iRelationships are here to stay!

Here goes a list of my constant companions off late - ipod, iphone, ipad, kindle, macbook. I guess it is common for many of us. Although we might replace apples with the soon to follow Mango from Microsoft or Icecreams from Android, the central idea is that we all definitely share a deep relation (however one-way) with smart phones, tablets and notebooks more so than with our fellow humans.  I know we are in for a consensus on this statement & I will not need to prove it, but just for the record let me settle it for once and for all.

The smart thingies are so smart that they could just sort our lives, entertain, educate and guide us, all at once. I am sure everyone knows how. Simple, just by beeping - one beep and we are up, the next reminds us of the tasks we have set for the day, another buzz when a departmental stores is around to shop for items on our shopping lists and one more to enter the corresponding expense, if one uses a tracking tool. Personally, the only task my gadgetry doesn't perform for me is to help me locate my reading glasses of which I have a habit of misplacing way too often (wish the iGods incorporate some feature to track such personal objects as well, the way for instance, an iPhone's location can be pointed out exactly).  I certainly do not have to get into elaborating on how they entertain us - music, videos, books, or a peek into the lives of friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues without ever talking to them directly, and if boredom strikes us still, an update on the general bufoonery (what else can we term Rs.32 being the upper limit for Below Poverty Line in India or the sandal throwing incidents) that usually passes off as news is all that we might need to further spice us up. Moreover, they also provide us with various alternatives - hungry? little short of cooking a meal and eating it on our behalf, we are offered help in every possible way. They could surely search for a recipe or at least recommend a good eat-out place based on our personal preferences, on-going promotions, distance and so on and even direct us to it. Their usage at work is so much for granted that I have almost missed pointing it out. Thus fulfilling the roles of personal assistant, friend and mentor much effectively.

No wonder then that we spend almost all our spare time with these gizmos than with people. How could people ever match up to the skills that these smart thingies are booted with? Also, people could get boring after a period of time because of bugs in the internal coding and also because of the difficulty in re-programming with new interests, experiences and conversations. To top it all, the gadgetary is not built to question us or expect anything from us beyond some electricity. Where else could one find such unconditional relationship these days and why wonder that today we are a generation of gadget/gizmo loving people. In fact, I would even like to nominate them for the Nobel peace prize, reason being that, when each one of us gets so involved with the machinery, there is absolutely no chance of direct interaction with people and therefore zero incidence of disagreements, fights or other such unruly behaviors. So what if we have to trade-in some silly inter-personal relations for lack of spare time,  we at least, have perfect iRelationships. 

An ode to IT

A parallel post to the one on Social Media, this is an ode of sorts to the Information Technology Industry in India. Without dwelling on the so called other side of the coin, I want to conveniently look at one of the many & perhaps the most important positives that this burgeoning, nothing short of a phenomenon has brought about not just to the youth of this country but to their families - confidence. 

While a majority of the previous generation's thinking class, as I prefer to call it or the middle class, as more commonly termed, was mired with their own set of financial burdens aside from the numerous non value adding & highly time consuming transactions, including something as basic as paying bills. IT has played a significant part both in clearing mind space by reducing routine transactions just to a click of the mouse and more recently to that of a tab in applications & providing much needed & relatively better economic sufficiency thus aiding this class to move one level up in the Maslow's needs hierarchy and thereby clearing the way for social causes to adorn at least our walls.

Although, a lot of this can be considered just an arm-chair movement, (a genuine wink if the term looks borrowed or may be not,  for all I care or remember) we now have a tool to not only air individual views for the consumption of larger audience and to connect to similar minded people but are also able to walk the talk although giving due weightage to the interplay between people's values, principles and circumstances. For instance, the anti corruption campaign is just one of the many social issues that has gained mind space in many of us. Courtesy the IT jobs, the confidence and the monetary benefits such jobs offer are aiding at least some of us to pay up legally for the government wherever required instead of looking for self gains by resorting to malpractices.

Seriously hoping that this trend trends!