While leaving my home town of Nagercoil recently, as the train was about to leave the station, I saw many people outside the compartment waving to those inside and finally showing a gesture, keeping their hands over their ears. They were asking those departing to call on their arrival at the destination.
This took me to the old days when we used to gesticulate under similar circumstances by scribbling in the air, indicating: write a letter on arrival. On reaching the destination, not complaining about any lack of time, we took the pains and wrote a letter informing relatives back home about our safe arrival at the destination. A wait for a couple of days was inevitable for that letter to reach the well-wisher.
It’s an awesome change today. Nowadays, thanks to the mobile phone, a continuous update to those at home is possible; it gives a feeling of travelling together.
Gone are the days when one had to undergo a horrifying wait before a ‘trunk call’ would connect us to a person to whom we wished to communicate something. Many reminders were sometimes needed before our desire was fulfilled and many a time such attempts to ‘remind’ invited the wrath of the operator, who may inflict a punishment by further delaying the fulfillment of your desire.
Calls in a jiffy
Once the call was connected, we had to raise our voice to the highest decibel level. Now our desire to talk even across the oceans materialises in seconds.
Gone are the days when clerks across bank and railway counters had to lift heavy ledgers and turn the pages to tell you about your account balance or the ticket availability. More the weight and size of the ledger, more will be the indifference in the answer to your query. The time thus spent waiting in serpentine queues, if converted into days, will add up to a sizable portion of one’s life. Wrong information and wrong allotment of seats were common.
Now it is an awesome change: a click of the mouse does anything and everything. Whatever has been done in gruesome agony can now be achieved in the soothing comfort of the living room. Gone are the days of long and gruesome travelling hours, inaccessibility to information and service. And gone with them are many woes.
But gone too are the days when we had the pleasure of strolling with friends, through the road that was safe enough for school-going children, to reach school in time for the prayer meet and return in the evening. The elite and the mighty used bicycles.
Tracking the kids
During school hours parents didn’t need to worry about their wards. The school bags were handy enough to be carried by the student himself/herself, and it never needed any parental intervention.
Nowadays some form of mechanised vehicle has become essential for most school-going pupils. Parents are often updated about the presence or otherwise of their wards in the school through SMS. Their way back from school can be monitored through mobile communication. Thus parents need to be watchful from time-out to time-in.
Gone are the days when on return from school children had a chance to have play-time, which varied according to age and fitness level. In the age of multistoreyed dwellings, tough academic schedules and hand-held gadgets this play session is confined to the living room.
Gone too are the days of joy, when we were not scared of drinking water directly from the tap, without the need to be wary of umpteen types of diseases.
Gone are the days when a power cut took away only the light; today it takes the life out of us, as we are so dependent on it. So whatever has come has also taken away something from us, and whatever has gone has brought into us something. Indeed, ‘there is always a price tag’.
kumarjegadeesh@yahoo.co.in
