Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani – Women in Delhi NCR will get justice, you give it or not

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani is an underrated Shah Rukh Khan movie. While many people compare and attribute the 'protest' mania to Rang de Basanti, it is also important to acknowledge the fact that PBDHH was a movie much ahead of its time. I especially remember this one scene in which when, ironically people came down to the street to protest against death penalty and police were installed to stop the movement. However, in the movie, the policemen did not follow the orders given to them, and let the passengers pass.

This particular year, following the gang rape and intense humiliation and damage to a girl and her friends' mental and physical health, Delhi public took to the streets. The movement mainly comprised of students of different colleges, some school students and civil society at large. The demand, among many others, is that the culprits of the heinous crime should be hanged till death. The major difference between reality and reel versions of such a protest is, that Delhi Police, along with members of the armed forces, did not seem to hesitate twice, before baton charge, throwing low intensity bombs besides throwing water at the protestors in the cold weather of December.

While the media was not allowed to cover many parts of the protests, there have been a zillion discussions which have digressed from the issue at hand. Prime media seem to be more concerned about the question whether this movement is apolitical or not, the genesis of such a movement and the impact on political history of the country. However, thanks to social media sites like facebook and micro blogging sites like twitter and of course power of cellular phones, information about the protest and the atrocities inflicted on the general public for justice, is there for all to view. The most disgusting and at the same time, interestingly, the most motivating snaps are those in which women are being maltreated and manhandled (literally, in every sense of the word) by Delhi police. It takes four Delhi police to lift off one woman student each from her seat of peaceful protest. One holding one hand, the other, other, two others lifting her legs. How is this different from an incident of initiation of a gang rape? I would imagine, there too, the victim is pinned down in a similar manner. And that is why these pictures are disgusting and shameful.

The reason why I feel that these pictures are still motivating, is that such atrocities just strengthen the desire of what the administration is trying to curb. It is just adding fuel to the fire they are trying to stop. One could pity the situation of the girls being dragged off. I choose to admire their strength, their presence of mind as well as their attire. These women are wearing sports shoes because they were prepared for a long long walk. Despite being dragged, a woman in the picture has crosses her legs and in between hangs her carry bag. And the fact is, they seem to be not crying or help, but voicing their voice for justice. This sight, though disgusting is commendable.

What is not commendable is the seamless manner with which these policemen misbehave with us. One would not think, there is a plus side to crime against women. But oh boy, is there! In Delhi, we have been so used to violence in many forms, that beyond a point, physically, it stops affecting us. During my years living in Delhi, I have been looked at, stared, commented, and even hit by men during road rage incidents. Having been through all that, and survived, has just made me stronger.

And it is not just the creeps who treat us as sex objects we have to be careful off, or face. I remember a number of times.....I will narrate one. I remember this one time quite clearly, when one person made a swift turn infront of my car, which was completely out of line. This was five to six years ago. I remember rolling down my window and telling that person quite respectively, 'Do you think traffic rules allow that Sir?' And his reply was, 'Women, you need to get married to get your frustration off.' A man, I do not know, I do not insult, tells me the most offensive thing, just because he thought he can!!A random guy figures I am unmarried and talks about what I should do with my life when I ask him to observe traffic rules. Well, I doubt, if he'd try that again though. I guess it is because of what I did in response. I did exactly what he told me. No, I didn't get married, but I took some of my frustration off. A comment, about my gender, my life is far more frustrating than being single, when people chose to argue from the aspect of me being a woman, than me being a driver on the road. Whether I am a man or a woman, whether I am black or white, hindu or a muslim, these things don't matter in the discussion. Moreover, it was argumentum ad hominum.  

