“Hello, can you hear me?” Basu Da seemed to be shouting
on the other end of the call.
“Yes, Dada, I can hear you loud and clear. How are
you?” I asked.
Once he realized that he could be heard, he was
relieved and started speaking in reasonable decibels.
“The year 2020 is taking the hell out of us. Being in
the Red Zone of Corona, most of Bengal was already in Lock-down and now this
Cyclone Amphan. There
is havoc all around.”
“The trees are uprooted. There is water logging
everywhere. Power was down for almost two days. Phone lines and internet
services were dead. Things have just started to come to life. But nothing is
normal.”
He continued talking for some more time, speaking
his heart out. When I could empathize with him, his tragic experience kept
resonating in my mind, “Phone lines and internet services were dead.”
When
we are so accustomed; no, we are so dependent on these services,
What
if Phones and the Internet Die tomorrow?
 |
| Image Source: pexels.com |
1.
The
Postman and the Pigeon
Do you remember, we were taught Letter Writing in schools?
But, when was the last time, did you send a letter to somebody?
With phones and internet not around, letters will be back in the business and so will be the two great messengers of the bygone era.
And with no Facebook or WhatsApp, we may revamp the concept of making Penfriends.
We shall once again long for the appearance of the Khaki clad Postman singing the iconic Rajesh Khanna song, “Daakiya Daak Laaya…”
2.
Manual
Mode, ON!
Thomas Friedman, in his book The World is Flat, argues that thanks to the internet and the telephones, geographical distance is no more a barrier between people, thus making the world flat. With no phones and the internet, all of us will be geographically far away. This will affect our lives severely; both personally and professionally.
With no internet connectivity, the prefix ‘e’ will be wiped out from our dictionaries.
Which means,
·
No
e-Shopping:
No Flipkart or
Amazon! No Festive Sales. No doorstep delivery.
·
No
e-Ticketing:
No IRCTC! Waiting
in long queues for buying that one ticket.
·
No
e-Banking:
No Net Banking or
UPI will make our nearest Bank, our social gathering place.
·
No
e-Learnings:
No online Webinars. Virtual
Schools will find a place in History Textbooks.
And by the way, there will be neither Google nor Netflix – can
you imagine, how lame the mankind will be then?
Alexa and Siri will be just
two girls but with human intelligence.
With No Internet of Things,
things will be on Manual mode again.
 |
| Image Source:pexels.com |
3.
More
Tree Cuts
Remember this e-mail signature?
When we are so concerned about the Environment that we
think twice before we give that Print Command.
But, with no e-mails, all letters will have to be printed
before those are posted.
They say, today, one tree is cut every hour. With
everything becoming manual, we will end up consuming more papers and ultimately
cutting more trees.
Usually, there is a notion that technology hampers nature,
but with the death of phones and internet, Environment will be at a loss.
Personal Loss, Professional Loss, Environmental Loss…
Won’t it be a lost world then?
More
such thoughts kept lingering in my mind till my cell-phone beeped and my
reverie was broken.
But
you know what? When I think from another perspective, my mind tells me that if
Phones and Internet Die tomorrow, things won’t be that bad either. Because man
is an enterprising animal, he would invent a mode of communication and
connection which would be faster and better than any phone or internet speed
for that matter.
What’s
your take on this? Do let me know.
good one
ReplyDeleteVery truly inspired
ReplyDelete