O- wOrld!

These last 4 months have been like never before in my life. A lot of firsts for me and everyone around alike. It started off with a peaceful phase of everyone rediscovering themselves-  Me-time, family-time, hobbies- time, crazy-time- all of it happened. But in a span of 2 months, we were done with this. We knew everything that we possessed and didn’t possess and were now ready to do more with it.

People who knew they had something in them, started off using it. The ones who felt they still needed to know things were ready to listen. This time around, there are no capital costs, no location hunting, and no other overheads to be recorded. The medium is out in the open, something that no one owns, but everyone uses – the internet!

So we now move into a phase of online exchanges. This is more than just buying and selling. Everything that we used to do in the real world and now can’t do, is now catered to, in this ‘O –world’. So first- the office and the school move online. Then there are hobby classes that one used to attend- yoga, music, dance, German, cooking, etc etc. Everything gets zoomed, or google met or skyped. These are the new means of transport to our old worlds of existence. No petrol spent, or no running from one location to another, we get served one class after the other right in our laptop!  Its all ‘Home delivery’ in the O world!

Entertainment as an industry also moved to your couch. Only the junk food is missed, but other than that there is everything the home theatre actually serves you; along with an additional advantage of conveniently spacing the viewing! Classics, series, animation, educational, all the kinds are tried and tested.

People who love to interact with people have started chat rooms or groups of school friends, college friends, colony friends, kitty party friends, who meet at least once a week in the O world. The enterprising ones have also started connecting with unknown people and engaging others too in the idiom- ‘the world is flat’. NGOs working in the space of awareness and activism also have moved platforms. All ground work has now moved to webinars and online meetings. The knowledge exchange is prudent and extremely valuable.

But with all this concurrently happening, I am feeling chocked!!!

I feel I on the wrong side of a highway and there are different vehicles with different bandwidths rushing on to me in full speed. The data packets might be going through fiber optic cables underground, or through frequency waves through the air, and at speeds ranging from 2 lakh to 3 lakh kms/second. I sometimes feel Pataal lok is staring at me, or office politics is playing within me. Sometimes it is the respiratory system of class VII that is feeling congested, or the music class getting hung on a particular note. Sometimes it is Sushant Singh coming alive with a Drive, or the Shavasan that is not getting connected!

The small black router at home like me, couldn’t handle it anymore, and we had to move to a bigger contraption white in colour, more sophisticated looking, and able bodied to handle the O world, welcoming it with its 6 arms J. The web of interconnectivity of this new world we have created is here to stay for a long time, I think even after the fear of the virus dies down. And with its existence is my equally increased state of confusion!  I move through a dizzy phase of activities and sometimes just move from one room to another hoping it will fade away. I didn’t realise the school pick up, badminton class drop off, walking to my yoga class and filling petrol in the car, all had significant impact in my life; until now! Its like the time the boiled potato actually needs to cool off, before it can be used for bhaji or paratha preparation.

There’s an artist who has created a color coded description of all the waves generated through the internet usage and it almost looks like a rainbow revolving around you, each colour depicting a differing frequency. I wonder, if we could see these waves and the path it took, if we would have acted any differently?  We cannot stop scrolling though, because if we do, boredom would set in and it would be unhandlable!!

In the meantime with the lockdown opening up a little, I ordered a book online after 4 months. It was to be delivered on July 9^th , and come 16^th July I am back tracking and seeing where it went.

I soon realised I had accidently bought the kindle version!!!!