Sometimes a deliberation invites appreciation. I deliberate to appreciate at times. Nothing insensitive about it. Contrarily, it is quite liberating. I feel liberated when I read my Father. Each time an angle a phrase a thought provokes me into wanting to immerse greater into it, with reason.

The strength of the written word has through generations held value. Those early days the manuscript and its preservation was indeed a special cause. Now with science and advancement in technology, the effort and physical strain to be able to replicate that, has largely disappeared or is about to.

The fingers that do that magical job of formation of the written do the same even now. Only the fingers move in separate directions and at diverse moves. Holding a writing utensil in your hand has been through a manifold change in meaning and in effect. Our writing utensil today, is also an element held by our hands and fingers, the format having undergone change and reform. The pains and aches of extensive usage during the times of the chalk and pencil and paper, has been replaced by computerized screens and chips that hold everything under the sun for you. Mankind, or to be politically correct, humanity has always devised means to ease the process of doing something in a more accomplished and easier way. Lets build a faster train, a larger aeroplane, better phones to communicate. There is always the need to find fault in what has been prevalent and to discover how that fault could be reversed and a better option manufactured to make life and its functioning easier.

Every moment of our existence we have always tried to improve on the past. Make that better medicine, conduct our habits involving the most modern inventions, the more efficient car, the better constructed building and that attractive clothing. In doing so we have always invited debate and discussion on whether this has diluted the attention that we gave to reason and understanding, to belief, to generational aesthetics, to our values and culture.

There is no need to be surprised with what the modern thinks - they will have reason for it, and justifiably so. The phrase ‘those were the days’ shall catch up with you sooner than before perhaps, but the equation shall not change.

I am horrified to learn that most of the modern generation abhors reading and writing. Their reading comes ready made on Google and Wikipedia. Their writing from the gauge on the mobile and the laptop at most. That odd piece of waste paper, those scribblings for reminders of important dates to remember, lists of things to do, people and timings for them to meet, all almost gone.

You do not remember your own mobile number at times, or the number plate of your car, or appointments and wishes to fulfill. All of it now substituted by the computer. That has become your alter ego, your soul mate, your brain, your body. Getting up to meet and sit and talk a point or moment through with your friend your relative or close family member, is executed through the sms mechanism, or the twitter or the response that I shall put by the morrow on this page of my personal blog. It has all been systematized. Regulators on life have never been welcomed. Especially when the importance of living in it to know and experience in real terms has always been looked upon as a necessity. Immediate response to an issue has become a rarity. The research and comment by people of some standing follows and then recognition, passage, obligations take over.

However, it has to be said that the need for immediacy - to transfer, to relate to reach out, in the shortest and quickest possible way, has always been preferred. And with the execution of rapidity come other ailments too. Too quick a response, no time for assessment of fact, no time to repair unwanted material gone out because of repairing a ’sent’ is never as good as that traditional rubber to rub out the undesired.

What then is the preferred stop ?

I am handicapped by the finger usage  … and am fast becoming unaware of the written word in my own hand. In time to come and at the rate that we move, I shall perhaps forget how to sign my own cheque. Dangerous !

But the truth is staring at us from these screens of light and information. We are now its slaves, much like most of us are committed to do, despite opposition and revolt. We may have been the originators in the past, we are now sufferers of the present. And there is no remorse in that at all. You either catch up or miss the train.

The mind then of the past runs on limited petrol. Its consumption is slow and its effect taking time to revert. Some of us change, some do not. In fact they find it a great deal offensive when in the company of those that do. It is a moment of choice and decision. To go or not with it. Those that do continue to struggle with the speed of its constant discovery. Those that do not are content. Content because they do not have to educate themselves to the fresh, they would rather use whatever they were conversant with and remain delayed slow and out of cue. But cued !

It is a mode that humanity finds itself in most of the time. A simple daily planner gadget of the 90’s still operates for me and I do not feel inclined to bring it to change. There are better versions of the mechanism, but also there is no need really to follow a planner, when all of it can and is being conducted on your mobile, or iPad.

I find the greatest problem for the previous generation is their dogged fixed motive, of how they would like to lead their life - slow sluggish and somewhat premature. Or fast and easily recognizable in todays inventions. Both let me add, are worthy of co existing and neither shall be the worse off, but yes, when options appear, they are certainly either a deterrent to them or when the need to acknowledge them surfaces.

The strength of those that remain in the past is quite formidable. It hurts their self confidence when they are challenged and cannot keep up the competition, but at the same time they will insist on running their own styles. It is, they would say too late now for change.

But let me tell you something .. they may all stick fast to their own philosophies, but are ready to mingle when asked or requested - latest test gadgetry or not !!

There is the extreme cased individuals too. They are the hoarders. They feel outdated when not in command of what is prevalent. So even though they may never ever, be capable of defining or handling the modern and the latest, they shall not hesitate to possess one.

So long as I can talk of the possession of the latest, I am fine. I may not use it ever, but so long as it lies by my side unopened and unused, it has taken care and control of the situation. Its a syndrome of never wanting to be left behind socially. Of never being the has beens, but instead be the beens and perform privately like the has beens.

That is some doing !!

Goodness ! Its getting on to 2 AM and I still have not exhausted myself from this … not this blog, but this discussion !! I shall pursue, perhaps later and perhaps in some other context ..

Its been a day like that … you know, how it is ..!!

Love and much more than  …. ya … !!

Amitabh Bachchan