Where’s the online switch?
Here it goes,
As I sit, or rather lie down, to begin writing after a really long time, my conscious mind will repeatedly scold me for my lack of vocabulary, my non-uniformity of sentences and my constant yawning, but it would be worth a scold to revisit the late night thoughts while caressing my ball point pen which glides across this A4 paper having tea stains as an unexpected cough shook the tea cup from my hand and gave this sheet a dab of modern art. Sadly you are not invited in the exhibition as I will be posting this online and plus, hey, stay at home.
In the past few years, the (erstwhile) state of Jammu and Kashmir had been through its routine unusual ferry ride in terms of everything governing it, financing it and protecting it as it happens with it in every decade of every century but this time the round-about was too tight for the passengers on August the 5th which was never experienced before. The conversion of a state to UT was perhaps the first ever time happening in the history of India and while the nation debated about the right and wrongs and were opposing/celebrating, I saw the Internet signal vanishing and the most frustrating part, I couldn’t tweet about it. After hearing what was happening the same day in Kashmir, I felt like at least we can call so I felt a little relieved but man I was so optimistic about the Internet. How people managed to find wifi signals on the streets was a sight that I won’t forget, because I was one of those unfortunates. Friends with broadband connections were the supreme beings and we being the destitutes. It was not the first time that Internet was scrapped off, but it felt like the previous Internet shutdowns were just the drill, as this annoying guest of "No Signal" was here for a long stay.
In today’s time when connection is synonymous with Internet, being offline is the worst kind of confinement. Do you think so? Do you think that without Netflix there is no chill in life? Do you believe that without memes there is no way to stay aware of the pop culture? If yes... well you are right to some extent. It is easier to say that without Internet you are distraction free and you can focus on the stuff you’ve been procrastinating till date but would you have told that thing to the youth of Jammu in the 2nd week of August, I’m sure there won’t be anyone with you when the waiter got the bill at pirates of grill!
The frustration was real. It became visible how much Internet controls the life and everything surrounding us in a couple of days. For an old school guy like me, I was still surviving by newspapers and radio, sometimes a book but real trouble started as the assignments and projects started to enter the picture, another miserable beast in our miserable island. Many students like me struggled in our internships and industrial training as resources went limited, we went old school for completing the assigned tasks, quite literally.
This consequence showed us our dependency on Internet in modern times. In times when 100 books can be condensed to 100 lines and shared with 100 people in less than 100 seconds, the scarcity of speed is scary and a scar on the upcoming future of our “offline” youth.
