Writing is like T20 batting. If you block, you might as well retire to the pavilion! -- Pete Langman
Expat in Germany

Friday, June 6, 2014

Transforming through Technology!

I belong to that generation of the "1990's kids." I only knew to read Tinkle Digest in my free time, play cricket alone by bouncing the ball off the wall, run with a stick and a tyre on roads with street friends and vanish from home on Sunday mornings to play football with school friends. The only time I had access to television was when I visited my grand parents place. I used to fight with my grand father for the remote, especially at 6:30 PM when there used to be both Tom & Jerry and News simultaneously. Almost always, I used to win, with my grand mother being the ultimate judge!!

Like every other typical Indian, I love cricket and follow it better than the Pope follows religion. It might be in the air, in the waters and in my blood. Naturally, I inherited another important trait from my father in following cricket especially with us having no television. To listen to commentary on Radio! During a match, I might be out in the garden, watering the plants, out on the streets playing Seven Stones game or I might be doing my homework. These never bothered me. I just used to tune to the commentary on radio. Few overs in Hindi and few overs in English. Hey, it offered me free language classes!! One more advantage it had over T.V. I carried it wherever I went. No wonder, people say "glued to the T.V" but never "glued to the Radio." It was a gadget, connected to the world even when I was on the move.

The radio became better and better. It never allowed me to leave it. I had it on my MP3 player, my car, my phone and now, my tablet. Of course, even I advanced to listening to songs of various genres across the globe and again the ever developing technology allowed me to store whatever songs or audio bits I wanted. 64 Giga Byte storage?! Well, in my childhood, we used to carefully chose various songs, painfully putting aside a lot of nice songs to accommodate as many songs as possible in one Compact Drive. Now, I am actually carrying various videos, half of which I never saw twice!! I sit in a public bus, leaving the traffic tensions to the driver and enjoy a song by Linkin Park or an episode of House. I sit in an autorikshaw in an unknown city and take the help of the Global Positioning System on my mobile phone to see if the driver is taking the proper route or not, silently thanking technological developments. I sit in a movie theatre and tell the entire world that I am watching the movie feeling as if I acted in it!! Even our Prime Minister has a lot to thank technology for!

Whatever the other technological developments are, I thank all the scientists involved in developing technologies. It helps me connect to my parents and best buddies from anywhere using a mobile! That itself is a blessing! I did experience that feeling when I had to search for a public telephone for miles to contact my parents when I went for an adventure tour in Kashmir. I am more than grateful to technology for keeping me updated on the scores in various matches, commonwealth games, olympics, FIFA world cup, cricket or my favourite Tennis, where ever I am!

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