Where were you?

I've been bombarded with a series of questions off late. The most persistant one being about the step-sisterly treatment towards my blog. Ok, Vimal, I'm back. It's these long never ending nights in office that actually help set the keyboard on fire. I've been sitting on a roller coaster for the past few days. I turned a year older, took four different modes of transport to get to one place twice in a day for six days, survived a huge attack by a horde of babies, and most importantly kept my sanity through it all. Life as I know it, went into a complete whirlwind of sorts and stepping out of it left me with much shorter hair than I started with!
But the more important question here is not of what happened in all these days, but where I was. Actually, where are most of us, most of the time. We don't come with in-built trackers, but my gut tells me, jealous, over-inquisitive spouses will soon find a way of getting one installed. Coming back, have you ever wondered about all those places your mind travels to, while you sit behind a computer machine? One minute you're reading the news, the other you're seeing someone's pictures on facebook (or Orkut if you want the whole wide world to know!), travelling to all those places you've never. And then there's the biggest travel enthusiast- your mind. Never settling. It's always at all those places you're not. I envy it sometimes. The lightness of it. The escape that it always finds to faraway places only imagination can reach. To the tips of clouds and rolling fields, to concerts and most often to the arms of your beloved. All those physical spaces that you physically cannot escape to. Certainly not, when you're sitting behind a wretched machine.
I have nothing against technology really. But I sure miss the simple, old times. Letters not emails, phone calls that lasted for exactly 3 minutes and not text messages. Times when you would wonder about a persons whereabouts and wait anxiously to hear from them. Times when waiting was a game that usually paid off. There's this bundle of old letters I own, assorted stuff mostly, some from friends, from my parents, grand parents and some odd exs. Reading them is always such a pleasure always. The moments they bring back. Do emails do the same? Nah!
Where were you, these days is as simple as updating a facebook status and there in an instant people know what's happening in your life. It's easy, no doubt but it kills the mystery.
The other thing that I find happening to me on most days is a severe bout of nostalgia- times when I wish I could travel back to the academic days and gaze out of a window and have a teacher rudely wake me up, with a where were you? Can you read from where she left off? What a trip that would be.
As I sit here writing this abstract piece out, I'm not really here. Where am I?
A thousand different places, all at once.