Sailesh offering to shoot them again.
He was hell-bent on posting this video a day prior to his school reopening after the summer break. He would get a hero’s welcome, he thought keeping his fingers crossed.
The next morning, he swaggered into his school sure that his uploaded video would catch everyone’s attention. Little did he know that it had caught the attention of not just his peers but the police too. It was his school-uniform that had given him away. He wasn’t to know that the middle-aged driver just short of his retirement after putting in a blemish-free career had suffered a heart attack when he saw the boy on the track inches away from the engine. It was left to the apprentice driver to take the train with around a thousand passengers to safety.
Suspended from school, his neighbours agog with curiosity, his parents caught in the ignominy of it all, he now paced his bedroom biting his nails to the skin. He was now on Prime-Time TV, as the panelists discussed the menace of these instagram-crazy generations which had spread beyond small pockets of the society. His reel was shown in a relentless loop across all channels with heated discussion on the foolishness of young people who seem to live for thirty- seconds- of- fame.
Photo credit:
Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash
