Daily Fix

Gasping for Air

T. SHER SINGH

Luddite: One who fears technology … or new technology, seemingly pleased with how things currently are ... why can't everything just be the same? [Urban Dictionary]



In many ways, I could be described as a luddite, though I don’t think I am really one.

Pushed and pulled, shoved and jostled, by many of those who love me and feel pity for me, I think I moved a few inches these last few months … a step closer towards what is termed by them the “Modern Era”.

It began with a nephew of mine discovering, to his utter horror, that I actually carried on my life without a cell phone.

So, I had a Blackberry promptly thrust upon me. I’ve made sure it doesn’t take over my life by attaching itself to me via an umbilical cord, by simply not using it much, other than for emergencies, etc. A handful of those who are closest to me have the number and know that I can only be reached through it when I’m in the car or far removed from home.

So far so good.

Yes, it has improved my life a bit. I now no longer worry during my long drives to or back from Toronto through the winter countryside: if I get stranded, I like to think that I now have a lifeline.

Then, along came Father’s Day. My loving daughter and her wonderful fiancé, also troubled by my luddite ways, have managed to drag me screaming and kicking into the 21st century … by gifting me an iPad.

Yes, now I can travel without carrying half-a-suitcase of books. I can flip it open in the village coffee shop or in the airport lounge, and get back to whichever book I have left off reading and finish a few more pages, instead of simply staring at my watch and the ‘departures’ screen, willing time to race on to boarding time.

Correction: I no longer wear a watch. Because … and I’ve needed repeated reminders on this, and have finally relented ... I have all these gizmos within easy reach at ALL times, each with a clock display. All I need to do is flip open my belt holster, pull out my Blackberry, tap on a button, and voila! There’s the time, accurate to the split second.   

Then, out of the blue, a friend asked me to help him edit a bunch of documents. I agreed. But when we began to work together, he immediately noticed that I did my revisions the old way: you send me a document, I send you back a revised one. Period.

But that is not how we do things nowadays, he cried, almost in tears. Your deletes and add-ons must remain visible at all times. Moreover, “What you do should be in one colour; what I send you back should be in a different colour. Then, if you send me a fourth draft, the changes should be highlighted in yet another colour!”

Show me how, I pleaded.

I slid my laptop over to him. Five minutes later, he threw up his hands and gasped: “When did you buy this … this … this thing!”

Three years ago, I said. And assured him in the same breath that it was state-of-the art when I picked it up in, of all places, Silicon Valley!

“Pff-ff-t!” is all he said.

The next thing I knew, a package arrived at my door. A new lap-top. That was several months ago. It’s the latest thing, I’m told. Touch screen. Chromebook. Windows 8 … etc., etc. I’ve had four different geeks in four different cities scattered across this continent give me lessons on how to use it. Each has confessed, though privately and confidentially, that they too are still trying to figure its features out.

So, I expect this new year, before too long, I’ll know how to use it. In the meantime, yes, I’ve figured out how to track changes on my documents. What I can produce now, let me tell you, amounts to works of art of the likes of Joan Miró and Jackson Pollock. The splash of colours, I mean. The revisions? The jury is still out, I’m afraid.

The touch screen is fun, though. When I’m tired and feeling brainless, and need to do something silly, I play with the screen. I know what to do … I learnt it on the Blackberry. And I’ve picked up some tips from my dear friend, 3-year-old Ella, on how to play. However, I’m told I shouldn’t be using it while eating jalebies … or poutine. And my hands should be of room temperature. Which means, if I’ve just come in from the cold -- remember, I live in Canada? --  I need to first thaw a bit.

Somewhere between all of these episodes in 2013, I had another good friend gift me a GPS on my birthday. [Now you know: everyone around me finds my luddite ways disturbing.] At first, I dreaded it and I kept it under lock and key. And then, on a trip to Texas last year, knowing I’d have a few hours to kill every day, I took her along. The GPS, I mean.

Yes, mine is feminine. And, as many others of her species, she too progressively turned angry and grumpy, once she got to know me better. Early on in our relationship, when I missed a turn, she thought I was cute; she patiently re-routed me. Now, when I am careless and overlook an exit, she sounds downright irate and complains bitterly when she has to “re-calculate”!

But, like all the other wonderful gifts, this too has changed my life for the better. Half way around the world, even in a land I’ve never been to before, I can arrive at any destination -- pin-pointed to the exact door -- without once getting lost or asking for directions.