In retaliation to his comment, I remember letting his car go. I or rather the traffic did not let him get away though. I banged right into his car, purposely and a couple of times. It was midst traffic. So it was quite easy, and quite fun. This one time he got out, and told me, 'You better stop it. If there was a man sitting next to you, I would behave differently.' I remember shouting like a lioness at him. And once he went back to his car, I banged my car right into him again. The implication of that chap was that he would hit me if I was not a woman. I remember how this one time, a different time, someone did actually hit me at a petrol pump, despite me being a woman. It made me realize, that men in Delhi, or men in general (I don't get out of NCR much) either want to hit a woman or do. This goes on to show, how easy and how convenient, that thought is in their head. Some act on it, some don't, but surely most of them want to.I want to be respected only because I am a woman. I want all men to do the exact opposite of what they do do. I want them to not want to hurt a woman, verbally, physically, mentally or in any manner possible. And the once who do not know how to behave with women, or in the company of woman, I want them dead. I want the state to kill them, or let me do the job.

I am smarter now. I don't pick fights. I think it is ever since I moved to Gurgaon that I became more responsible. I latch my car doors each time I get into my car. I don't roll my windows down. I don't get into altercations with people while driving. I try that my car comes back home unscratched. If it does get scratched on the road, I do not get upset. Under no circumstances do I ever unlock the car till I reach back home or in the parking of my office complex. I wish I didn't have to isolate and literally drive in a vacuum. It would feel so  nice to drive with the windows rolled down, occasionally.

Yesterday, on my way back from Delhi to Gurgaon, I saw another pathetic display of Delhi traffic policemen on duty. An autorickshaw, with far too many men, cut right in front of my car, with two policeman at the centre, managing traffic. There was a senior policeman, towards the left of my car, who seemed to either take bribe from a motorist or fine him for breaking traffic rules. I honked at the autorickshaw to move his vehicle behind. It didn't. I honked harder, signaling to the traffic cop, to ask the autorickshaw to back the hell off. I was hopeful, the silly optimistic me, that the policeman will notice that there were far too many men in the auto than allowed as per rules, probably do the needful, besides just guiding the vehicle to be placed where it should have. The autorickshaw driver didn't budge, but instead seemed to be asking the policeman what his problem was. The policeman pointed at my car. The people in the rickshaw, said something offensive to me. I did the same to them, just mouthing bad words, not rolling down the car windows or getting out. When the senior police officer seemed relatively free and the autorickshaw left, I asked him what the hell is he doing? Why couldn't three police officer control the movement of one autorickshaw or do anything about anything. It was not a Mercedes or a BMW driver, they had to ask to follow traffic rules!! I was told that 'Madam ji, I can do one thing at one time.' (That is precisely what Delhi traffic police was doing when the bus in which the culprits raped the innocent 23 year old girl drove past them, I thought.)  He next told me that I am blocking the traffic and that I should pull over. I know better by now. I told him that I think traffic police in Delhi and police at large in Delhi is scum and can only expect innocent people like me to listen to them. That changes now! I drove away after telling him exactly that. He didn't stop me, he had no basis to. The thing with autorickshaws is, the drivers might be shady and bad elements and probably have a criminal record, potential or actual rapists, but their vehicles cannot drive as fast as my car can. Perhaps this is the urban elite in my head. I happen to catch up with that particular autorickshaw, I drove past it, then hit the breaks really hard, enough for the autorickshaw to jerk really bad, at least twice and sped away. It didn't change anything much. It did give me a weird sense of satisfaction. That I could retaliate, in whatever minimum capacity and get away with it. 

What I am trying to say, is that Delhi and NCR has taught me:

1. To play it safe.
2. To appeal to authority when despite doing everything right, I face a problem due to men on the roads.
3. And to take matters in my own hands, when authority fails me or loses my trust

Many wonder, what is that Delhites want from the ongoing protest. This is exactly what we want I think. Women in Delhi NCR are strong, we are smart when it comes to our security. We do everything right to not get into trouble. When we do face a problem, we avail our rights and we go to the authority concerned. It is when our complaints are not heard, that we take matters in our own hands. We can die trying, but given the scenario of contemporary violent social order, we don't have another option. Do we?  

