Something about visiting the places where you grew up that compels you to come out of a long slumber.
I'm talking about Gandhi Bazaar and Chennai, respectively. I guess what has happened is that the old shops have been replaced by new ones. Traffic has increased a fucking million times over. It is heartening to see a lot of the old shops, the old vegetable vendors sitting in their old spots selling vegetables that are not packed in plastic bags, don't have stickers on them and don't have a dude swiping your credit card. They still take cash here, keep it in a small pouch and sometimes act rude towards you.
The number of people riding cycles has reduced dramatically. Replaced by cars of all makes and sizes. Bikes are much more too.
I think the only thing that has reduced is human interaction and human experience, and this has reduced to an extent one would never have thought possible.
We tend to get wrapped up in our own little microcosms and tend to exclude all that is human in our day to day lives and see it replaced by electronic media, be it for communicating, transacting or for entertainment. Whatever happened to a face to face chat on a park bench with the one you love? Instead of sitting in front of the television and allow the images to eat away at what is left of your energy and initiative?
I never thought I would be the old fashioned type, but I'd still like to think that a cell phone is only for keeping in touch with people and should be treated like a phone and not your entire life synthesized into a single tablet of circuits. Which is the trend these days. I also feel that a chat over the phone does not substitute for a google talk chat. I suppose we need to hold on preciously to these moments because the day is fast coming when we won't have any of them to rely upon. We'll have .avi files and the like to keep us company.
As for me, a lot has happened in my life since the last post. I completed by MD and am engaged to be married to a wonderful person by name Megha. I suppose I am not celebrating my own personal highs because the larger scheme of things has me worried. I guess we can do our own bit to reduce the burden of the electronic device in our life. That is, if we want to.
What are your views, dudes and dudettes?
