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I was quoted recently in a Global Post article on caste-based communities on social networking platforms in India.

I have earlier written about how caste-based communities on Facebook and Orkut reflects the realities of India’s splintered society.

The ancient Indian custom of caste has made its way into the modern world of social media.

Social networking site Orkut — the most popular social media platform in India — is not only a place where young, urban Indians can connect with friends like Americans do on Facebook. It’s also a platform where they can meet others in their caste… (and) engage in benign discussions and debates on various caste-related issues like marriage, religion and politics.

So what’s happening here on Orkut, Facebook and other social media sites in India? Some argue the country’s young people no longer feel comfortable talking about caste in public. Instead, they retreat to an anonymous online world to debate and discuss issues. Not everyone agrees.

Social media expert Gaurav Mishra said Orkut and similar sites do not increase caste discussions. Rather, they accurately reflect that Indians still very much identify with their caste and want to form groups around them.

A new decade is a good time to step back and look beyond the immediate. As the world enter the 2010s, and I enter my 30s, that’s precisely what I am going to do.

Looking Back at the 2000s

Looking back, the 2000s gave us the television reality show, an online encyclopedia that is created by amateurs, a social networking platform that is bigger than the US, and a web that is driven by real-time status updates. In the process, the decade fundamentally changed how we define our identities as individuals and as groups, how we view the private and the public and how we play the roles of citizens, consumers and creators.

Personally, the 2000s gave me much more than my twenty year self could have asked for on January 1, 2000. In the last ten years, I have lived in five cities, traveled to five continents and lived at least as many lives (each with its own share of highs and heartaches). Now, a decade later, I am back in the city I started from, and I am beginning yet another life.

Looking Forward to the 2010s

Forbes India named nominated Facebook for 2010 Person of the Year in its December 2010 issue and asked me why it should win.

In a recent post, I shared five reasons why Facebook is good for your soul, so my love for Facebook is no secret.

In the interview, however, I highlight the fact that Orkut, not Facebook, is the default social networking platform for Indians. Orkut introduced Indians to social networking, it’s still much bigger than Facebook in India, and with its recent redesign, it might have more staying power than most people give it credit for. Speaking for myself, I have started spending much more time on Orkut after the redesign than I have in the last year or so.

I also highlight the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook in the interview. Most people use LinkedIn like a rolodex, exclusively for professional networking. On the other hand, Facebook reflects our real world relationships better, where we switch between the personal and the professional, almost seamlessly. LinkedIn too offers a vastly improved user interface after its recent redesign and I expect myself to spend more time on LinkedIn in the coming weeks.

“I can’t believe you lost!” Maya exclaimed as she put down her coffee. “I was sure you’ll win the Kingfisher Calendar Launch contest. You were the only woman in the fray!”

“I know!” Naina agreed animatedly. “I thought I had pitched it perfectly. ‘A hot woman photographer making pictures of hot women models would be the epitome of Kingfisher’s Good Times.’ I thought every self-respecting man on Twitter would fall for that!”

“Given that four out of five Twitter users in India are men,” Maya continued, “I would have expected a little more enthusiasm for your campaign. Even the woman should have voted for you because you are a woman!”

“I know!” Naina became even more animated. “It even seemed to be working, until the last three days when it all fell apart. I have no idea how that happened, especially after I had campaigned like a politician for two weeks, used every trick in the book to ask for votes.”

“Including emotional blackmail,” Maya smiled.

“Including emotional blackmal,” Naina laughed. “I think I hit the height of hustle during the last three days…”

“Internet in India is like Bharat in Ian McDonald’s ‘River of Gods’,” Maya explained to Tarun, as she sipped her second cup of black coffee at the Green Park Costa. “For every four men here, there is only one woman.”

In the science fiction novel set in futuristic 2047, India had splintered into several state along linguistic lines. In the state of Bharat, as elsewhere in India, a dysfunctional generation of Indian men didn’t even have an outside chance to marry because their parents’ generation had successfully weeded out women from theirs through thirty years of selective sex determination. So, stylish, sophisticated, successful men from big cities Varanasi and Patna wooed simple women from the villages in elaborate swayamvaras called ’shaadis’ and city women fluttered from wooer to wooer, in the pursuit of the gifts and the game, without any intention of marrying them.

Tarun had recently broken up with his girlfriend of two years and wanted to get back into the dating game. So, he had looked around for a good Indian dating website, only to find that there weren’t any. At twenty eight, he was in no hurry to marry, especially since he had recently started his own retail chain, after six years in Unilever. So, he had shied away from the popular matrimonial websites — Shaadi, Bharat Matrimony, Jeevansathi — and turned to Maya for advice.