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Rituals of Intimacy, Shalini Singh, Bangalore, India.
Rituals of Intimacy, Shalini Singh, Bangalore, India.
December 29, 2008
Family Background
Shalini (26) lives in Bangalore. She is a business analyst for a software company called which primarily caters to its clients in Australia, Dubai and the UK. She did her early schooling in Rajasthan and then later went to get her MBA from Symbiosis Institute in Pune. She shares a three bedroom apartment with her boyfriend and another male friend. She has been dating her boyfriend for about 5 years. She knows him from college. They both are from Alwar in Rajasthan. They moved from Rajasthan to Pune together and then to Bangalore. They have made sure that they study and work in the same city. Her parents are professors in Rajasthan University. Her grand-mother also lives with the family. Her parents don't know that she has a live-in relationship. During the interview every time we spoke about her boyfriend she asked us to turn off the recorder. She also did not permit us to photograph her. She was afraid that her photograph or the audio recording would somehow surface on the Internet, and her parents would find out that she has been living with her boyfriend. Her parents will not approve of her live-in relationship. In fact, they don't know that she has had a steady relationship for the last five years.
Domain
Family
She comes from a joint family wherein she grew up with her parents, grandparents, and siblings. She stays in touch with her family via mobile phone and social networking sites. She calls her family once a week and speaks for an hour. She travels to her family during vacation and festival time-usually twice a year. She also uses the webcam and instant messaging. She hopes to move closer to home.
Social networking
Shalini is very active on social networking sites like Facebook. Facebook is a way for her to frequently communicate with her close friends and acquaintances. She writes on blogs- mostly opinions related to what is happening in the city. She posts her comments if she feels strongly about an issue.
Communication
Her work related communication mainly involves emails. She has “pretty global friends” in the UK and Australia, with whom she communicates via the IM and occasional phone calls. However, her personal family communication primarily relies on the mobile phone and webcam. She feels it is extremely important to have “the personal touch - hear and see her family.”
Expression of intimacy
She often expresses closeness by reaching out to people who matter to her. Gifts are one way in which she expresses intimacy. She recently gifted her boyfriend the iphone. She plans on buying South Indian jewelry for her mother and sarees for her grandmother. Shalini says she is the “one stop call” for her siblings- “they need money for college sometimes” and she is more than happy to be there for them. Intimacy is all about “those small things” for Shalini. “One day I told my boyfriend that there is a new pastry shop and he bought me pastries from there.” She would always take out some personal time to spend with people she cares about.
It is interesting that if she has to express any strong emotion or feeling- she would not use media- she would do it in person. “Revealing things on internet is frustrating- though I am very active on social networking sites, there is a side to me that is personal” she says. She would hope to see better reach of internet- “see and talk to the person at the same time”. “I think that it is a big thing- when on your mobile phone you can actually see the person”, she says.
Upshot
Shalini, with a wide exposure to modern technology and communication media aspires for more conventional forms and expressions of intimacy. Though not a recoil her preference is an urge for personalized adaptations in communication technology. The need for intimate contact, exchange and expression comes out prominently in Shalini’s account of how she uses communication technology.