Digital Gap

Wish you a happy new year 2016!

Desk and wall calendars replaced. Have to wait another quarter for the ‘Joy Ma Tara’ calendar from the owner of the fish shop in my neighbourhood. These calendars never excited me till I read Devdutt Pattanaik’s book on ‘7 Secrets from Hindu calendar’. Yes that is another parallel year that runs for us Bengalis, chasing the English one just by a quarter. In my home we call it ‘Bangla’ calendar. No pun intended… Come April we will discuss it more.

Long weekend, ‘new year’ celebration, enough reasons for dozing more than required. Helping aids at home have taken a leave or fallen sick with the half-hearted winter around. With a light quilt covering the bare feet, flipping through loads of click on whatsapp and facebook. Leaving behind a bundle of memories a year is gone. Some daring dreams became true, some yet unfulfilled. Had some winning moments and some had to let it go! Lost a few dear faces and welcomed a few new ones. Some friends went silent and some became active in network. Shredded wardrobe fat and added new recipes to the kitchen. Visited orphanage homes to witness how life thrives with little bit of love and traveled to crowded pleasure spots to realize how mindlessly one searches for love in boundless plenty. And silently the arms moved tick tock tick…

It was some calendar years back on a chill winter evening, I went to meet him for the first time. He was in the cradle wrapped in a blue towel amidst a few more draped in pink. It was a ‘dil-ka-dil-se’ connection, when I meet my nephew behind the glass window of the nursery with a few more family members. We started with that connection and kept the strength of the connectivity quite high. As he grew so did his pranks outshine my preparation to tackle! I so much loved to have lost every game we played together. The best of it was ‘Chor-Police’, with he being the perineal police empowered with the right to finally catch me of unknown crime I was shouldering every time. We lived in different cities, but always found ways to drop by his place and kept the bonding growing. He had a garage full of cars and eagerly looked forward for one every time I unzipped my black stroller. Last time we went to the shop together he liked a double decker bus, but finally considering his garage realities we settled for a garbage cleaner.

Even before his second birthday had seen him fondling the idle tab and sweeping his fingers to click on applications meant for some purpose. I always thought it was an accident. But his precision of hitting YouTube amidst several application logos on the tablet screen baffled me every time. There were loads of videos of his favourite cartoon characters that followed so gracefully. The digital device made him a self-managed person and his ‘me-hours’ were quite defined. He was yet to spell out 26 alphabets on the ‘Flash cards’ but he was digitally savvy. In the social circuit saw this was a common phenomenon. Cool new age parents are in debt to digital evolution.

Last year I rushed to see my nephew who was once hospitalized for an infection. In the lonely hospital cabin he gave me a wide smile even while the medicine was running through a big fat needle channeled on his hand. With nervous look I had asked him - “How are you?” He showed me his mother’s tab and said ‘Nitty Nae…Nitty Nae’… I was puzzled for a while to realize he was lovingly spelling ‘net’ – as in ‘net connection’ as Nitty and almost complaining for its non-availability. His cartoon friends had to wait a few days longer to meet him once again. Internet is a part of his life and he demands it almost like basic rights!

Back home elderly parents still struggle to embrace digital platforms. The inertia of adopting new is often covered by unqualified statements to encourage each other to condemn being digital. I fought a tough battle last year almost with a mission. Started with my humble home, made some investment to create alluring situations. Sunday noon’s started spending quality time with elderly members in the apartment I reside, excited them to embrace smart phones and technologies. Had to counter the inertia of non-happening life, put the cart on the track to make life bit happening. Yes added an ounce of digital syrup into the hour glass of life. My experiment worked.This ‘new year’ saw many of them exchanging wishes and images on whatsapp group they have created for themselves.  Addhar card says they have seen 70 to 80 such ‘new year’. This Sunday they wanted to get knowledgeable about ‘free basic’J.  Am volunteering for equality, making my small world aware on digital nuances. 

Is digital an element that’s creating a (generation) gap?