No more having to take along a friend or stranger as a guide. Now I can drive in solitude, not having to suffer small talk, or feel the need to entertain a passenger while spanning large swathes of city or countryside.

I remember how, only a few years ago, while in a city I hardly knew but with a lot of time to spare, I stopped at a bus-stop to ask for directions. It turned out it was the Sharmila-Tagore-look-alike I had spoken to briefly at the conference I was speaking at that very morning. For the next few days, she was my guide -- with dimples and all, but sans the bindi -- as we discovered the historic countryside ... together. A good time was had.

No more of such silly distractions now during my sojourns abroad, now that I have my GPS. Yes, life is indeed more efficient this way.

In fact, if you saw my daily routine now, you wouldn’t recognize me.

Here’s what happens every morning BEFORE I have to step out of the house, especially if I’m heading out of town … which is virtually every time I step out of my house. [I live in the boondocks.] 

I check my cell-phone to make sure it is charged. I check my iPad to make sure it is fully charged. The car-charger and adaptor? Check.

Reading glasses? Check. I now need them absolutely to read the Blackberry screen. You see, the more modern these phones are, the smaller their screens. It’s a sign of modernity, I‘ve learnt.

Stylus? Check. Yes, I have now acquired a gadget which allows me to punch in the digits or letters on the lillitputian keyboard on my phone. My big fat finger tips are not dainty enough for high-tech.

I roll up each cable -- each gizmo has its own apparatus -- and stack them in handy, clearly identifiable little satchets.

I pack my laptop, and make sure I have its matching cable. And mouse. And pad.

There’s a similar routine I have to undergo every night, no matter where in the universe I am at night, before bedtime. The time formerly allotted to prayer and meditation is now used up in plugging each gizmo to its matching cable. Then, going around to find available wall-plug-in sockets.

Everything needs to be charged and ready for daybreak. Every day. It took them a thousand years after the invention of the wrist watch to come up with one that didn’t need rewinding E-V-E-R-Y day. Some day my grandchildren -- I hope and pray -- won’t have to charge everything every day, I’ve been promised.

A caveat: as I finally put my head down on the pillow, I do a final check. Every thing should be within earshot, in case someone needs to communicate with me at any given moment at night via any weapon … I mean gadget … of choice. I have already programmed each one to ring in a different tone so that I know which mode of communication is in operation when the moment of truth arrives.

[Lord help if the door bell rings at night. There is a period of utter chaos as one tries to figure out through the fog of sleep which machinery to pick up and stick into the ear.]

Thus, when I finally go to sleep, I rest assured that not a single second will tick by without the world having instant access to me through relays between the cell phone, the tablet and the laptop. As well, if you are wondering, one or the other does follow me, through sheer force of habit, to the bathroom and the shower too.

Having said all of this, what I am still amazed at is that there is an entire industry -- now humanity’s biggest enterprise -- busy making our lives all the more better.

Laptops are becoming smaller by the day, so that they are more compact and easier to lug around.

Phones, for a while, were getting smaller and smaller. Then, things took a drastic turn. Now, the screens are getting bigger by the day, so that you can read the texting. Some day they’ll meet.

But they can’t. The tablet is blocking the way. And it can't make up its mind ... should it grow up and become smaller, or grow up by becoming bigger?

And ah, yes, the texting.

Just when phones became super efficient -- my nephew’s Blackberry has a plan that allows me to call from anywhere to anywhere without having to mortgage any property, something unheard of in Canada -- it appears that calling people has gone out of fashion.

Having been told, not too long ago, that writing letters was passe, now I’m being told that texting my messages is the way to go.

I tried doing it on my phone, with my big fat fingers, the other day. The message received by an unknown and unlucky recipient, I am told, came out at the other end in Esperanto.

Hence, the stylus.

Ah yes, the stylus.

My stylus, which I now also carry around with me at all times, is no ordinary thingamajigger. It has a pen in it as well.

Why, pray, since we don’t write anymore?

Nostalgia, I suppose.

I’m told by my younger friends that even greater innovations are already here.

You can talk into your telephone now, instead of punching in instructions. Voice instructions, they call it.

No kidding. Talk into my phone? What will they think of next?

I’m told you can text so much faster on the touchscreen phones now; you slide your finger back and forth across the keyboard. It‘s almost as good as writing, and almost as fast too.

Are you serious? Really?

I simply can’t handle all these breakneck advancements, I tell you.

I feel like I’m drowning. I find I’m gasping for air.

Someone … any one … grab my hand and pull me up. Please! 


January 6, 2013

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