The very fact that despite Section 144, (as per which, if more than four people assemble at a place, they can be subject to engage in an unlawful practice and may be arrested) protesters have found a way to go in groups of two to four and still participate in the protest says that yes, we are relentless people like our national leaders. We do believe in defending ourselves and not attacking anyone for no apparent reason. We do comply by laws, but we do know how to bend these, when these are used against us. We are quintessentially Indians. If doesn't matter, if it were the British rule us, the Mughals, the Marathas, or a nation state we help create, we will always stay united and share a common space, for despite it all....Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani. 

The problem of being polite

Many often I have found myself in situations, where politeness demands that one is forced to do something, without one's wishes. For instance, when you go to someone's house, and although you are not too hungry, you end up eating stuff which is put on your plate, so that the host does not feel offended. Thanks to the Carmel Convent Education, my fate in society revolves around three words: 'Thanks', 'Please' and 'Sorry'. As a young child, I was told that these are three magic words. And must always be used. And I would like to teach these words to my nephew, as he grows older too. However, come to think of it, these words have done more damange to me, in terms of social interactions than any other words could have.

I do not know how it comes to it, but quite often, I find that politeness forces me to enage in friendships with people I'd necessarily never be friends with. I feel uncomfortable in their company for a long period of time. However, slowly, I come to accept some friendships, which were initially forced by me due to my rules of being polite. What adds fuel to this fire, is my background of philosophy, particularly ethics. As I continue social bonds, which people who 'become' my friends, against my better judgment or rather a gut feeling, there comes a point that they either betray me, hurt me or insult me or cross that invisible line which must be observed in every association. And that I tell them....instead of slowly and silently drifting apart. The moralizer in me confronts such situations. Usually the result of such confrontation, though liberating for me, has a very adverse affect on those I confront. And that usually ends the social bond. Perhaps, because it was a bond, which though I didn't want, was imposed because I can't say no to easily to people I do not really know or care about. This is the main flaw of, as a teacher wrote in a recommendation letter for me, 'being polite to a fault.' And when I engage in a confrontational conversation with 'the other' about how I was treated in 'the friendship' was not right, the immediate effect is, a lot of namecalling, insults, insinuations, basically everything that effectively ends that association.

However, politeness strikes again on occasions which demand wishing people. Whether it is a birthday of a formal friend, or wishing someone 'good day' at work. This is because despite the outcome of the confrontation, I believe that politeness requires that I wish people on occasions on which people wish people. Unfortunately, these polite remarks are also met with unfriendly responses. At least twice in my life, I have come across such situations, in which I wished someone because it was the polite thing to do. And twice in my life I have got the reply, 'I do not think that after everything, we should say Hi to each other anymore.' At that point, the other establishes a closure, which mind you, I already believe I have had, because of a brutally honest, necessary required confrontational conversations I have with 'supposed' friends who manage to tarnish my spirits a little. However, when I wish such people good morning or happy birthday, I do not do that with an intention of initiation of a friendship. This also does not really come across because never do these people figure out that I was never looking to be a friend. I usually do not seek anything from anybody, least of all a friendship.

The effect of statements of 'I do not think we should ever say hi to each other anymore' is really haunting though. I perceive it to be a statement made by a fellow human being, who once enjoyed my company is effectively telling me, that I do not deserve the most basic gesture human beings share, even with absolute strangers they pass by too often, like neighbours or batchmates etc. Although I do not blame them. The sad state of society is such, that gesture of politeness is not shared between people as often as one would imagine. It is because of that gesture of politeness that these people initially sought my friendship or thought I sought theirs. The effect of that statement 'of not saying hi to each other' on me is that I believe that I am not fit for social interactions despite all my education and manners. What I fail to perceive, is that, these statements are said to me because 'the other' gets defensive and feels the loss of someone 'the other' found convenient.

Just imagine a simple scenario, that the next time you go for a social visit where the host ends up offering you really badly cooked food, instead of forcing yourself to eat the dish, you turn it down, giving a brutally honest review of the meal. If you tell the host, 'I do not eat fish, thank you very much. And even if I were ever to eat fish, after having tasted your cooking, I'd rather never eat anything at all, let alone fish' there is every chance that your host refuses to entertain you in the future. Pride or rather self preservation will guide the host to severe relations with you entirely. However, it is possible that the host still enjoyed your company, or rather misses the fond memory of someone who out of sheer politeness ate the bad fish previously.

