(This post is a part of Kissan 100% Real Blogger Contest)
Most of us hanker for our lost childhood. However, given a chance I would love to relive my ‘wonder years’- ages between thirteen and fifteen. The age when one emerges out of dolls and enters into makeup! Honestly, I have never been as displaced as I was at age thirteen. As I reminisce, being nuts was so much fun. In fact, it was a blessing. Today in the midst of pervasive cynicism, the innocence and the naivety involved in being loony sounds even more appealing. What bliss it was to live in a make believe world. The world looked pretty with the ‘All is wonderful with the world’ glasses.
We lived in small town but the government bungalow had a huge landscaped garden with a boulevard of trees. The sprawling bungalow with mango and guava trees was nestling in the very lap of nature. Nevertheless, my own secret place- my comfort zone was atop the guava tree in the backyard. Interestingly, brother had made it comfortable by fixing a wooden plank between two strong bifurcating branches. Leisurely afternoons were spent on the tree, tasting the un-plucked guavas (Yes, never washed them). Apart from me, a flock of wild parrots were the only other visitors filling the dewy mornings with trills and dulcet cries. Even though the parrots looked exquisite pecking guavas and shuffling iridescent wings, I hated them. They pecked at all the ripe guavas much before I could!
‘Wonder years’ were also about hopeless infatuations and heartbreaks. Needless to say the infatuations appeared in the garb of ever-lasting love. When you are fourteen and besotted, you can waltz on imaginary clouds for hours with any moron. It’s almost magical. On bad days, every banal comment about clothes, boys and weight seems to upset. I cried my heart out for stupidest of reasons and agonized for days on my tree abode. Reason? Well a lousy hair cut prior to a party. Now that I rewind the reel, my tree abode epitomized a glorious kinship between nature and my wonder years.
There were moments when I would lose track of time staring at the sky as myriad ideas popped up. It was an age when confusion reigned supreme. Mood swings came with the territory. There were days when I would climb up my comfort zone only to brood, or melt into books.
Ah books!
Classics, Enid Blytons and Nancy Drews were done with. It was time to move on to my first Mills and Boon. The only hindrance was that the romantic novel was forbidden. “Not yet,” mom said. I imagined mom was specifically setting up rules to trouble me. Most girls in my class had already read the book. Why couldn't I? One lazy afternoon, after the limpid showers had stopped dancing in the garden, after the symphony between light and sound was long over, I sneaked out of the house with my forbidden novel. The ground beneath looked satiated, emanating a rare joie de vivre. The droplets accumulated on the renewed foliage disturbed my reading intermittently, but what the heck! Reading the forbidden book was fun.
I am sure, as children we all have interesting stories of bunking school, the first crush, the first date.
Even though teen years are an experience any mother would hate to re-live, the sheer innocence of times remains magical. Unfettered by the onslaught of television and computers, life had its own sweet charm. I am far too worldly-wise today. Aren’t all of us? We conjure witty one-liners. We have opinions. We are far more cynical. Which is a pity, because, the age of innocence is lost forever!
The glossy gizmo has been her prized possession. Ever since brother gifted the latest laptop to my mother, she carries it like an oxygen cylinder. While traveling she doesn’t mind losing her baggage, but her lappy remains close to heart. It slings smartly on her shoulders. Often we playfully remark “Mom, stop acting like the CEO of Intel!”
Living alone, my mother’s primary objective of using a computer was to video-chat with her grandchildren residing in Chicago. And guess what? I had the formidable job of familiarizing mom with the computer. As a reluctant teacher, I remember my rather insensitive comment. “Why do you need to struggle with the computer? I will book your tickets, recharge your phone and show you the family pictures.”
A week passed. Ma remained quiet, but persistent. I remained committed, but reluctant. When boredom struck mother with all its vengeance, I persuaded her to go for the senior-citizen chat sessions in the apartment. I realized my folly! She was keen to learn the computer more than the inane chatting or mundane socializing.
That the lessons required perseverance would be an understatement. For one, there were typo errors. The eye-cursor coordination needed practice. Then she had so many questions. “How can I access my account? My mail box doesn’t open. What if someone hacks my account." (Even though most of us go through similar glitches as beginners, we conveniently forget our own follies.)
Another tricky issue was that mother often forgot to select the desired icon. It compounded her confusion. Later I realized what an idiot I was. Her spectacle number had changed. Increasing the font size and new spectacles resolved the predicament.
