Gadgets have changed our lives!

 

 

 

 

Today, more than ever, we have become dependent on gadgets so much so that we feel helpless without them! The moot question is whether we can really do without them, and the best way to analyse this is by asking ourselves whether these gadgets existed twenty or thirty years ago, and if they didn’t, then how did we manage without them, how did life go on without them? These questions lead us to the first gadget that has changed our lives so much!

Perhaps one gadget that has changed our lives the most is the mobile phone or the cell-phone. In terms of versatility it is taking on so many roles that it has just become an essential part of our lives. Besides being a device for communication, it has taken on the role of a mini computer, an internet device, a calculator, a storage device, a GPS device, a radio, a compass, and last but not least, a device for taking photographs and videos! So many functions and roles in one device make the mobile phone versatile no doubt! I guess, this is the reason why very soon we will have to stop calling this device a phone because it is much more than that; perhaps we’ll call it the portal, robot, AI device or so on! Some safety experts claim that listening to music on head phones causes a lapse in concentration leading to accidents, not only in the case of drivers, but also in the case of pedestrians who are not able to hear warning sounds, horns or yells or perhaps even the sound of an approaching train! In any case, the cell phone has affected our lives so much, that our postures have changed so that we are perpetually bent slightly towards the right side since most of us hold the cell phone before our right ear! We text all the time, receive text and multi-media messages, and receive calls all the time even when we are not able to answer the call because of the sensitive situation! Aside from the physiological impact, the cell phone has a graver psychological impact. The presence of the phone with you all the time means that the boss, wife, girl friend, or even parents can check on you all the time. What it means is that the cell phone has in a way made inroads into our privacy. That space that was sacrosanct and acted as a buffer is now shrinking. All this has increased our anxiety levels, and made us short tempered, ever on a live fuse! At the sociological level also, the cell phone has lead to crimes, exploitation, and has lead to crimes related to extortion and black-mail, porn, and might have even have given a fillip to paedophilia! The cell phone has a strong psychological effect, it causes addiction and the only treatment is perhaps to go for a detox treatment where perhaps you go to a hill station for a week and leave behind your cell phone!

 

 

                                  

 

 

 

After the cell phone, the gadget that has changed our lives the most is the I-shuffle, the m.p.3 player, the I-Pod music players. We have become a generation of music lovers and it seems we can’t stop rapping or humming tunes. It surprises how a generation of music lovers is always on a live fuse, full of aggression and hostility in spite of the soothing influence of music! I even wonder why this society of music lovers is disintegrating into factions based on caste, creed, colour, race and religion! In any case, these music devices are versatile, light, can store a large number of songs, they are cheap, tough, durable, and give you good sound quality. Some of the upper end music devices like the Apple I-Pods are status symbols, and Uber-cool and it makes good sense to flaunt them! In yesteryears we had bulky spool tape recorders, cassette recorders, and record players, hardly portable, until Sony came up with the Sony Walkman! Today you get all the sound fidelity, style quotient, and value for money in an m.p.3 player or its more sophisticated brothers. The USB music player has pervaded our lives like no other music device did twenty or thirty years ago! And yes, some of these devices allow you to attach another set of headphones especially good if you have a girl-friend!

 

 

                                              

 

 

The Lap-Top now called fondly the lappy is unfortunately on its way out thanks to the tablet p.c., however it is still a favourite amongst young executives, young students, and professionals. It is as versatile as the cell phone, although less popular because of its bulk, size, and poor battery back-up as compared to the cell phone! In a world where compactness is the rule, the lap top has taken over from the desk top computer which is bulky, and has no portability! The versatility and portability of the lap top means that it is still a popular gadget, you can use it to call people as in a telephone, store data, view HD. Movies on a wider screen than on a cell phone, do complex calculations, record movies, and stills on the integrated web cam, listen to music, log on to the internet, use it as a type writer, use it as a GPS device, gaming console, listen to music, and of course flaunt it in front of your friends!The lappie continues to be uber cool, a style quotient, and an important part of our lives. Yes, it has its own psychological and physiological impact. Repetitive use of the key-board causes back pain, pain and stiffness in the wrists, poor posture as a result of being hunched over the key-board, failing eye-sight and obesity! The psychological impact of the Lappie is very much similar to that of the cell phone. It is addictive, you become addicted to the net, a compulsive chatter, and could be addicted to forbidden sites on the internet. The sociological impact of the lappie or net book is similar to that of the cell phone. Stuff store on the lappie might be used for black mail. Similarly the laptop might be used to hack other computers on the internet. It might even be used for phishing or to disseminate various viruses and Trojan worms on a worldwide net work!

