Using pen is one of the daily activities which we do without much thought. But the role played by the pen in our life is very significant. For many its just an instrument, there won’t be much denial about that. But for few its more than an instrument. When a pen becomes part of many of our memorable times, the pen also deserves sharing the glory.
The pens of famous writers and poets gets significant notice as the tool which weaved the creativity.
Its simply lifeless thing. But its a physical evident of our most stressful efforts (exams). It helps us remind our strengths and weaknesses.
Here is the pen which shared important moments with me.
Pen with life
I believe many people have a pen like this, carrying the memories of thier time.
Summer of 1991 would have been a memorable ever summer for my grandmother. Because that summer only I wrote my first letter in my life. I sent that letter to my grandmother. Immediately! after three days I got a reply back from my grandmother. I got excited very much. I don’t know what made me so excited. It’s like I had done something, which the also elders were doing on those days. And have done something of my own. That happiness is still fresh in my mind.
After that summer the person in me who wants do something “new” had woken up. After that event I started noticing the letters coming to my home. When a post man came it’s an exciting one. The ultimate happiness came during the festival time. During festival the post man brought home different and colourful greeting cards. Streets were filled with small stalls / shops selling greeting cards, decorative items. Even though my family was financially not stable at that time my parents use to send greeting cards to most of the relatives. Based on the intimacy of the relationship, the size of the greeting card would shrink or increase. Another fun is collecting the greeting cards which are coming to my home on those festival days. I use to cut the beautiful images from those cards and stick them on my drawer and backside of my notebooks, inside my geometry box, on my cycle etc.,. Each festival left a footprint! on my belongings reminding me about the happiness of those days.
My grandmother is one of the important persons who made me aware of this postal communication, as she was the head post master of the village where she lived. I used to get excited whenever she sends me a letter telling she is coming to the festival with sweets.
It used to be a wonderful atmosphere when those seasonal merchants selling greeting cards on the roadsides. It added colour to the festive mood.
The winter of 1996 was another milestone in my life. That’s the time we got our first telephone connection at home. It was an amazing improvement in our communication. Communicating a message / greeting had shrunken from days to minutes!!! For more than a year we used to wonder about it, but without ignoring the postal service. Because in my home we didn’t have STD facility and more over cost of making a STD call is not an affordable one. It varied 4-10Rs per minute based on the distance.
As years moved on, the cost of making STD calls started declining slowly. It eased us to make STD calls and exchange greetings. Around 2001 most of the festival wishes we exchanged were through telephone only. When some greeting cards came home then we use to think of like “Oh! Yeah we could have sent a greeting card”, but that feeling is left behind backed by the conveniences of exchanging the wishes over phone in minutes of time.
The years moved slowly and the world, especially India, has been embraced by the technology fever. There was a big boom in Internet. I should not forget the contribution it has done towards communication. The internet became the primary medium of information exchange through the growing free email services. The internet made it possible for the smooth transition of festive mood from the real world to the virtual world. Greeting web sites were flooded on festive seasons. But I don’t know how many have noticed, including me at that time, the decline of roadside seasonal greeting cards sellers. The frequency of letters reduced from 4-6 per week (during 90s) to 2-3 per week. Out of which most of them were marriage invitations, or demise cards.
Then the behemoth of all communication mediums had arrived. The MOBILE PHONE. The mobile phone has made a great revolution in the communication. Even though it was costly at the time of its adoption periods, it started growing exponentially as the price of the handset and the mobile service started declining. Everyone had seen mobile phone as a promising medium of communication. By the end of year 2007 the mobile phone penetration reached till the lower middle class. Thanks to the custom packages provided by the mobile operators (in India) due to the competition. Text messaging became fastest and favourite medium, for most of the young people, to exchange festival greetings. I was so pleased with the easiness in using SMS to convey greetings. Wow!!!
By experiencing all these, I felt that technology is always good. It makes life faster, easier and efficient (looks like a tagline of some consumer goods 
)
But, something was itching in my mind for a long time. I noticed one thing, very odd though, the number of calls made to relations (other than family members) became very less. I almost stopped calling most of my relatives, even though they are seconds away through mobile.
The frequency of letters reduced from 2-3 per week to 3-4 per month, out of which 2 are bank statements!!!
Following are the ratiocinations came to my mind:
1. When the technology grows, the life becomes faster.
2. When the life becomes faster, there is less time to stop and think about others (especially relatives)
3. Even though the technology has shrunken the distance between relations, an invisible wall is keep widening between them.
Oh! technology, bring us the love, the mood and the affection we had for festivals & relations across the wall.
Disclaimer: This is an imaginary story which is not intended to criticize “G____e”
Centillion was a famous company of 1970s which provided service of searching of information. If any person wanted to search for any information all he needed to do was write it in a sheet of paper and put in a box which was kept in the post office. The employees (known as crawlers) would take the sheets to the company’s nearest office and bring back the answer sheet which contained advertisement of company which provided a service closest to that of the query.
