This is the time when small companies become big
Organizations and BIG organizations just vanish overnight. This is the time
when you see trees being cut and instead of seeds being sowed, witness BIG
tress being planted overnight to landscape. This is the time when you see
nuclear families crash without sentiments and read about fatherless children
born out of one-night stands. This is the time of Sami Adnan, Singh
Chatterjee Rao and George Iyer – a mixed identity of old tribal and medieval
sir-names indicating that there is no mess.
Recollecting my old office with the two trays, painted “IN”
and the other “OUT” have given way to a place filled with rat’s nest of
wires, chords and connectors under the desk. When I was growing up, I
remember the lanterns that light the study tables or the candlelight on the
shelves. I recall the joy when the power company pulled the electrical wires
to my home for the first time and how we switched on the incandescent
lamps. I remember how we used to watch the old radio that had names of
places of radio stations, written on the front panel. As you turned the
knob, the sliding red indicator moved. Then came the magic eye on the radio
sets with green and blue colours to help tune stations. I remember how I
waited for the letters from my fiancée over and over and looked at the
trains that used to carry her letters. My father-in-law mentioned that with
an inspired imagination how he put his love letter to his fiancée and
dropped it near Worli beach, thinking that the bottle that carried his
letter will one day reach the Kuyyali River near Tellicherry.
I wonder at
times whether I am annoyed at the little developments that crept and
influenced our lives slowly over the last half decade.
Bus from Calicut to
Thaliparamaba
Remember
how we used to watch the cars that moved once in a way in my native village
called “Calicut”? This place was earlier known as “Kozhikode” and to be more
fashionable and to showcase culture, we call it once again “Kozhikode”. I
recollect some of those car registration numbers like KLD 3144. The only bus
that traveled from my place to North early mornings, used to wake me up,
like a morning alarm – the typical old Ford bus from Calicut to
Thaliparamaba. When the town buses came, bus number 1 was from “Meenchanda”
to “Westhill” and “meenchanda” only meant fish market on the eastern part to
the extreme western suburb of Calicut, those days was “Westhill”. Then, for
me, those were the lands ends!
At home in
India we switch on electrical gadgets by pressing the knob of the switch,
“DOWN” and in some other parts of the world you do the same by switching the
knob “UP”. There are places where you slide it to your right or left to
switch on some equipment. I have never been certain, in some places how to
switch on lights. It’s like English being written from left to right, Arabic
from right to left and Korean and Japanese from top to bottom?
The hotel
rooms that I used to stay used to have the normal long keys attached to a
heavy metallic key chain and pad showing the hotel name and the room number.
This slowly changed to smart WIN cards. With the advent of such cute stuff,
you still tend to go to the pretty receptionist who smilingly instructs you
to use the WIN card to open your hotel room. It has been a learning
experience handling various types of keys. You open up your P.C. with a
password, open up your bank ATM with a four-digit code and at times cannot
open up a smile from your wife, by using any key.
Perhaps you
must have flipped open your hotel room with the hands stretching out to
locate the light switches. Sockets replaced these and now you have to insert
the WIN cards these days. In between it used to be the key chain pads that
one had to insert to get the lights on. The various lamps within the room
have different ways of switching it on; some are through sonic controls. No
two lamps in the room can be lit the same way.
World - a small VILLAGE.
And if you
need to have a shave or have your hair dried with an electrical gadget, I am
sure you will never get the pins of your equipments (that include the cell
phone charger) do not get in to the sockets. Various specifications of the
manufacturing countries are all available in your command – the world now is
called a small VILLAGE.
Now, try
going to the bathroom after a heavy day’s work for a warm shower. You will
see the most complicated types of control valve mechanisms that will try
your patience to the hilt and will still not help you have the shower that
you so fondly wanted. Some of them have mixers and each time you open the
valve, the water with different temperatures will fall on your body –
sometimes very cold and some times burning. And look at the colors of those
valves matching with tiles and floor carpets.
Today is
the time when letters have given way to telephones and to e-mails and to SMS
messages through cell phones. The good old seven digits telephone numbers,
which cling on to your tongue vividly, have given way to eight digit
numbers. Computers have replaced almost all walks of lives.
The tiny
cell phones have been an accessory we can connect to the chain and this can
be established at any time, depending upon the need. It's open to the world
through Internet. We are glad to listen to the bleeps that tell us that
there is and SMS waiting for us or to receive a missed call tone.
I was
fascinated to read about how deaf persons can now get to know each other’s
need and communicate to each other with the vibrating mode of the cell with
the displayed communication that deaf can read.
The other
day I saw on TV, the new model of a cell that helps the blind to receive and
transmit messages by voice mail services. How good these tiny computer chips
have helped reshape people’s lives!
Divorce through “CU2night” & the TV culture!
Only the
other day, I read that the number of divorces is on the increase that own
cell phones as their partners see SMS words like – “CU2night”!
