Eat, Pray and Love Digital

Eat, Pray and Love: Well the trend goes like Eat Digital, Pray Digital and Love Digital (yes can be celebrated as another V-day). So much so that even toddlers of hardly few months are chanting the same hymns. The other day I was waiting on the lounge of an automobile servicing center (most of the time where you have to wait quite long cause the servicing team takes you as a jobless fellow), something interesting caught my eyes. A tot, barely few months old relaxing on his dad’s lap (interestingly who was wasting time like me), was eating or was licking the blackberry, his dad reluctantly gave, to keep him engaged. It may not be interesting for many, cause its quite a natural sight for kids to do such acts, but going digital on the period of babyhood gives another outlook to it. Out of sheer nosiness, I handed over the baby my spare handset: dabba (as I refer to my cell phone), and I was not disappointed by what he did. He took my dabba (a non-android phone is often considered as dabba these days), observed it and clicked all the possible keys, had a look at the pre-existing handset and returned it with full grace and vigor, continuing to nibble the digital fruit. This gave me immense pleasure (or should I say fear, that world’s every species is turning out to be digital savvy), as it proved that the blackberry is much more ahead of my spare handset, is successfully differentiated even by the kid who hardly can have (eat properly) the same fruit.

Evolution should act like tinkerer: Yes, evolution should reflect the versatility of ‘tinkerer’, the fictional, super villain character (no offence against his baddie approach), who can invent urbane gadgets from nothing more than spare parts left over from ordinary household appliances (quite eco-friendly I tell you). Evolution is healthy and growing when it works for the species race not against it. Human beings are the only species that have evolved significantly from the caves and have slumped on digital mainframes. And the evolution has affected the tiny generations so hard, that its way to impossible to fix them on those parks. The age-old toys are getting replaced by high-end play-stations and none of them have any resemblance to bio-degrability. Play and reside to the world of digital is what the young generation believe and worship. They are pro at picking even the most complex function of those play-stations (way better than the grown-ups who they consider as dumb). In the weekends they no longer plead their parents to take them to a picnic, instead they hop to the nearest mall (sometimes even without their parents) to get hooked on those video-games and car races (which I consider as mere gambling). I think the next generation (XYZeee, whatever we name it) would even feel free to sit back home and enjoy digital schooling, wherein the teacher would appear on those web screen, while the students (in their pajamas) dawdle about on the bed (hilarious situation even to visualize). Well long live digital world as long as it gives back the usual and normal childhood of a kid because the soul of a grown-up is healed by being just with children.

Marriages are made in heaven….and Connections over Internet

The largest convict Internet is an Angel in disguise: One of the nicest things you can say to your partner, "If I had it to do over again, I'd choose you: Again." In the 21st century it can be easily rephrased as, “If I had it to do over again, I’d never choose the same way: Not Again.” Seema’s would-be in-laws blessed her from Chandigarh, as she touched the edge of the webcam from her Los Angeles flat. Seema Kohli, creative head of a leading advertising company and Kaustav Singh, the LA based entrepreneur have decided to tie-a-knot close to December and hence the formality of introducing Seema to his parents was a mandatory. Well the “saath janam ka rishta”…yes marriage was a real heck for the love birds and a trauma for arranged birds or fowls (they can decide it themselves). ‘Beti tum gaana to gaa leti hona na?’…’Tumhe khana to thik thak banana ata hain na?’…These are a few sample Saas-Bahu questions asked by the in-laws (who appear to be Mr. Amitabh Bachchan of Kaun Banega Crorepati) during their visit to her place. While the bride-to-be sits on the hot seat with immense exasperation amidst many aliens, hoping to counter correctly (only she wishes to get at least 4 options with few life-lines). So for Seema, the internet comes as an angel in disguise. She had two lifelines for immediate help….Google the God of Search & off course her would be: Kaustav to help her answer all those queries like cooking, dancing, singing etc. from her mother-in-law.

Marriages are made in Heaven…But so is thunder and lightning: We surely don’t want to decide that. The only concern is that we are in the digital generation and at the click of a mouse, we can find just about anything, including that elusive marriage affair. It’s the most creative way to find, meet and set the plot for even the most difficult social union. And why not; when we can buy the most expensive gadget by trusting the brand and the portal blindly, we can even do the same for our son and daughter. We can believe what our groom-to-be or bride-to-be has to say about themselves over the webcam (they can also sneak-peek at those elaborate profiles on those networking sites). While they are nicely dressed and well behaved in front of that mini camera, we surely don’t take the guarantee of how he behaves in person or how her food tastes when cooked. But it surely gives them a chance to escape the sheer embarrassment. Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have; as for Seema and Kaustav, it’s all about saving time, but for few others, who stays in various parts of the globe, visiting their in-laws can be an expensive & time consuming affair before the “marriage”. Nevertheless, who wants to meet their in-laws so often?” After-all Indian marriages are an expensive and sometimes real expensive affair.

Well it was just a single outlook how the digital communication & connectivity have made our personal relationship & marriage affairs so simple and smooth; the positive attributes of this digital space cannot be covered in the small space of this blog at a time so I will share more such facets as well in coming days. Hence in today’s generation, it’s rightly said, “Marriages are made in heaven…and Connections over Internet”