Centillion collected their revenues through these kinds of advertisements printed behind that result sheets. Centillion’s employees became the highest paid in the world. This went on smoothly for 6 years with Centillion receiving a high response. Many advertisers flooded Centillion’s offices and started giving their advertisements because of Centillion’s penetration in the society. Centillion grew very fast. Its revenue outperformed all other competitors’ revenues. Centillion almost became a monopoly in its business. People started using “Centillion it” to search for any ‘it’(information). So, Centillion decided to expand its operations and services.
First thing it did was to setup an Research Lab. Centillion’s every move was closely watched by the educated people of the society. At the start of 1979 there came a rumour about Centillion providing free postal service. The so called educated society exclaimed with joy “Oh My God (OMG) Free Postal Service!!!!!” Eventually it became true in that following month. Centillion opened postal offices (named “CPost”) all over the country. Initially Centillion’s employees (Crawlers) were given free ID card and were allowed to send free letters. Centillion mandated referrel of its employees as a hold to control the sudden surge. This free postal service became huge hit. It out shadowed all other postal services that existed in that period.
Unlike other players, CPost put text advertisements on the cover so as not to bother customers with too many images. Actually the advertisers were also happy because of the low cost incurred for text advertisements. CPost users once again exclaimed with joy: “What a simplicity!”. Then after two years Centillion started giving free ID cards to everyone. People were happy to the pinnacle. They didn’t mind the text advertisements came on the cover of the letter.
As years passed, Centillion proved the customers “simply the best” operation. Every where people buzzed the word “Centillion”. But one fine day CPost users felt that the advertisements they got on the cover of the letter were more relevant to the content in the letter (which is inside the cover). Initially no body minded it, but slowly CPost users raised voice against this issue. But they couldn’t do anything because CPost was the only mode of communication that they could use. Then they convinced themselves that this is not intentional and the correlation of the ads with the letter’s content is coincidental. The belief continued till the dawn of internet era. Then came the supreme players who were much worse than Centillion: stealing the privacy of customers extended using email. The saga still continues today…..
Will there be any surity for customer’s privacy in this digital world?
Last week I went to a new movie Wall.E. It is really a wonderful movie. The movie is about the sincerity, loneliness and liveliness of a non deactivated robot. One of the best things I have ever seen in an animation movie is the romance between two robots. It’s kind of an unexplainable perfection. Everything looks real in this movie. I loved the scenes where the robots call their companion’s name (“Wall.Eeeeee” by Eve and “Eve-a” by Wall.E). All the appreciations to this movie should be taken to the Director and his team in Pixar. This movie is one more masterpiece from Pixar. I loved all of Pixar’s movies. Pixar is the first animation studio which traveled in an entirely different path for Animation. They are the pioneers in Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). But knowing the technology is not enough. It’s all about the passion, childish thinking and collaborative work. In one of the documentaries about Pixar studio John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer) tells, “Earlier we thought due to advanced technology we were able to produce more excellence in movies, but later we realized that; it’s the people and their collaborative work responsible for excellence” .
I like animation movies because they are close to my childhood dreams. It’s all about doing something extraordinary. Flying cars, speaking rats, striking bolts, clean rivers, world of ants, land of beautiful flowers etc.,.
I think this inner drive of doing something extraordinary drives the people at Pixar to achieve this level of excellence. More of it is doing something extraordinary in a collaborative way.
One day while traveling i was thinking of something. I really don’t know why i think so much. is it to show the world “i too think”? That’s always a confusion for me. Ok. coming back to topic… The thinking is about how much secure the data we are posting online. Lot of good thoughts are posted in blogs now a days. The security concern is not about the soft security!!! It is about hard security. Hard Security??!!@!@!@#@#@#@ Ya.. Hard security!!! how amazing
The history of India & its states came to know through various physical sources (Hard copy) like writings on stones, writings on leaves, writings on clothes, cave drawings and old books. These hard copies made history transcend to the future. Kudos to those efforts made by our ancestors.
Now lets see a story. The year is 2183 A.D. Aliens from planet J120X are coming to earth to collect some evidence of the existence of life. They are getting amazed by seeing earth with so many skyscrapers. But when they switch on their Lifectron (A device to tell the existence of life) it shows red light blinking!!!. Then the aliens are calling for some more backup analysts to analyze the places (the existence of life). They are starting investigation from a place where a tall lady statue with a lamp in the hand!!!. Many aliens are sent to various countries with Lifectron. But an alien (J323243432112) in the outer atmosphere of the earth sees only red lights blinking all over the world. One common thing the aliens came across in all the countries is a semi glassed box with 103 jumpy buttons nearby!!!!. Oh my god (aliens’ god J000X) says one alien. “How amazing is it to see earth without even single life. When i came last time it was with full of brightness and many lives with one hand attached to their head with a small device. How come suddenly no life in here??” exclaimed one Jolien (alien). Then Head of the aliens calls Jolice (police of planet of J120X) to check for some Physical evidence of life like stories, pictures and movies. But in all skyscrapers they are finding only small cards with 16 digits of some funny jumbled letters printed. The next widely seen things are soft clothes with complex image printed on them or nothing on them. These soft clothes are almost 11 feet in length. How come there is no physical evidence of life??? The aliens wanted to know the “E”ffect.
