From nothing to nowhere…
There wasn’t much to do then. I was aged in single digits and played to my hearts content. If there were problems, I was blissfully unaware. All my time was spent between school, playing with my mates and catching up with homework. My version of Summer of 69, rather 89 and there on. It was a quiet life in a quaint little neighborhood just adjacent to the police thana which spelt some kind of security for us town folks. Definitely, those were the best days of my life.
Sundays would be even quieter as the entire neighborhood sat glued to their black and white screens to watch the televised version of Ramayana and Mahabharata. If one stepped out between 9 and 10 am on a Sunday, they would be greeted by an eerie silence on the streets. The otherwise humdrum of the day would be occasionally interrupted with “Bhabhi aapke liye phone call hai” translating to “Sister, there is a phone call for you” from our top floor neighbor.
Our Marwari neighbors were the only ones with a telephone in the locality and were kind enough to relay phone calls as and when the occasion arose. Those were the days of trunk calls, telegrams and Inland posts. The country’s economy was just opening up, and slowly so was ours. It was in the winter of 3rd grade that we shifted houses to where we currently reside.
That was the time when we got our first landline connection. I remember I would get back from school and dial up the same friend I had parted with for the day just a few moments ago. Phone numbers were memorized for the most part. Looking up in the diary was too cumbersome and it was a skill worth having in case of emergencies in school or elsewhere. The public phone booths in every nook and corner saved the day more than once. Whether it was getting in touch with that acquaintance running late or dialing up dad for emergencies. The one rupee coin clanked into the phone box as the caller picked up and allowed for a good minute of tete a tete. We seldom made small talk as kids, the luxury of which was exclusively exercised by couples courting. For the rest of us, phone calls at the public booth almost always meant business.
It is only in the first year of med school that I was given my first mobile phone. In fact, mobile phones had made their way into the market in a big way only recently then. The chunky Nokia version of cellphone would be my companion away from home. The internet was just making its foray into the Indian market scene and entertainment meant having a real hobby. We soon graduated to smart phones which became the alternate source of entertainment rather than just necessity. Although, its use was limited to listening to music as a handy replacement for Walkman and much before i pods usurped the scene by storm.
Now, we have super smart phones and the whole of the world wide web in our pockets. I remember not using the internet on my phone even as a post graduate. I, instead surfed on the hospital PC. To the contrary, today I cannot do without it. It has certainly made us quicker and more efficient and at the same time dumber and demented.
I am a recent consumer of Youtube content, as late as mid Covid times when I was battling severe insomnia. Until then I was pretty oblivious to the world around me. So, when someone suggested that people who do not know Taylor Swift probably live under a rock, I must say I crept my way out from beneath a humungous boulder. I was only recently becoming more aware of the world around me and how it intertwined with my reality. It doesn’t matter if I miss the blissful ignorance or in what cocoon I shield myself in, life has a way of finding you in your hiding and jolting you awake.
All I can say is, from being blissfully unaware to scrolling mindlessly on social media to remembering none of the phone numbers on our contact list, me and you have regressed a notch. From my tiny ears cocking up to the occasional shrill voice of “Bhabhi apke liye phone call hai” to wanting to make a javelin throw with my device and hoping for it to land where it belongs, which is below the same humungous rock so that I can reclaim my life so consumed by it.
Because, to be honest, Taylor Swift may or may not be amazing, but my life certainly is as banal from even above the proverbial boulder.
