By Skand Shukla
Internet has lately been in news not for its being, but for nonbeing. There have been quite a few instances in the recent past when the internet services have undergone temporarily suspensions for law and order reasons at various places. It’s nobody’s case that internet isn’t a double edged sword. It, therefore, has to be controlled, instead of letting it control us. Leave politics; even in the psycho-social context, its pervasiveness, its hold on our unconscious, and the smart phone becoming an extension of our selves is complete. This fact hit me when we suffered an internet ban in our town a couple of months back.
It was morning. A host of annoying ‘good morning’ messages had just been deleted without being read, and while the interesting messages were being read and responded to with appropriate emoticons, it stopped all of a sudden. The first response of most of us was to check the internet connection. The next was the customary turning off the mobile data, and then turning it on. This was followed by switching the cell-phone off, and then, being filled with consternation on realizing that it hadn’t revived even after switching on the phone again. Frantic calls began to be made to acquaintances in the various corners of the city to know if they were able to access the internet, or it was just we who had been pushed back in time. Quite a relief it was to realize that it was not only we, but the whole city, that had been sent to the ice age.
That my kids were mystified was understandable as they hadn’t ever experienced an internet-less world – they are in their early teens, you know. But the strange thing was that even we adults, whose formative years hadn’t had any TV, phone, computer or AC, were flummoxed beyond reason.
‘Aha!’I said, ‘what a relief from those intermittent office messages’, and slid the mobile phone away. That good old friend, the newspaper, was opened, a couple of pages scanned, when something was felt amiss and immediately the mobile phone was reached for with the thought -‘quite some time has passed, may be the internet has been restored by now’. Well, it hadn’t been yet. Remarkably, it had been only three minutes since it had been kept away!
By noon it had become clear that the internet would remain suspended till the next day and a stoic resignation to the situation was the only option. But actually, to tweak Wordsworth a bit, – ‘… little thought/ What wealth to me it had brought’.
‘The wealth’ began revealing itself bit by bit as the day passed.
To begin with, it seemed as if there was so much of time to be spent. Realised that the newspapers have so much of quality material to be read and enjoyed; and one could read them without straining one’s neck unlike one doeswhile using the smart-phone. Discovered that listening to a song on radio was a better experience than watching it on YouTube; it was unobtrusive and did not consume one’s attention. Gazed at the beautiful new flowers in the flower pots and enjoyed the loveliness of the two sweet small butterflies hovering over them. Those frantic efforts to capture it on the mobile and post it on social media seemed to have gone away.
How peaceful the day felt without the cacophony of those never-ending inane discussions on WhatsApp groups! No frenzy of reading messages, searching of facts and figures on Google, posting a retort, and then replaying this the whole day on various groups. The day , instead, was spent on browsing the book case and reading a few things, calling upon a couple of neighbours whom I had been planning to drop in on for quite some time but had been failing for paucity of time, and playing carom with the kids.
The night descended and miraculously neither the neck had any pain, nor the eyes were dry and red. With no whatsapp and other social media to keep one waking, fell asleep within minutes of lying down on bed.
This new phenomenon continued on day two, but as we were getting used to it, and falling in love with it, came the third morning. While still in bed the phone’s net connection was habitually tapped on, and lo; a deluge of ‘good morning’ messages began pouring in. The two days without the net had been a revelation, and had made me appreciate the small things in life that we often take for granted. On the other hand it, with its revival, it also felt as if the world had come back to life again, and though we were to again step back into the world of endless notifications, we were also to get reconnected with the vast world around.
Dr. Skand Shukla
(Officer of the U.P. Provincial Education Services)