What the impolite behaviour of people after a confrontation with an otherwise polite person, does to the polite person is far more serious that people often think it is. It turns a person, polite enough to enter into a social friendship, into a social outcaste. The message conveyed to this person is, 'you do not deserve to be around people or to share courtesies.'

Happy Birthday Love

Happy Birthday Love

It is a nice day to be introduced to the Sufi conception of Love, specially with forty rules. This is an emotion which everyone wants, longs, and is also one which people are afraid of, because it expresses a vulnerability. So often, it seems convenient to forget about it, not acknowledge it, but the thing with love is, that it will still haunt, when not addressed.

It is hard to wish what you don't know, like wishing someone you do not really know. It is all the more ridiculous to to wish when you do not know where that unknown (love) is. However, it still seems appropriate to celebrate the day in abject loneliness, in complete peace and tranquility, and still let the world be part of this birthday party. Maybe the wishes will reach across through this medium, ridiculous or not.

So here goes, the gift of love on the birthday of love, where I'd like to replace, in the truly Sufi spirit, God with Love.

Some of the forty rules:

1. The path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing yourself will lead you to the knowledge of God/Love. (The best way to celebrate this day is not to find distractions but rather celebrate it to the fullest.)
2. You can study God/Love through everything and everyone in the universe, because God/Love is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly his abode is, there is only one place to look for him: In the heart of a true lover. (So yes, I do not know where love is, or exactly who he really was, but I can still find it in my heart, him in my heart, because of love in my being.)



Francesca da Rimini by August Rodin, 1882

3. Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don't ever take words at face value. When you step into the world of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.
4. Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means being farsighted enough to trust the end of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not see the outcome. Lovers never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
5. The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary. (Love is pain, love in pain)

Happy Birthday Love.

Regards,

Garima

I know....so what next?

It does n’t interest me anymore...watching movies, eating food, reading book, work, philosophy, meeting people, friends, family, and strangers....anything or anyone in particular. All I know is that I have to keep myself busy and pretend to be alive. It seems that if I do not do that, I will have no other option but to look up at an empty ceiling above, and observe nothingness. To live with nothingness is a life which perhaps many ascetics aspire towards. It does n’t haunt me, possibly because I have devised a way to avoid that, but at the same time, it does n’t interest me anymore.   I am often being told that I am quite unpredictable, that time I pleasantly and on some rare occasions, unpleasantly manage to surprise others. I never actually plan on doing things in an unpredictable manner, but it seems that to me, my choices, my likes, my dislikes are so defined, that there is nothing more to look forward to. I know what kind of movies I like to watch, what will get me smile, what will get me irritated, what will my favorite ice cream taste like. I know, or I think I know, everything there seems to be possible to know about myself. And while that is a quest of a lot of people, and many philosophers throughout their lives, I am not sure if I can do anything with the information I have got about myself. Correction. It is not that I am not sure if I can do anything with the information I have about myself, but more so, that I am certain I do not want to do anything with it.

It seems that once a person knows himself, herself or the world around him or herself, there will be a magical moment. It will be distinct. And certainly important. I never imagined that knowing oneself can actually  be of no significance at all. So, I know myself. Big deal! The question which can be approached using that information is: Do I like what I know? I do. Again, so, big deal. Had I answered that question in a negation, the quest in life would have been to get over my self esteem issues. Having resolved such issues, it doesn’t really seem to be an achievement.

And although everything in life does n’t have to be achievements, the lack of these, or the lack of any substantial reason to get going everyday feels like...me. For the past two months for instance, I was looking forward to not miss one birthday. Next month, again I am looking forward to not miss some birthdays, I know I will not be able to or plan to forget. I want my life to be more than just numbers of some days, some of these have no particular significance at all.

