Last night, an uninvited guest paid us a visit. A fire in the neighbourhood was the flight on which it landed. It was a blackout, lasting for seven hours.
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Blackouts are not usual in a metropolitan city like Delhi. Now since it had arrived, just like any other guest, it had to be fed. It chose to feast upon our hardships.
During the blackout, there were two adverse situations which stung upon my conscience: the unfortunate gloom which has descended upon humanity with the advent of technology and the resulting social isolation it has pushed its consumers into. Bereft of electricity, there is nothing that can be imagined of — from mobile battery to air conditioners, all is nothing without power. We have become slaves of it, utter slaves and nothing more.
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Today, mobile is the most ardent and loyal companion of ours; by our sides through thick and thin, leaving even dogs behind. The line between this companionship and slavery is blurred and before we take a moment to question our dependence, we already are on the other side of the shore. Man is a social animal, Aristotle said. I bet had he been alive to witness hosts of this guest of the night, he might have changed his stance to, “Man is a social animal with the roots of his sociality confined within edges of their smartphones.”
For seven hours, people inhabiting the same building were on top of the same terrace and yet married to their phones; and loyalty they held towards their spouse was something dreamt of by all those who have and wish to take the vows. It’s quite sad to look at, this state of artificial social isolation.
There is bombardment of information on social media, every individual member is fed with an illusionary-cum-intangible sense of being connected to I don’t understand what? The height of the issue floats before your eyes when you experience it in close proximity. Social media has socialised people to an extent where they don’t feel an urge to talk even to co-dwellers of a building. It has obliterated the line between digital and real world. During my 11 years of stay in a boarding school, I had learnt to deal with blackouts through chats, games and what not, but people in the metropolis have been hijacked of their natural ability even to communicate.
Occasional visits by blackouts are nothing short of a panacea in my opinion, for they let you “know thyself”, apart from awarding you with precious time to appreciate twinkling stars as well as tiny hope of people breaking away from the shackles of this tech-savvy lifes.
Iakshaygurjar33717@gmail.com