Have you heard of date on skype?
Well I
have one, ever so often with my family. Recently, I 'Skype-d' with my
grandmother and she just couldn't get over the image of me sitting in
front of her. Well, almost in front of her. Amazed, she asked my mother if my
video was a pre-recorded message. Her amazement multiplied when I started a conversation
with her. 'Just like on a phone but with video', she exclaimed! My nephew on
the other hand, sitting in her lap seemed very comfortable with my digital
presence. He started an online game with me as if this was as good as us
prancing around the house with his action figures and bat-mobiles.
I could start telling this
story with the usual 'once upon time', for it feels like fairy tale. A tale
we've lived and forgotten so easily. I should begin at the beginning. When I was
still a child. My cousins and I used to write to each other, especially during
the vacations. I remember waiting weeks for the letters to arrive by
post. Over the years, the letters reduced and soon became emails. Long
sentences and paragraphs keyed in with effort arriving at destination
"mail box" within minutes. And to add to my internet love, I
often got a reply within a day or two.
Do you remember the hours spent in an "Internet Cafe" waiting to 'chat' in a 'chat room'? That was probably my first dive into digital social presence before Facebook or Twitter were even born.
Those were the days, when
children scurried across the neighborhood, carrying important messages,
delivering home-made food and remunerated generously for the chore at both ends.
Technology has taken us for a cart wheel ride. We’ve not only been rewarded handsomely
with barrier free communication, but also with the right for vindictive voice,
for the poor 'broadband guy' when the internet misses a beat. A beat, a
millisecond of delay, a second of disconnectedness, is enough to drive us up
the tree. We seem to have just about
enough patience for a few seconds for messages to reach. And this, unaffected
by geography. We communicate at lightening speeds, expect replies within
milliseconds of the person "having seen the message".
“Double tick! Seen the
message”… a paranoia building up...to check devices with screens of various sizes, to track
down all messages ever sent into the universe.
I’m the last person to
complain about the ability to connect with people miles away. Thanks to
technology, I am able to attend all my Skype dates with my family, call my
friends living in various different continents and time zones. And yet, there
is a dis-junction. In-spite of all the digital fortress, a need to actually
write something with a pen and paper, to read a story from a printed book. To
submit completely to the digital era, would be like seeing the world through a lens only, sitting
at a desk and missing the sunset in the horizon.
If one decides to re-write any of the classics today, what with their long
lost letters and miscommunication, they'd all fail miserably. Who now, has the
patience to sit and have a conversation, words forming sentences, blooming into
paragraphs? Anything beyond a 'one-liner' would be like a monologue. But then,
in comes one letter, written with pain staking ardour, on a nice thick white
paper with royal blue ink, and I can feel a flutter. A small butterfly escapes
my heart, as I sit down to read a rendition of an old song by a friend, penned
down… and I miss the days when more of these papers filled my drawers…
Alas! The happiness is cut short as I prepare to initiate my next Skype date…
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