No wonder I feel aged. I don’t think that watching my favorite movie or book can give can be more entertaining than looking at my ceiling. Not that looking at my ceiling is entertaining in any way or even relaxing. Closing my eyes, and trying to get my brain to shut up, now that is relaxing.

Let me close my eyes and sleep,
So that I do not have to be with the awake ‘me’.
Ask my brain to stop thinking and leave me alone.
Let my bloggers not read my posts alone, but write back.
Maybe, maybe then, some unpredictability will resurface.

Looking through the French Window

At times I wonder why sitting in my room behind a closed door makes me feel so calm. I seem to like to keep myself locked away, ironically from myself. And that too not merely to find myself, but to be alone with my thoughts.

These thoughts are what get me going. And at the same time, these thoughts are also what make me want to run away from these the next day. I try to avoid these thoughts throughout the week. I try to tell myself that my life is okay. That it turned out pretty great. However, when I think, alone with my thoughts on a Sunday afternoon, I do not agree.

I do not think things are fine, that life has turned out great. I think about the things I could have had, I think about what life could have been like, had destiny not interrupted. Or rather how it might have turned out to be, had destiny responded as I wish it should have.

It does respond. Occasionally it does. I won't complaint it doesn't happen because it does. Or at least, so we are led to believe. It just doesn't respond at the right time, under the required circumstances.

I wish I had that...instinct. To second guess myself, second guess others, second guess destiny and do that perfectly. I seem to have lacked that instinct, if not the courage to want to do that. Mostly I admire people with instinct. Those who not only observe but get to know what is going on. At times I feel jealous. I want to share a similar experience. However, that rarely happens to me. The world outside of my head, feels like a different world, which I can see through a large clean full length French window. I see them, I see things, but I fail to understand these, and not because of lack of trying. I seem to have now started accepting my fate, on being on the opposite, unreachable side of that French window, of observing from a very thin distance the world outside. I have stopped looking for a door or a way out.

However, I wish if someone could reach out to me instead, from the other side. Notice that I sit there waiting, observing, trying to keep myself busy in a tiny coffee shop, fiddling with a pen at the table, not even looking for a paper, just looking from time and again at the French window I try throughout the rest of the week, to avoid. I mean, I don’t even drink coffee. Yet I find myself in a coffee shop every day. 

Begin and End and live in between

A new day, a new begining, a new life,
It seems so easy and so nice!
It leads to a tour unexplored
Leaves a journey lived through
struggles, feelings, choices made and taken,
victories, loses, farewells, recognition
One wonders if these are lessons learnt or karmas lived and done with
It seems pragmatic to remember the good, forget the bad and the ugly,
underlining the silver lining
And look ahead
To new begining and new endings
And 'a life' in between

Sad but beautiful

I was listening to this song and I love it. Great singer, great voice, equally great music! Yet there was something which made it so very different from so many other songs. I mean, every song on someone's playlist is one which is considered to be sung by a great singer with a great voice, and has great music. What made this so different? I guess it all boils down to the lyrics then, the words, put together in such a way that it just makes thoughts flow in a subtle manner, covered by music by a nightingale, that at times, it becomes difficult to understand why it makes you so calm. The lyrics, are of a woman who obviously have a broken heart. However, the song is not about her undying love, in those words, although in her wishes it says just that, undying love, despite possible distance and oblivion about his whereabouts in life. It is also about mature realistic love. (Although, it is doubtful, whether there can be such a thing! That kind is generally not celebrated in our culture, what is celebrated is a happily ever after or bittersweet sagas which is marked by death of the couple!) She knows that a lot of time has gone by, and that a finality is not needed in a happy ever after with that person, for her love to be meaningful. It is so sad and yet so beautiful.....

I heard that you're settled down
That you found a girl and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.

Old friend, why are you so shy?
Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light.

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead, "
Yeah

You know how the time flies
Only yesterday was the time of our lives
We were born and raised
In a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
That for me it isn't over.

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."
Yeah

Nothing compares
No worries or cares
Regrets and mistakes
They are memories made.
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I beg
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."
Yeah 

A nine month affair

It takes a while for initiation, then it begins

...begins with the 'unknown' towards unification.