Each
innovative idea transforms the way people look at things. The demands of the
cell phone thus have become a part of day-to-day life for a million odd.
With the communications improving our expectations also grow. How it used to
be to wait for a letter physically reach the destination and take the same
time to receive the reply! Times R changing!!!
The human
endeavors to improve things are also binding us with many other
restrictions. If you do not get a reply SMS instantly, you feel you are lost
to take a decision. Look at fish vendors running their mopeds using cell
phones to locate the best catch of the day.
You see at
times that close friends who use such devices are physically so close but
are so far apart. Relationships crumble with one mis-understanding, missing
one SMS. It takes time to build up quality life and just a second to loose
it!
As I
watched TV, I was engrossed with the sad events that took place with that
Rajdhani express on 10th September. The newsreader took a flash of the
events being read and informed of a Break. Suddenly the screen displayed an
advertisement of an amusement park. I was unable to check myself out and
bring my mind to focus as the time lapse between the sad event and the
amusement that I watched had been a trickle of a second. I just thought of
people (that included close friends), who manage to turn their tune their
mind as well their faces, as and when issues suit the individuals at any
point of time. While in Calcutta, this phenomena was expressed by a friend
of mine with the example of Amitabh Bachan shooting for the films in
different shifts with many different costumes – to depict roles one as
villain, lover and of a good man! For the BIG-B, it’s his job, where as for
some others it is a part of their character!!!
Talking
about movies, remember reading early morning news papers that used to be
thrown across your boundary walls by vendor boys who come whether it rains
or not? Every one waited to read the front and rear columns first to get a
picture of the news as well as the cinemas that was around in theatres. Some
read papers with the cup of morning coffee. As time passed into oblivion,
the number of newspapers multiplied from “Mathrubhumi” and “Manorama” to
many. Today you read “PAPER” on e-mail or Internet. Tell me, who wants to
read about news these days? The TV channels outnumbering newspapers, project
the news in pictures, almost live. The debates and other shows take your
time off and you get glued to the TV screen. You tend to adapt to the TV
culture!
IT and
“Information Age” has taken us for a ride. If you are unable to move your
fingers across the P.C. you are out of this world! The IT phenomena has
transformed our lives in multifold. Pictures through P.C.; chats through
P.C. and what not?
Moving towards cultural polarization
The first
ever space travel to the space ship has already materialized from the time
Russians sent the dog “Lyka” to outer space (now they find that Lyka died,
instantaneously it entered space.
I was
thinking about some statements that we come across about communicating with
the “SO called” friends! And how they sometimes behave!! Look at old times,
and remember your old school pals – they are still there vivid in your
memory. Believe me, this is what all of us should understand while we deal
with human relations - if you do not manage your space between people and
tend to become close, you are probably in for trouble. Remember the four
kinds of people – known to self & known to others; unknown to self & unknown
to others; known to self & unknown to others; unknown to self & known to
others. With the right kind of wisdom, we should choose which of these four
types, we should be and what to choose amongst the four. “Where you want to
be?” is the question.
Conductors
of International symposiums identified the fact that of late the world has
moved closer toward cultural polarization. The dangers imposed due to these
phenomena are clash of civilizations. This can be eliminated only through
cultural dialogues. These points lead us to think of the international
relations between countries. On one side the world is becoming a small
VILLAGE and on the other is getting polarized.
The paradox
of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter
tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have
less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller
families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less
sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems;
more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend
too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly,
stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and
pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to
make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the
street to meet the new neighbor.
We've
conquered outer space, but not inner space; We've done larger things, but
not better things; We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; We've
split the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less; we
plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait; we
have higher incomes, but lower morals. We have more food, but less
appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce
more copies than ever, but have less communication; we've become long on
quantity, but short on quality. These are the times of fast foods and slow
digestion; tall men, and short Character; steep profits, and shallow
relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare;
more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These
are days of two incomes, but more divorce, of fancier houses, but broken
homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away
morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything
from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the show
window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology can bring this
write up to you.
Have you
heard about the frog in the well? Those frogs that are not in the well will
have hardly any choices these days. For some of us “Contentment is not the
fulfillment of what we want, it is the realization of how much we already
have”.
There was a
close friend of mine who was a colleague too. He is no more; neither his
wife. One of those dusky evenings, as we were playing shuttlecock, he had
narrated a story of his family. Quoting his words “There is no perfect
white; neither a perfect black. So it is better to walk through the gray, a
path many have already traversed many times!”
I am always
reminded of his words when I choose the ways.
- By
Amarnath Pallath for CalicutNet.com
About Author:
A
Management Professional with a total of over 40 years of experience in MNC’s
in India (about 25 years) and in the Middle East (about 15 years). All the
exposures were in the Cryogenic and Gases Industry at Corporate, Regional
and Unit levels.
Organisations worked at, with designation held:
