Are you on chat?

Look at the way words have changed... Till a few years ago, to say "I have scrapped you" would have been upsetting. But now, you rush to the nearest computer terminal to check orkut. A few years ago, "I got her on chat" would have made an English teacher cringe. Now, you would just say, "Oh, and what did she say?"

Anyway, this chat is an amazing thing, isn't it? You can be logged on all day and yet have no conversation. Or alternately, you can carry on five different conversations simultaneously. And follow multiple trains of thought simultaneously on each conversation and still make sense of it all. Silences are not awkward. Which made a friend say, I'd rather speak to her on chat rather than call her up.

Something like conversation during a train journey. When there is nothing more to say, you look out the window, watch the rails fly by, fill your mind with the rocking sound of the train and wait idly for the next thought to come along.