The year is 2015. The prime minister of India is Mr.Alu(sorry) Mr.Lalu Prasad Yadav. He suggests the people of nation to use online services to store their information. Because almost all of the online service providers removed the barrier of storage like “6083.64321MB still counting”. Since India became 100% in unethical literacy in computers, People of India stops writing in diaries. And all the news papers become online. People in Oddappatti in Dharmapuri in TamilNadu are reading online news paper in the kiosk setup nearby a tea shop. All government documents are made online. In order to become environment friendly all the nations are agreeing to stop using paper. Almost every text in the world became online. Sri Ranga departmental store sent the bill of one Dettol soap to the customer’s email. So, this trend is almost widespread all over the world. No nation is ready to spend money in hard copies everything becomes soft copy. This goes on and on…..
The year is 2082. A crooked minded scientist in PicoLabs, Alapuma National Research Laboratory for Non-destructive weapons, finds a gas to vaporize all the living beings!!!. He keeps this as a secret. But world’s most intelligence service DIA sorry CIA figures it out. And captures this gas container from the scientist. And tests it in the deserts of Afghanistan. Prior calculation on even Osama Bin Bin Bin Laden (Grand grand grand son of Osama Bin laden) is there he will die. But their more intelligence hides their eye that it is gas. Once they release it in the air the toxic mixes in the air. And all the life in the earth vaporizes within a span of 2 days.
So, in overall computerization has a great advantage. But something as narrated in the above story might happen in future. Why don’t we write on something that will last long but readable without any support???
How to stop at that thin line? This question has always been evolved in my mind on many occasions. Those occasions are not of sad kind. They are the moments filled with joy of achievement. The thin line lies between “enjoying the achievement” and “show off”. It’s really a tough task to watch that thin line in those moments, but it is very essential when the society has an eye on you. I could remember a small ritual use to be followed in my hometown. If a person achieves or succeeds any thing and it has reached the people around him/her. The family chief use to do “thirusti kalitthal” (in Tamil) to get rid off others’ greed on this success. Expecting the time to teach me the way of finding the thin line….
Movies are really good when they carry messages which transcend generations. Following are the movies which I saw recently and impressed very much. More over I want to add the message they carry alongside.
Cindrella Man — Passion and determination doesn’t have age
The Pianist — Passion never hides at difficult times
The Pursuit of Happyness — Self-belief with persistent effort never lets down the person
Life is Beautiful – Smile at your difficulties, they will be no more difficult
Nacho Libre — Belief in dream leads a person to it
The Shashank Redemption — Hope is a good thing irrespective of the place and condition
Horton Hears a Who — Respecting things even though how small they are
My Sassy Girl — Giving respect to other’s feelings
These kind of movies give great advantage for the person who doesn’t have time to read good books by delivering a great content within 3 hours.
More of these kinds of movies should be taken to help shaping the human race. Hats off to those who took these efforts!!!
Today I had my Technical Communication class. Even though feeling little uncomfortable about my English fluency, I made myself ready for it. The class started off with simple personnel introductions. Then the instructor asked everyone to write about themselves. I felt really bad about it. Because I always always have confusion about me. So, I am started like “I am a simple person….”.
Its really a difficult task for if someone asks me “Tell me about yourself”. Its like self appraisal. I always afraid of telling something too much or too less. Because I never like boastful things about me.
Now also I am really amazed by “Why I am writing this post?”. Might be because I am concerned about my social status.
One interesting trivia: The Instructor told that my essay had too many “I” !!!!
When listening to some songs i often felt my thoughts traveling back to those days. I don’t know whether it happens to me only or to all. Each song takes me to those days when i started listening that song. It gives really nice feeling while my thoughts traveling back to those days. It’s like living in those days till the song is playing. I like to name it as Song traveling .
Sometimes I am really amazed of this, how come music would have formed in this world!!! There must have been (a person) / (persons) who took enough patience / passion to listen around the wonderful sounds made around him/them and tried to transfer that experience generation over generation. Thanks to that/those person(s).
Its a kind of ODD word for many. Because it takes a lot of courage to be socially responsible. It starts from the point of closing a improperly closed tap on the roadside, re-throwing the waste inside the dustbin. Many takes the advantage of these social activists (i don’t like calling that way) thinking “if there are people to do this why should i do”.
If we are in a society, we should do something for the society. Closing a tap might not be a good example of social responsibility. Switching of the light in the morning might not also be a good example. But small drops only makes a big ocean. If we don’t consider the drops, one day we will lose the ocean.
The advent modernization has blinded our eyes by its attractive colors. Earlier days (say 1980s) when a person goes for a shopping he use to take a wired bag or a cloth bag to bring the things he bought. But today many never cares about taking bags while going for shopping. Because many malls, departmental stores are started giving very attractive plastic bags. Sometimes it may be a convenience, but not for a long.
