Pandemic & Technology–Thinking loud
Ravichandran Subramaniam, affectionately called “Subbu” from his days as a toddler, was in a reminiscing mood. He simply adored the slightly chill morning air and his walk across DAV school in sector 10. This stretch in Airoli had lovely greens with the place streaming with fellow walkers, runners and cycling enthusiast creating a unique morning buzz. To spice it up, there were those few smart hawkers selling various diet friendly juices keeping pace with this morning crowd.
Subbu was always fascinated by Mumbai, born and raised in the city of dreams, he had had lived in various suburbs of the city. One unique & surprising feature of this concrete jungle was the hiding alluring greens & shaded trees. Only it required some extra effort to find those wonder spots to have your bit of fun. But his mind was always razing to a speed of knots as every time he found his fellow citizens in the morning walks, connected to their mobiles — strapped to waist (or) in their hands with headphones on, living in their own world. Most times he had a feeling that the world has become a place of programmed robots controlled by this single gadget.
Subbu’s thoughts resonated with the twitter quote of the dashing cricketer Virendra Sehwag, who in his heyday could pick up the line & length of any bowler in a flash., his tweet was as good as his rasping cut “today’s generation does not eat atta: they just eat data” in his own quicksilver punchy style. It was not a typical big city syndrome; this was across the classes and masses!
Subbu remembered a scene from a few years back; he was returning after a lecture at Bharuch, a small industrial town in Gujarat, waiting to board the shatabdi at the station. there were scores of school children, college boys & girls all seated in the platform floor in big circles, totally enamored with images emanating from their respective smart phones, while waiting to board a local passenger train. It was truly a bizarre scene; there were no giggly teenagers or railway platform Romeos!
Subbu, a consultant & trainer after his retirement from a giant engineering conglomerate, always found the mobile as the biggest challenge in any work place environment. Especially as a trainer, he found this as the biggest challenge or threat as always there were few in the room in their own special mobile world. So he too developed some interesting tricks to combat this. Well, instead of using training board big screen, he made the group to view videos from their own mobiles and make it a group activity and team bonding exercise. It was tough adding all these stuff, but it immediately ensured a much engaged audience.
But for Subbu all these myths were truly busted as the pandemic happened. In the tragic throes and agony the world suffered, technology become a vital enabler with unheard mediums like zoom, teams & goggle meet becoming the buzz words. The entire family logged in attending office, school and colleges as the world learned the new normal of learn/work from home. With very few desktops and laptops available with families, smart phones became the single source for learning, entertainment & interaction –truly it was a life saver. We still hung on to smart gadget for dear life as the world slowly returned to a semblance of normality as we still face the third wave with some degree of nonchalance.
Subbu himself had a frenetic two years, never in life he was as busy, as his skill set and modern technology ensured constant engagement and work. Even though he still had his misgivings about technology and smart phones and their effect on people and relationship, he had to admit that technology was the one shining beacon of light, saving the world in this last turbulent, chaotic twenty odd months.
Well, let me end this week’s treatise with quote from Sukant Ratnakar.
“Our future success is directly proportional to our ability to understand, adopt and integrate new technology into our life.”