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कृण्वन्तो विश्वमार्यम्


By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM

The scenario is appalling. A deadly virus has attacked our Internet, made heavy inroads and is eating into the vitals of the system. The global communication system has collapsed. All computers have crashed. Now humans of three generations have nothing to work on, no small screen to stare at. No tweeting, no chatting, no texting and no nothing now. The vacuum in time, space, brain and limbs is killing Life on Earth. It is worse than World War III.
Thank God this scenario is purely imaginary. Similarity to scenario of today's world, if any, is just coincidental. The whole sitcom is scary enough to make a man go into a coma.


The radio was the beginning when man starting sitting near the receiver set oblivious of the happenings in the house. It was for the News or an item or two of sports when Real Madrid clashed with an all Italian team and the rowdies from across the channel made their presence felt to the police and the public alike.

The aloofness of the individual increased when the Television made a debut and the viewer made it his or her first love. Various TV channels vied with each other to grab the attention of largest number of men, women and children for longer hours in day and at night. With the introduction of that monster called TRP and the commercial ads, television became a conversation killer. Presence of guests in the living room was ignored as sitcoms and soap operas demanded undivided attention of the master of the house with the lady of the house in tow. After some time there was a demand ,for a second tv set in the house. The demand was a genuine one and could not be ignored for long. Now the children had their own private TV parlour in the house and organised a children's pyjama party with a tv show thrown in between in the privacy of their in-house parlour.

Came the computer. Everyone was mesmerised. A new class of computer savy men, women and children came into being. Others were discarded as the new Untouchables and given a new Varna, Computer illiterate. A neo-brahmin on computer just did not let the shudra come anywhere near him or her and monopolised knowledge like the old class of pundits had monopolised the Vedas. Consequently, the neo-brahmins cut themselves off the rest of the society. Leave alone human shudras, they shunned Nature too. Just me and my computer -that was the be all and the end all of life on earth.
The decline of Man as a Social Being had begun.


The decline of the gregarious man was accelerated into a downfall by the advent of mobile phones. What an irony; the mobile meant for communication by word of mouth became everything else but a means of communication by word of mouth. The new mobiles were a mini-computer hand held and served multi-purpose projects. SMS texting, twitting, clicking a portrait and now even emailing are catered for in the new generation mobile phone. Thus the mobile cut the roots of communicating face to face. The Facebook also fails to strike that personal chord despite uploading a photo and publishing a short expression of views.

The old embrace, handshake, Namaste and Maori-type rubbing of noses - these expressions of love, affection and Platonic nearness became a thing of the past. When known forms of socialising were confined to history and new forms were too impersonal to ignite one's mind or increase two-way flow of blood into the heart, Man was no more Social He and she twitted, texted, emailed and so on but all these were mere expressions of self to satisfy self. The Society does not figure in the new game. Man has become more individualistic than ever before.


While travelling in Metro, a bus or a train we have our eyes staring at the small screen of our mobiles. In an aeroplane or on board a ship or a railway train we bury our heads in our laptops.We as human beings are absolutely oblivious of the fellow humans around us.A couple of months back both the pilot and the co-pilot of an American airline sitting in the cockpit overflew their destination by over one hundred and fifty miles. On being questioned they confessed truthfully that their laptops were the distraction. Just imagine, pilots not paying attention to proper flying and safety of air passengers but burying their heads into their personal laptops and playing video games. Where are the humans heading for?

A Wordsworth will not be born anymore. Even if a boy is born with a poetic bent of mind, he will not be a Nature poet. Now human beings do not watch the sunrise, do not litsen to the chirping of birds, do not go to a public park to appreciate the garden, the blossoming flowers and so on. Walking on the roads where no automobile is allowed, men and women keep on playing with the hand-held mobile sets. Eyes are focussed on the small screen. Who has the time or the inclination to be one with the Nature?

Sooner or later, the well-intentioned patriarchs will call boys back to the Nature. The interaction of Man and Nature will bring back the human qualities in humans and take the steel of staring at small screen out. The Vedas also enjoin on Man” MANURBHAV”, that is be a HUMAN BEING.

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