‘Whatsoever, there are certain things that shouldn’t be stopped at all’, Dad used to say every now and then, pointing at certain habits and customary rituals that involves our relatives. These were once gloriously flourishing but now being ridiculed by the millennials. There is no denial that the hard way of doing things has its own repute of seasoning and honing your personality. Thanks to technology, now there is everything under the sky, to play havoc with. The ultimate gain is a lot of time saved and incredible convenience at one’s fingertips good enough to get luxuriously pampered. Information in all forms, be it music, pictures, videos of the past, present and future, related to business and entertainment are being shared between millions of people every second.
Eventually, what have we become? Lazy and busy enough to handle even our relationships. It’s funny to imagine that some software developer would come up with an ‘app’ for dummies to name our Kith and Kin, and talk to them virtually without listening!
Couple of weeks earlier, the closest of my uncles was so furious over a relatives-only ‘whatsapp’ group for not having greeted his family on his wedding anniversary. Having the entire group conversation history meticulously checked, my cousin called me over and asked, “Who did miss greeting them today? Everybody from every family had posted a greeting message for them, yet why was our uncle furious?” Running backwards over the memories of the same event through years in the back of my mind, I could recall that we had the graces of greeting cards, postcards, inland letters and the ‘sophisticated’ trunk calling to convey our hearty wishes within the family on special occasions.
Every ‘tete-a-tete’ was ceremoniously celebrated and needless to say, these auspicious events would turn out to be even more pompous than we could think of. Today, everything is unimaginably topsy-turvy. All celebrations are under one virtual platform – a messenger in every mobile phone, we own. Be it a festival or birthday, anniversary or achievement, a three-word message from every member of the group will pour in after the “Group Admin” declares the event by changing the group icon and group name in the messenger group to suit the season.
Coming back to the conversation in a jiffy, I replied, “It’s about the ‘what’ that was missing, rather than the ‘whom’ that missed. I suppose, a simple phone call from someone in the family would have sufficed and addressed his reasonable longing for the personal touch, if not for a visit at his home on such a special day”
The rise of technology shall always comfort and aid, but can neither replace nor change the way we love, care and express feelings. And yes, ‘Whatsapp’ wouldn’t sap relationships as long as it is hand-held and not heart-held for hearts are where relationships foster!
The bottom line is that the real world is where emotions are built and there would be no virtual roads on them.
