More than 3 years ago, I was as avid a user of Orkut as I am today of Facebook. From there the decline of Orkut usage has been so drastic that I hadn’t even cared to log in to Orkut in the past many months. Today, on a whim, I logged into Orkut to see how it fared, and the experience was a nostalgic.

Consider walking into a room in your house that was locked away a few years ago, a room that has been frozen in time. Opening Orkut today offered a similar experience. Most of the contacts in my Orkut circle had also moved to Facebook at about the same time as me and though they actively post updates on Facebook, their Orkut page reflects their selves from another age. Their likes, preferences, opinions, situation – everything has changed so drastically in the last few years. A friend who is now an atheist is identified on his Orkut profile as religious. TV programs liked by many in their fossilized profiles are the same shows that they make fun of today.

“Fans” and “Testimonials” were two features of Orkut that I thought cool. Every “fan” in the list was a booster for personal pride, and every testimonial opened our eyes to aspects of self-worth that we had somehow failed to realize. It was (and probably still is) a strangely good feeling to read and re-read those testimonials and relish the lavishness of praise in them. It does not matter that the person who wrote that might not have thought about it ever again.

Time is truly a magical agent. Without being noticed, it can change the state of its subjects into the polar opposites of what they once were. And yet, there are things that remain unchanged. Friendships from good old days, memories of incidents that still bring a smile to our face, written words that betray some of our deepest convictions… – yes, there still is so much of that past in our lives. Or, should I say, under our lives, because it is over the foundation of the past that the present has been built.