When I stopped and turned back there was no
one except my shadow. It was dark, I was alone, very lonely and all I needed
was a friend. Right then my phone vibrated and I saw a pop up notification of
whatsapp on the screen, staring blankly at me. I took a moment to read it, it
was one of those forwarded message; utter crap. The last sentence of the
message was; “Forward this message to nine groups and you will have one of your
wishes fulfilled.” And a whole array of annoying smileys. This was the last
situation I wanted to find myself in, loneliness as it crept into me, it
destroyed me from within. I sat on the carpet and looked around. There was a
tablet on the table, a laptop on the bed, an LCD tv on the wall and a phone in
my hand. Yet I felt lonely. These devices did not talk to me, they didn’t know
what I was feeling and then I knew that I had to TALK.
Talk to humans… not via text, voice
message, video chat or any other profound ways of communication. But talk with
people in front of me, when I can feel their heat in the room, hear the sound
of their breathing and look at them. It was a cold night, still hours to dawn.
I had to go through this inevitable feeling of being sole. It gave me ample
time to think things out. To find myself in the darkness.
There was a time when I used to go kicking
the mud when it rained, threw snowballs at my friends, visited my neighbours or
called them in for a cup of tea alongside my mother. Those times are long gone.
To the extent that it seems like a distant memory. I am finding tough time
piecing it together. People create milestones in history developing devices to
ease up life. From the time of the first telephone to the smart phones of
today, we indeed have travelled a great deal, something we should undoubtedly
be proud of. But in this run to catch up with latest devices, and going techy;
have we ever taken a moment to wonder where we are going? I don’t feel so, had
we thought these before, I wouldn’t have been sitting here alone trying to connect
you all through a few words.
We are literally stuck in the era of
inventions. As I blink my eyes I am sure some new gadgets have taken the place
of the old ones in the market, the old applications are updated with newer
versions and everything around is becoming easier. With each sunset we get a
little more adapted, a little more dependent and a little cozier with the
electronic devices around. Things have changed and we should move on, but not
by leaving behind our age old habits. By old habits I mean our interest in
visiting people, having long chitchats with our colleagues, catching up with
our family at tea time or at dinner, all in all conversing face to face.
Our habits no longer exist the same way, it
has diminished greatly. Today our daily movements are governed by scientific
inventions. The moment we open our eyes in the morning, till we close them, we
are in the web of these. Who knows some of us may also be dreaming of which
whatsapp smiley to use next time, which FB sticker to post on someone’s comment
box or may be which soap actor is going to rise from the tomb next! The giant
spider of technology has spun a fine web, trapping all of us within those
sticky threads. The moment we are free we make it a point to check our phones
for the latest crap which is going viral. But how long can we go on this way? I
really wonder.
We know about friends who are abroad but we
don’t know who is staying next to our apartment, we forward a hundred jokes a
day but cannot even manage to smile at even one, we take photos not to treasure
our memories but to set them as whatsapp dp or facebook profile picture.When the
electricity is cut, we panic, not because we worry about completing our daily
chores, but because our gadgets cannot run on low battery. Wow…we are simply
incredible.
Life has come to a point where we cannot
manage to think outside the box, our pandemonium has been confined to the
limits of technology. The very simple example being; we Indians do not like any
of our guests showing up at our doorsteps at times from 6-10 in the evening.
Simply because this is our soap time. In case they come, we make a cup of tea
just for the sake and turn the tv volume high, so that they can read the
underlining statement that; either they can tolerate the serial with you or
gulp their tea and go right back to where they came from.
In such a kind of life no wonder people
like me are alone. I wonder how many of you must be longing for a company just
like I do right now. We refrain from talking to people and end conversations
saying ‘if there is anything just ping me on whatsapp’… gosh everyone’s so busy
now. If things go on this way one fine morning we may wake up with pragmatic
difficulties, not even being able to carry on a conversation properly, all we
will be able to do is text, text and text. Does that image sound colourful? I
hope not.
The best gift bestowed upon humans is their
ability to communicate though words. To talk about things in various languages.
No species on earth share this ability with us, doesn’t that make us special? It
sure does. We don’t know the soil we live on, we don’t have best friends, we
don’t share soirées with colleagues and the lack of these makes us limp. It’s
of no use flaunting your phones with large touch screens, or your PCs with the
latest windows operating systems installed in it, because these won’t accompany
you when you are alone. It takes human for another human, we co-exist. It takes
communication to build ties between humans, to connect them with each other and
to drive away loneliness.
How beautiful it was the other day when we
knew how to enjoy rains, to spend time with people around, break into fits of
laughter and fill the spaces in our hearts. Try to bring those days back,
little by little. Do not let devices take up so much space in your lives that
you do not have any for the people around you. Spend more time with people,
talk to them about all random things. Surprise a friend by dropping into their
houses, and laugh with them. Enjoy moments of life by making them memorable, not
by updating status or changing your profile pictures on social media but by
living life offline.
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