I am not going to compare between the stone age and today’s world . ‘The Real World Then’ means to me are the years 70s to 90s or prior to it and ‘The Cyber World’ is the period since 2000 onwards – the advent of Cyber games and the social media.
Since I have referred Stone Age, I am pretty sure that humans then must have really enjoyed their time together; with no FB, Whatsapp and Twitter accounts to monitor, text and wait for the likes, smileys and reactions from the Cyber friends. They lived a simple life, ate frugally, didn’t aspire to own the limousines and loved the company of each other. Today, whether we are at airport whiling away our time or travelling by train, in hospital attending to someone or in a resort on a leisure trip; we keep staring at our mobile screens, keep updating and texting oblivious of our immediate environment and even ourselves! We spend hours together on it, aimlessly and at the same time we talk of paucity of time! While together on a particular occasion, one can see all sitting in a row or a group and tapping on their mobile touch screens ; rarely talking or laughing together. A common site these days, irrespective of age.
As a child, in the village, we loved to be out of our homes and parents didn’t bother much. Spending the hot summer days on mango trees or looking for ripe jamun was a common thing. Loitering in the ‘dalaaln’ or chewing the sugarcane for hours together was not objectionable. Mothers searched for us only if we missed our meals! Today, we don’t allow our kids to go out. Safety, security being their prime concern and shortage of open play area being the other. Kids too do not prefer the outdoor games, instead they prefer cosily sitting on sofa with their tabs, internet games being much more engaging than simply running around or playing ‘aais-baais’ with friends and sweating out just for fun. As an adult we fear for their injuries, bad company, or spoiling the well manicured society Lawns!
As a grown up, I saw relatives visiting us and they stayed with us for days together, on our own insistence. It is not that we or other villagers were very rich. Visitors were simply provided a wooden ‘chowki’ placed in the ‘Daalaan’ having a thick cotton ‘dari’ with a bedsheet and a multipurpose ‘Lota’! What was ensured for the guests was – respect for them, timely food and lot of time! Alas, in villages too the environment has undergone a drastic change. You may agree that, today younger generation is conspicuous by their absence in the villages. Most of the homes are occupied by old denizens in their 70s or above! People don’t mingle, now televisions and mobiles are there to kill their time. Today, in villages too you will feel as lonely as in the towns!
Earlier, while we were really concerned with the well being of near and dear ones; today, the likes, the emoticons and the comments have replaced them. Uploading the updates, photos of the events, programs on the cyberspace gives us the feeling of sharing and belongingness; which sometimes I feel is right and sometimes I think is a misplaced idea ! Many times I find people forwarding, liking and emoting on posts which were probably not understood by them. It is pathetic. Once I found many ‘Likes’ to a post which mentioned about sickness of a family member!
Today, social media has also created pseudo citizens and pseudo spiritualists! I call pseudo citizens and pseudo spiritualists to those people who actually are not that good in their personal dealings, but preach you by sharing posts about values of life! Open any Group in your Whatsapp account, you will find the same messages being circulated. But, the good thing about it is that it reflects that somewhere deep inside, they value the relation , they value the individuals, they value truthfulness, they value the country, they value the culture. And that is good enough, if one is able to really add some value to even a small number of members!
I always wonder about - for what we all aspire today - lot of time, real peace and happiness! For all these things, do we need anything? We need to learn a lot from the living forms – other than the human beings. So were we, in the stone age! Happy!
The misnomer – development – robbed us of all!
Since I have referred Stone Age, I am pretty sure that humans then must have really enjoyed their time together; with no FB, Whatsapp and Twitter accounts to monitor, text and wait for the likes, smileys and reactions from the Cyber friends. They lived a simple life, ate frugally, didn’t aspire to own the limousines and loved the company of each other. Today, whether we are at airport whiling away our time or travelling by train, in hospital attending to someone or in a resort on a leisure trip; we keep staring at our mobile screens, keep updating and texting oblivious of our immediate environment and even ourselves! We spend hours together on it, aimlessly and at the same time we talk of paucity of time! While together on a particular occasion, one can see all sitting in a row or a group and tapping on their mobile touch screens ; rarely talking or laughing together. A common site these days, irrespective of age.
As a child, in the village, we loved to be out of our homes and parents didn’t bother much. Spending the hot summer days on mango trees or looking for ripe jamun was a common thing. Loitering in the ‘dalaaln’ or chewing the sugarcane for hours together was not objectionable. Mothers searched for us only if we missed our meals! Today, we don’t allow our kids to go out. Safety, security being their prime concern and shortage of open play area being the other. Kids too do not prefer the outdoor games, instead they prefer cosily sitting on sofa with their tabs, internet games being much more engaging than simply running around or playing ‘aais-baais’ with friends and sweating out just for fun. As an adult we fear for their injuries, bad company, or spoiling the well manicured society Lawns!
As a grown up, I saw relatives visiting us and they stayed with us for days together, on our own insistence. It is not that we or other villagers were very rich. Visitors were simply provided a wooden ‘chowki’ placed in the ‘Daalaan’ having a thick cotton ‘dari’ with a bedsheet and a multipurpose ‘Lota’! What was ensured for the guests was – respect for them, timely food and lot of time! Alas, in villages too the environment has undergone a drastic change. You may agree that, today younger generation is conspicuous by their absence in the villages. Most of the homes are occupied by old denizens in their 70s or above! People don’t mingle, now televisions and mobiles are there to kill their time. Today, in villages too you will feel as lonely as in the towns!
Earlier, while we were really concerned with the well being of near and dear ones; today, the likes, the emoticons and the comments have replaced them. Uploading the updates, photos of the events, programs on the cyberspace gives us the feeling of sharing and belongingness; which sometimes I feel is right and sometimes I think is a misplaced idea ! Many times I find people forwarding, liking and emoting on posts which were probably not understood by them. It is pathetic. Once I found many ‘Likes’ to a post which mentioned about sickness of a family member!
Today, social media has also created pseudo citizens and pseudo spiritualists! I call pseudo citizens and pseudo spiritualists to those people who actually are not that good in their personal dealings, but preach you by sharing posts about values of life! Open any Group in your Whatsapp account, you will find the same messages being circulated. But, the good thing about it is that it reflects that somewhere deep inside, they value the relation , they value the individuals, they value truthfulness, they value the country, they value the culture. And that is good enough, if one is able to really add some value to even a small number of members!
I always wonder about - for what we all aspire today - lot of time, real peace and happiness! For all these things, do we need anything? We need to learn a lot from the living forms – other than the human beings. So were we, in the stone age! Happy!
The misnomer – development – robbed us of all!
