New Age Addictions

Khaleej Times (LIFE) / 28 June 2013

 

There was a time when letters between home and here took nearly fifteen days to reach their destinations. But that being the only way in those days for a newly-wed woman just landed in the Gulf to send home detailed accounts of her new life and setting, and for my parents to administer large doses of counsel and reassurance to a suddenly distanced daughter, we used to indulge in them with great relish and patience. The long, hand written epistles sometimes got lost in transit, taking with them chunks of filial emotions that couldn’t be retrieved from any ‘draft’ folder.  The Friday calls from the public call booths were luxuries that only provided the pleasure of hearing the voice of family members. It is amazing how times have changed now!

On a recent flight from home, I happened to travel with a young bride who spoke at least ten times to her family between the time she checked in and switched off in the air craft. At the immigration. Security. They removed the pickle from the baggage. Had coffee. Boarding the aircraft. Seated. All well. Now switching off. Will call as soon as I land. The parents had only four hours to wait before they could call and text their daughter again. She will be on Skype, every day. It was as if nothing had changed, except for the spatial thing.

The other day, a hassled mother lamented that her teenager never took her calls when he went out with his friends, and it made her sick with worry. Kids barely out for a night or husband on a three day tour, why do we fret when we don’t hear from them every hour? Makes me wonder if we have become paranoid about situations in life or we have just got ourselves into wayward habits fashioned by inventive conveniences?

With life getting chic and cozy as never before, what was once an indulgence has now become indispensable, what was once luxury has now become pre requisites, in the absence of which we feel severely challenged and disoriented.

Take tissue papers and television for starters. I have been out of kitchen tissue for three days now, and the cloth napkin I am currently (re)using makes me feel antiquated by several centuries. We know all about environment and such, but the tissue culture is something many of us can’t shake ourselves out of for the life of us. In the kitchen, living room or in the bathroom, its presence defines our modern existence and sense of hygiene. 

Just as we can’t conceive an existence without television. The dunce machine has made us all imbeciles, stuffing us with junk and jelly, yet almost everyone — from a toddler in his pram to an oldie past his prime is irreversibly consumed by it. It’s as if life never existed before the tissues and the telly! How did our grand dads and moms live out their old age without the soaps and serials? How did we grow up without Play Station, Facebook and Whatsapp? How did we suffer the summer without air conditioners? How on earth did we survive before E-mail, Google and Wikipedia? And did the Bing Bang happen only with computers and mobile phones?

Several decades ago, when my mother got married and left for my father’s home many thousand kilometers away, there wasn’t even a telephone to call her family upon reaching! As a child, I remember living in a house that had no bathroom inside. We had to go to the bathroom in the compound every time there was a need. Now there are western toilets inside the house, and we complain that they aren’t attached to the bedrooms. With time, we have fallen into moulds and conditions that have turned us into unspeakable fuss pots and heaven help us to get out of our newfangled habits and tendencies!