Seems like  a 'life long commitment'

with the optimists' promises of a bright future

and the skeptics' uncertainty and doubt

crowded and overwhelmed by a few glitches of advices and opinions

Till the point when there is no subject object distinction

You think for two, you eat for two but you count as one, 'we', 'us'

But then in time, the monism ends into dualism and 'it' ends

leaving its after effects. 

Identity and absences

It is interesting that at times we assert our presence by exhibiting narcissistic tendencies of creative expression…be it by way of writing a poem, dancing, singing, posting a picture on social networking site, or maybe writing a blog. Interestingly, ones presence can also be felt in absences.

You experience the absence of friends’ comments about a movie, life in general or you. This experience probably holds more weight than the actual content of the comments shared. You call it nostalgia.

You experience the absence of a continuum of your life, should some circumstances so arise, that a discontinuity abrupt what was at the same time both memorable and mundane. You call it change, sometimes welcomed, sometime detested.

You experience the absence of the voice, of the touch of a familiar someone, who may have made you familiar with yourself, a family member like mother, father, sister, brother, nephew or a lover perhaps. Accordingly, you call it homesickness or lovesickness respectively.

Some absences can have a haunting effect…when no one at the end of a telephone call speaks, but instead indulges in listening to the not so hollow ‘hellos’...or when there is a knock at the door, but no one at the door. You call it creepy.

In each of these cases, at times the negation of the existent is a conscious choice and at times it is so unconsciously done, that it hardly seems to be a choice. However, there is always a choice, or so one would like to believe. And the choice really is the manner in which one wishes to exert oneself, by positively exhibiting oneself in a way for others to witness or negatively by escaping cognition. Both, presence and absences are ways to assert one’s identity. This amounts to say, you always assert yourself. At times, when this is done negatively, there seems to be a power play, to hide oneself from being witnessed, you negate others from seeing who you are, propelling them to engage in a search instead.

Changing a profile picture...it sends a lot of messages

It sends a lot of messages. Most minimally, it tells some that you do own a camera. It reminds others that you have free time enough to upload a snap. It tells a few sensitive others that you would rather do social networking than spend time with them. It tells you that you think you look better than other versions of yourself to share with others. It sends a message of a deep seated narcissism. It reminds many ‘friends’ on your page about you, when they are not even thinking of you! It becomes a topic of conversation for some outside of facebook too. For a stalker few, who have somehow managed to access your page, decoding and hacking all necessary privacy settings, unknowingly, it adds an unsavory item to their obsession. It tells your lover who took the previous facebook snap or gifted you some accessory which added a zing to your profile picture…that you have moved on. (Unless of course your changed picture also is a reminder of that lover.) Either way, it informs that you are happy and possibly confident. It tells people that you think that the new picture is a better representative of yourself than your last picture. It tells you that you are photogenic. It may tell some that you think you are photogenic. It tells you that someone photographed you. It signifies that you believe in change and that you are not technologically challenged. To a few deep thinkers, it reminds you of a moment in time which you would like to live for a longer few moments. A longer, but still few moments, because we all know that you are going to change it again sometime in the future....unless you do not have a list of changed profile pictures. It might be a reminder that while traveling or attending some event or get together, there is this one good solo snap of yours which made the entire event or travel bit memorable or even more memorable but most definitely worth capturing. A changed facebook profile picture, it sends a lot of messages. It might inform some cousins or friends or some new people you are chatting up these days that you listen to them when they tell you that you must change your profile picture. It tells some long distance friends, or friends you have maintained distance for a long time that you have changed, if there is a drastic change in your pictures. If the change is too apparent, it allows some friends, the curious ones and the close ones, to review your album or albums. It might just remind someone of you. It might leave an impression. It may leave no impression whatsoever. Some of these messages might hold familiar interpretations for those who have not changed their profile pictures. As some changes are not exclusive to whether you have changed the picture or not. Having said that, it may still be maintained that a changed facebook profile picture may send a lot of messages.