Monday, December 12, 2011

change

Throughout the world, the mushrooming of population growth, that too at an accelerated pace, during the 1970’s brought in its wake myriad problems. Old order was trampled upon, new values sprouted, all this led to a sort of sinister telekinesis, which brought Cyclones, Droughts, Tsunami’s, Hurricanes ethnic violence, global wars and terrorism all types tragedies, which paradoxically attempted to curb growth.

Forty years, is a long time, especially, when the world order is changing at a frenetic pace. Memories begin to flood through me as inexorable as a tide, they caress me, and I melt inside. I can’t help it, fragments half remembered, takes me back into the past, flashes of images and times interweave themselves across my mind. In the flickering twilight of my life, I can visualize my father, and the ghost of his smell, lingers in the empty room. Sadness, unlike sensation remains for a long time, the life and death struggle in this material world becomes real, and I wonder what it does, besides inflicting pain and sorrow. Nothing I learnt or was trained, prepared me for this man eat man, 21st century.
Honor, values, empathy, compassion, love and content, are in short supply, appearances are important, affectation personified, content nil. It’s really pointless of course, instances of the stolen glances in the bus- or brushing shoulders in the teeming train terminals do not exist, there is no hope for intimacy anymore. We expect the wrong values from today’s generation, whose innocence has been compromised, to be replaced with impatience, intolerance and arrogance. Earlier we had a moral obligation to be intelligent and wise; today the internet is connected with intelligence.

What does it matter if they think ‘Keats’ is the villain in Robot Cop, they are still very clever and have access to artificial intelligence. They might fail at reading, writing longhand and math’s but it’s the internet age, where websites, blogging, virtual reality, tablets and E- books are the new tools and skill sets required. They know how to operate a computer, even dropouts are adept, at texting, e-mails, remote controlling, digital streaming videos, scanning, hi-speed dubbing, morphing , creating virtual content, and they can fast forward themselves through modern life. There are few people who want to join me on my journey, as I try to flee this cyber life to wander in the winter landscape with only a solitary seagull and crow as my companions. Everyone is online on Face-book and twitter communities. What is the use of living if you cant use a computer?

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