They ask me, ‘Do you have a tab? Have you seen the new Galaxy model? Did you know that it’s equipped with everything you might need on your computer” And everything that you don’t, I say to myself. Just the other day, I got a call from a-totally-in-tears-friend, because his mother had flung his galaxy touch screen phone across the room which had, then, due to obvious reasons, suffered great damage. After faking my concern for his phone and him, I had a genuine question to ask. “Why would you even use phones that cost you amounts which you’ve never earned in your life? Why wouldn’t you use things that were more ordinary and more, well, mundane?”, I asked.
“You will never change. Let be”, he shouted and slammed the phone down.
Happily so, I thought to myself. Did one really have to use a galaxy S3 and spend at least half of his day on the computer to belong to this generation?
Today, when I look around at others my age, I somehow don’t seem to belong here. I’m not one who would spend the entire day playing video games. Neither am I the kind to spend hours working on downloading software. When I look around myself at the rest of the world, teenagers born in and around the time I was, seem to be so inexpressibly taken by technology. You either find them whatsapp-ing friends or using the internet. Or, of course, studying.
I wish to be aloof from them because ignorance, abstinence and disregard towards these subjects is then despised and treated with disdain and stunned expressions. Hence my world is light years far from these things and I find pleasure in being in it.
I do not know why only gadgets and technology and relationships are seen as the measuring rod of Modernization. Out there, if one delves deep into the norms of society, Modernization seems to bid goodbye and wave its hand with a wry smile.
Today, how many of us would actually enjoy the sound of rain dropping on our window panes or the smell that the wet earth cares to present us with. How many of us would spend a warm summer morning just gazing at the trees, tired with the heat at midday? Or simply spend a moment to listen to yourself. Think it this way for a while. Imagine the chaos that is created when we break a glass by mistake. It’s never done intentionally. I know it. And you. Yet, on most occasions, we’d mourn over the dead glass and ponder over the great loss. The very next moment, when something happens that is of a greater significance to us, we forget all about it. Rethink the same situation with something more significant. When we lose an article that we thought had been saved on the computer but which actually wasn’t, we often end up behaving in a similar manner. Until, realization dawns upon us and we mightily sit down to write it, all over again. Now, out of the two, the latter was way more important to us than the former, contradictory to the economical value of it. Yet, we can’t differentiate between the two. We don’t know what’s utterly important to us and what is minutely. That, is the problem. We confuse ourselves between what to keep at bay and what to endear to our hearts.
We, unfortunately have imbibed too much of the west in us. That, though, is not unfortunate. There are way too many things of the West that are indeed worth indulging in. The lack of fortune comes in when we take in too many of their ill habits. In the course, we forget our own culture, our tradition, things that were our own. In the course, we end up calling Tagore boring and Jackson rocking. Not that I deny Federer’s greatness or Jennefer’s superiority over her profession. They are geniuses in their own way. But, do we really need to send our culture for a toss in order to respect other’s?
As a result of technological advancements, influence of western cultures and things of the sort, we lose the natural instincts. The joy that comes from seeing a tiny caterpillar walk it’s way through doesn’t come from seeing the picture of the same on your tablet.
Computers, I-pods, mobile phones and things which are believed to bring one closer to another has actually ended up doing the exact opposite. It has taken people far away from each other and us, away from simplicity and the non complex mundane things that bring us pleasure.
Give it a half a minute though. Take two instances. First, a childhood friend dropping in at your place early in the morning with balloons to shout “Happy Birthday” into your ears. Second, the same friend, posts on your face book wall, a wish and a very tempting picture of a cake.
Which would make your day? Undoubtedly, the former.
"For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more
glorious than if it were made of gold and silver."

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