As one part of my brain recklessly surfed Whatsapp statuses during my so called 'leisure' time with the other half thinking about this blog post, one social media post grabbed my attention. I couldn't get my mind off it. A person had posted the picture of her favourite pet dog 'buddu' staring at the screen clueless to what was happening there. He seemed totally confused because he was hearing only her voice but she wasn't actually there. One may treat it as a casual Whatsapp post which is one among the hundreds of social media posts we swipe across on our mobile screens. But what it represents is significant. It represents the lifestyle of 'digital immigrants' and 'digital natives' in this 'networked' era. Even if we don't always recognize this digital culture we have shifted to or with which we grew, it has more or less changed our life in an irreversible manner with impeccable and undeniable implications.
Digital media platforms have changed the 'lens' through which we look at this world. It has changed our immediate circle of people we rely on during our ups and downs. My grandma always used to say to me "we don't believe in strangers like you people do". As I ponder over this statement, I realise how all my present classmates with whom I chat in Whatsapp groups endlessly are indeed 'strangers'. I have never met them in person because of the online mode of education.
As my grandma started narrating the endless list of games ("Goli, kuchimittai, kannamoochi, kolakolaya mundhirikka, Pandi, kambumittai, …….") she used to play with her friends from the 'street' , I started counting the number of 'street' friends I have which of course didn't exceed two. She started showing me the scars on her hands. It marks the good old 'mango stealing' and 'hen catching' adventures of her childhood days. After 50 years, when people from my generation become grandparents, many of us can only show their good old FB and Instagram posts to their grandchildren. Apps like 'Google Map' have become a part and parcel of our tour package which paves new ways to explore the places we always dreamt about. On the other hand, loneliness, mental depression, lack of privacy, problems due to inadequate cyber security are the challenges that digital natives are encountering more frequently – things my grandmother couldn't even imagine happening.
The most important change that affected my grandmother was the recent shutting down of 'Vijaya Mohini' spinning Mills near my house. My grandfather used to work there and later when he passed away, she took over his job. Financially and emotionally, the spinning mill is an inseparable part of her life. The spinning mill siren is an alarm for many people like her. Usually, there will be two long sirens at morning, noon, evening and night. They will be heard 8 times a day, in and around a 3 km radius from the mill. She plans her entire day around this siren, which is one of the reasons why she has never used a wrist watch in her life. To paint a much clearer picture to the 'digital natives', it is like setting an alarm to ring 8 times a day. The only difference being that, even if one forgets to charge their phone the previous night, the alarm will still be heard.
According to her, the fear that can be seen in one's eyes when they have a telegram is no more. "In those days, usually only bad news arrived through telegrams", she says. At the same time, she misses those moments of pride when her relatives would come to her house and request her school-going daughter to read letters they received. My grandmother's youngest daughter was the only one who knew how to read and write in the entire neighbourhood. My grandmother knew even the darkest secrets of her neighbouring families since all their letters were written by her daughter. Nowadays, with the onset of digital media, transmission of news is not a matter of concern. The curiosity in the eyes of people when they cut one end of the envelope and open their letter has disappeared.
Surprisingly, she still remembers the landline number of our neighbouring house. In those days, only very few families were able to afford a telephone and one of my neighbouring house's landline was used by families in the entire street. She remembers the huge fight which happened after a child had accidentally spilt nail polish over the telephone. Even though the landline phone was a private property, it functioned as a communal entity for the entire neighbourhood. It symbolized the relationship between the families. I am now typing this entire post in my smart phone which has multiple cracks on it's screen and nobody in my family bats and eyelid at it. As Fernandez says, "Though smart phones have gained mobility and privacy, the value of the home has been diminished." My grandmother belongs to a generation of people who were born into an age where internet had no footprints at all. She finds it easy to cope with changes like Television, video calls, and phone calls. On the other hand, she finds it difficult to cope with metro trains, online ticket bookings, mobile apps and many more.
There existed a time when we could never imagine an ordinary porter boy clearing Civil Service Examinations using railway Wifi networks. There existed a time we could never imagine talking to our friends within a span of seconds at midnight. There existed a time when we could not immediately call the Police. There existed a time when we could not imagine sitting comfortably in our homes and listening to lectures from Professors at Oxford University. There existed a time when we couldn't imagine exploring tourist attractions in far away and unknown countries with the help of a single device.
Amusingly, there existed a time not so long ago when the length of the living room would not be based on the size of the television screen. There existed a time when buying outside food was considered a taboo by many families. There existed a time when children below the age of 13 didn't know about alcohol or drugs. There existed a time, when 'drug networks' were not accessible to children. There existed a time when children shared their secrets with cousins and not with 'online friends'. There existed a time when parents knew more about their children than 'incognito-mode websites' did. There existed a time when people gave more attention to family functions than to celebrities' lives. There existed a time when people lived the moment and not just captured it for posting on social media platforms. There existed a time when people would 'rewind' memories in their minds instead of playing nostalgic songs on headphones. There was a time when people had patience to rewind and play songs in tape recorders and watch world cup cricket matches in TVs through the glass walls outside shops. There existed a time when 'Nilachoru' (the practice where all the members of a joint family eat together under the moon) was preferred over online food delivery apps. There existed a time when people wouldn't tweet quotes about good sleep instead of going to sleep. There existed a time when we never questioned ourselves on whether we had lost our innocence.
Written by Praveen Saki . sakiwrites.com