Author: Merry Baruah, Assoc Prof, English Dept, Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam, India
I grew up at a time when the quaint radio would wake us up with the Vande Mataram; the television sets with an antenna would telecast programs for a limited time and movie halls would have new movies on Fridays which would run for quite some time. Young people had ample time to engage in outdoor games – space was available for children of all ages to play until dusk.
Festivals would be new clothes and snacks round the corner – the vendor putting up temporary stalls to which people flock! Then everyone seemed to know everyone – guardians from the neighbourhood would ensure that every child was doing fine and was kept under society’s collective supervision. Things were limited in every aspect – there were scheduled times for work and study, festivities and above all people seemed to have decency and propriety in whatever they did and spoke.
Living in the age of 5G and ChatGPT, the old charm that is lost now keeps haunting us to remind the innocence that has vanished for good. Now children do not need someone to tell a story to put them to sleep – their smartphones have come to take this place; there’s nothing that the young minds do not know about – for busy parents however, this is a boon. But at a deeper introspection, one realizes how the human touch has been gradually erased from lived lives with Alexa taking over for the ones who are fascinated by its technology.
Additionally, the smartphone aptly named ‘smart’ can compensate for the absence of someone to talk to – physically beside you it seems to feel along with you and partake in your joy and sorrows through online platforms and social media. Facebook and WhatsApp among others have become an integral part – members of the same family are friends on Facebook posting their ‘likes’ at a post by a member – trending topics and viral videos have become the order of the day.
The good old dialer phone would go ‘dead’ for days together causing inconvenience which was quite manageable. And now to be without the phone for a second seems like an apocalypse! It was a time when the letter or a postcard brought by the postman after a long wait caused excitement of a different nature – to open it and read the emotions that are expressed in the writing! Ah…those were the days. Patience was the clue to happiness – one had to wait for everything as life went on sans the anxiety and stress that has now acquired an almost malignant proportion.
It compels one to think – all that we enjoy now, things, services, material or virtual all that was introduced to our lives which was believed to have the ability to transform our lives have indeed transformed it in more ways than one seems incapable of providing us with solace. What we have done to us in this process of radical development, reveals the magnitude of damage that we have incurred in our blind march. Living in a concrete jungle we hanker after natural greens – we remain content with the landscaped apartment premises which make a measly effort to replace the lofty greens that had to be done away with in the onslaught of much-sought development.
Living in perennial guilt, we now need to develop our eco-sensibilities, have learned deliberate ways to mitigate climate crisis et al! Perhaps the non-human animals curse us and have a good laugh at our foolishness – as we throw about our weight upon everything else as the highest form of living beings, we are perhaps the singularly insensitive, unwise, and shortsighted beings who relish wholeheartedly their march towards destruction.
Shall we ever be able to compensate for the damage that we have collectively inflicted upon our planet, our lives and the future generation who waits for their lives to blossom in this desert? If only we could have had restraint upon our greed if only, we could have realized that needs if not checked transforms into wants – the world would have been a much better place.
