Pebbling says it all

‘Ping’ goes the phone. ‘Ping! Ping!’ I glance at it lazily and it’s The Boy. Like a dutiful, doting mother, I pick up the phone and swipe to see what is so urgent. It’s an Instagram alert.

The Boy has sent me three messages in quick succession.

Since it’s from The Boy and since I’m a typical Indian mother, I have to go through what he has sent. After all, if he has taken the trouble to send them to me, maybe they are of some significance, so I get to work right away. The first was how Punjabi was spoken by our forefathers before Partition, the second was about the connection between Indian mothers, their sons and the Bata slipper and the third was a random English rap, something about college days.

‘Why are you sending me random forwards on Instagram?’ I message him on WhatsApp. No reply. ‘He seems to be online but he doesn’t have time to read my message’, I mutter irritably. And then the phone pings again. This time the forward is about Punjabi mothers and their daughters-in-law! Now, is there a hidden message in here somewhere?

Am I so dense that he can’t have a conversation with me and has to forward these reels? Or I haven’t moved with the times?

While I’m mulling over these random thoughts, the phone pings again. I pick it up and like a woman possessed, go straight to Instagram. This time it’s an easy recipe to make biryani. Now why am I getting this? Shouldn’t he be sending this to his wife? Or is my biryani not good enough? Uffff, there go my thoughts, running amok all over again.

The next morning, I catch the bull by the horns and call him to ask why he was spamming me all of yesterday? Granted, it was a Sunday, the day of rest, but this??

‘Huh?’ he replies.

Beginning to lose patience, I reply a tad irritably, ‘What were those senseless forwards you’ve been sending me on Instagram?’

‘Oh, that’, was his nonchalant reply. ‘I was thinking of you so I just sent them to you.’

‘Thinking of me? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just pick up the phone and call me or send a message?’

‘It’s the same thing. I’m connecting with you any which way. It’s called pebbling’.

What????

Not wanting to show him that I belong to the Dark Ages, I sign off with a hurried goodbye.

Back to trusted ole’ Google. I type in ‘pebbling’ and this is what I get –

‘When people send reels and memes to each other, it’s called pebbling. It’s a kind of non-verbal communication, named after penguins who drop pebbles to their loved ones. It’s basically a sign that even when we are online and distracted, we are still thinking of each other’.

This took multi-tasking to a whole new level.

So that’s what it was. If I remember someone, I’m not supposed to message them, I’m supposed to send a reel. Will they get the hint?

Let me start with The Boy.

The next morning, after breakfast, I’m on a mission. I go to Instagram and check out all the reels and one after another I send five of them in quick succession.

One is how to check if the Avocado is ripe or not, Avocado being the latest in healthy options for breakfast. (What’s wrong with an egg and toast?) The second I sent was which exercises to do when you are in a sedentary job, the third was the correct way to eat chia seeds, the fourth was how to lessen screen time for your children and the last was which pillow to use for a good night’s sleep. Enough for one day to tell him that his mother thinks about him.

I waited for a reply or response. None came.

The next day I was back at work. Diligently, I scrolled through the Instagram posts and selected the ones I thought he would like or those that would be of use to him. I waited, in vain.

When he called that evening, I told him petulantly, ‘I’ve been thinking of you since yesterday and no news from you’.

‘Why didn’t you call then?’ he asks a tad impatiently. ‘Or message? ‘How am I supposed to know you are thinking of me? What were you doing?’

‘Pebbling’, I replied.