On days when I lost patience, my son came to her rescue. “It’s so simple nani, you just have to press ‘My documents’, then ‘Create a folder’ and press ‘Install’ and….”.
When you are nineteen, patience is not exactly a virtue. Impatience comes with the territory. So each time my son imparted breezy lessons, my mother hurriedly scribbled down the steps in her diary. ‘Press start. Go to My Documents. Click on C. Select first…’ Before retiring for bed after her customary meditation, I saw mother memorizing the computer lessons from her diary.
Not the one to give up easily, mom approached rather unusual teachers - my ten year old nephew. Forget patience, age ten is synonymous with impatience. At a time when the tech savvy young boy was to impart computer lessons to his dadima, he became an adult. Almost instantly! Few minutes down the line, the child in him would take over and he would revert back to playing Lego’s, leaving behind a puzzled grandmother.
That was two years ago. Today mother books her own e-tickets, recharges her mobile phone, video chats with her grandchildren and also listens to music on her laptop. She is the first one to read my blog posts. For someone who was tech- befuddled, these are incredible milestones. Now I know why she carries her laptop like an oxygen cylinder. Her laptop is panacea for her solitude. Just as mine is!
I feel like kicking myself for clucking with disapproval at her desire to become computer savvy. The process of learning was slow, but empowering. Why was it so difficult to realize that a desire to be a part of everything contemporary and a zest for learning needs to be applauded, not muzzled! 
Dear Users,
I always wanted to present my version of the Great Search Engine story, hence this letter. I hope this open letter puts an end to all the blame game doing the rounds.Let me start on an amusing note. Well, I just read the following news item and almost fell off my bed, laughing.
‘Falling classroom standards and a shift towards creative learning have led to school children in UK believing that ‘Winston Churchill is an animated dog, called Churchill from a TV advertisement, rather than one of Britain’s greatest wartime leaders’. Other students even struggle to differentiate between France and Paris, says a former deputy head teacher. She claims that teaching basic knowledge, facts and figures is fast disappearing from class rooms as it is considered old-fashioned’.
Seriously, how lame is that! You can’t shun basic general knowledge, can you? Fine, you are hooked on to the internet, but then you need to jog your memory or it will dodge you one day. The day is not far when you will need me to search for the name of your President, or the capital of your home state. I often wonder whether I am stifling general knowledge, just as calculators choked mathematical skills?
Undoubtedly, there is something about me that has changed the world. And how! Only yesterday when a mother was reprimanding her five year old son for his illegible handwriting, her elder daughter intervened, “Why are you mad at him mom? When he grows up, no one will write. Teach him keyboarding instead.”
Now, this worries me to death. I fear that after the gradual withering of memorizing abilities, writing skills might soon become decadent. What then happens to those calligraphy books, which school children have to complete during summer holidays in order to perfect that faultless ‘g’? With calligraphy becoming redundant, the spelling bee contests which Indian students win repeatedly will become meaningless too. I mean, why would anyone need to memorize spellings when the spell checker is at your service? And what’s more? You send documents with embarrassing mistakes that the spell-checker fails to pick up. Like, “She took up her new position in pubic affairs.” One lazy dude almost ended his marriage when he typed, “I love you my previous wife.” The moron wanted to say ‘precious’ not ‘previous’.
But honestly, am I making folks lazy? Or stupid? Or both?
Lazy, perhaps! Stupid, I’m not sure.
Little surprise then, that the present day writers do not visit libraries any more. And why should they? Just a few clicks, links, and hyperlinks and almost magically any information is available. How difficult it is for you to comprehend the fact that I can only dispense information. Wisdom and intellect are not my forte! Indeed, I have registered a tight slap on the face of the system of rote learning. Remember that certain degrees of memorizing abilities are required for social sciences, general knowledge and languages. How else can one memorize preambles and texts based on religion?
Let me move on to my pet peeve. What's this obsession with the three letter word? I fail to understand why you relentlessly search for it over and over again? I am sick and tired of searching related videos and pictures. At the very kernel of the maddening search are two ladies Sunny Leone and Katrina Kaif.As recently as last month, all I did was to run after the sassy simpering pictures of both girls.
Returning back to the 'stupidity debate' it would take someone more than a little naive to believe that I the root cause for the rampant stupidity. If anything, you are complicit in numbing the grey cells. I simply alter the way your brain functions.
After all, wasn’t it a concoction of intellect and knowledge that led to my birth? Remember, a lot depends on how you use me.
Dude, now don’t go looking for answers by typing ‘Is Google making us stupid’.
Think.
Yours truly
Google
