Let's Stay in Touch

Few days ago, I attended the birthday party of a five year old living a few houses across mine. The family was a close acquaintance of ours and hence the celebration was least avoidable. Hence on said evening I reluctantly walked to the house counting to myself the number of feet to be touched and the number of fake smiles to be bestowed. 

In my mind I already had a picture of the house I was about to witness. Groups of kids running around the veranda bumping into every possible adult they could; Men in the living-room talking about the on-going political issues or business and their women in their best possible costumes with their finest jewellery on; The thought itself brought shudders within me. I decided to get off with the celebration as soon as possible.

I awaited a train of kids running barefoot in the street to wake me out of my stupor but nothing of that sort happened. Lost in my thoughts I almost walked a few blocks away from the venue. Suddenly realizing the fact, I walked back bewildered at the silence prevailing in the area. I peeped enquiringly towards the balcony of the house. Where heaps of chappals were bound to be found there were none.

I strained my memory to once again recall the invitation. It was definitely the same day and the same month. I wondered if the celebration was cancelled on account of some bad event in the family the news of which I probably hadn’t received. Anyway, curious to know the reason behind the deserted look of a festive house I walked in to witness something that would have made me collapse had it been a decade earlier.

There they were within the centre of the living room, the birthday boy and his parents. A couple of old women from the neighbourhood were standing beside the lad. A huge cake with a Doremon sticker pasted on its face was laid on a table before. The candles were as the ritual deserves lightening with glory. It was a perfect birthday party that one can never mistake for anything else but for the lack of the anticipated crowd.

I say anticipated because there was indeed a huge crowd awaiting the celebration. The only difference was that the crowd was confined to the laptop lain before the lad a few feet away from the actual scene. There were people from Florida, Mexico, Germany, Bombay, Calcutta and even the adjacent street. They were all hanging out in the Google party house or in their techie words having a ‘Hangout’ on Google Plus.

In the recent years I have witnessed a lot of such incidents of staying in touch where the root concept called ‘Touch’ is always missing. Father’s peering into the laptop screens to have a look at their grandson, friends spending an hour of their busy schedule with their childhood mates in the ‘Cloud’, A couple, one located in Bombay and the other in New Delhi, shopping for their home appliances on a Flipkart chat screen and a student trying to cope with his teacher on an Edu-comp screen who never bothers to enquire if the student is following were the scenes that have been tormenting me for the past few days.

In the beginning the advancing technology marvelled me but as days passed the dazzled student made me think of the path the technology is guiding us in. The technology has no doubt brought the entire world into the pocket. However the same technology has also shifted the living room into the folds of the pocket. It has no doubt taken us to a land of virtual reality but in the process it is gradually demolishing our reality virtually.

To hold a newly born infant and to sing a lullaby to its wails is the magical touch that differentiates an innocent woman from a caring mother. The touch is however gradually getting limited to the fingertips. Much before the touch slips off our fingertips let’s stay in touch to retain our fading senses of the real magic called ‘Touch’.