Technology

I just saw the Time Machine on TV last night and was wondering how technology has evolved through the years, more so within the last 5-10 years. With all kinds of gadgets for all sorts of purposes today, it is indeed a changed world today. Laptops, palmtops, ipods, pmps, PDAs, mobiles, navigators, digital cameras…the list is endless and things like sms, email, blogs, podcasts, online communities like orkut, virtual worlds like second life, virtual identities like avatars etc have become so much part and parcel of one’s world today that it is difficult to imagine what life would have been like without them.

But yesteryears have their own rustic charm which could never be replaced by today’s convenient gadgets. I could vividly remember my childhood years when the only means of personal entertainment at home used to be the good old radio. And even the radio was a prized possession those days and not many homes were adorned with the chatter box. Those were the days when we used to wait for Sunday specials wherein “radio nataks” were broadcasted during the day and in the evening the “shumang leelas” were aired. Many “nataks” became superhits and people used to not only wait for the broadcasts eagerly but also sent in special requests for re broadcasts of them. Some of the childhood favourites included “Karnagi mama”, “Madhabi”, Chatledo eidi thamoinungda meigi ching puduna”, “Anuradhapur Ashramgi Rajkumar”, “Imphal kaba”, “chakyam pokpi” etc. And among the “shumang leelas” aired on radio the eternal favourite was “Abir Khan”, and most people would remember the characters, dialogues even after so many years much like the film Sholay, wherein almost all characters became cult symbols and the punchline dialogues became colloquial language.

Then came the television in 1982, projected as a means of mass propagation of India’s stance in the world arena when it hosted the Asian Games. Even though TV as such was there for some time around, it became a mass commodity only after 1982. There was only one broadcaster – Doordarshan with limited telecasts. But who can forget how everyone waited for “chitrahaar”, “chitramala”, Sunday movies, “the world this week” etc. How can today’s children who have at least 5-10 dedicated cartoon/children’s channel 24/7 ever understand how angry people broke down power distribution centers for failing electricity just when “Mahabharat” was to start or how people used to do “arti” and worship the TV when lord Ram appeared on the screen in “Ramayana”…