 

 

 

 

The fourth most important gadget today is the tablet p.c. These include the I-Pad,  including those manufactured by popular cell phone brands like Motorola, and Samsung. Today the Akash Tablet P.C. manufactured by Ubislate is making waves throughout the country as the cheapest tablet P.C. available in the country. It retails for around Rs. 2500/- for students, and about Rs.3800/- for other buyers. All tablet P.Cs. come with a capacitive touchscreen with an integrated qwerty key pad doing away with the need for a bulky key-board. Tablets have a neat form factor, they are easy to carry, and will become versatile once the internal memory is enhanced! Till then however, tablets will be merely a fashion statement! Like the Cell phone and the laptop, tablets might also lead to addiction to the internet, like watching forbidden sites, chatting, logging on to social networking sites, obesity resulting from sitting for long hours in one position. The psychological impact of the lap-top and the tablet P.C. could lead to increase of hypertension resulting from increased levels of anxiety, lack of confidence, and poor self actualisation!

 

 

Although many more gadgets rule our lives today, the three most important gadgets are the cell phone, the M.P.3 music device, the lap top, and the tablet P.C. Other devices include the digital camera, remote control devices, storage devices, and display devices like LCD, Plasma, and LED T.V.sets. We have become more obese, lazy, and rather short tempered because of our dependence on all these devices. More and more time is spent  browsing the internet, chatting, texting surfing the channels on cable t.v. and listening to music that we have become a rather unhealthy generation! The moot question is whether we can’t really do without these gadgets, and that perhaps the need for most of these gadgets is an artificial need resulting from a desire to conform to popular social trends and the the desire to impress our peer members!

 

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A town called Adowa

My initial memories of Adowa, in the province of Tigre, in Ethiopia go back to the time when I was two, two and a half years old! A fortnight after my birth in the Princess Tsehai hospital in Addis Abeba in 1968, my mother and I flew to Asmara, and then proceeded by road to Adowa. We changed two houses there and the second one was the larger one. The maid took me during evenings to the local church and what comes strongly to mind is the heady, pungent scent of the incense wafting through,yet somehow rather cleansing!

Sometimes the male servants took me on a walk to the river close by and I still remember the rather deep holes in the mud banks caused by the eroding effect of the flowing water! The loud sound of the labouring engines of the Fiat trucks did frighten me a lot! Insects and strange critters I called hungoogoo!

Our social circle was formed of a very rich mixture of nationals from Philippines, Sri Lanka, Peace Corps from the U.S. and Indians. One particular Indian boy of around my age that I remember was Nebu,( I don’t remember if that was his real name). A lot of partying took place amongst the Ex-Patriots and rolls of Injera, the local bread or rather pancake made of a grain called Tef was served liberally. No wonder, Injera had become my favourite food from early childhood itself!

I lived in Adowa with my parents and my uncle, all of whom were teachers in the Government school itself. Adowa later became more significant for my parents because one of their students studying in class eight later on became an important figure in the Government, and his name is Meles Zenawi!

One of our Ethiopian friends was Ato Adam, (Ato is the Amharic equivalent of Mr.), a teacher who taught in the same school as my parents. I went on to meet him many years later in Addis over a treat of Special Pizza! A guitar enthusiast, he often came home with his guitar to sing hymns! One day some boys stole his guitar and hid it in some thick grass, planning perhaps to take it away later on at a convenient moment! He also had a rather mischievous monkey which was always getting into trouble!

My first tricycle was of metal and it was red in colour, and the wheels were white. The second tricycle, bought from Amara, also red in colour went to my brother. Although we had a lot of toys, I never missed the opportunity of playing with my uncle’s Remington Typewriter often jamming up the keys which he good naturedly set right!

Life in Adowa as seen through the eyes of a little child of two and a halt to three years was a very fairy tale kind of life, something of a dream, relaxed and rather smooth. There were frequent long journey trips to Massawa and Asmara, now in Eritrea. The journey was through some of the most dangerous roads winding through hairpin curves, gravel roads, culverts which filled up during the rains, and the prospect of being confronted by the Shifta or the bandits. No wonder, I threw out frequently on those winding roads. Massawa was a rather humid and damp sea-port with the all pervasive smell of sea fish and brightly coloured paddle boats dancing on the waves in the harbour. The feel of the sea weeds on the body while going for a dip still comes to mind, along with the salty water mistakenly swallowed is a vivid memory. The buildings in Massawa and Asmara had a distinct Italian touch with green coloured slats or rather fixed blinds on the windows of the buildings. During Christmas, the Christmas tree on one of the boulevards in Asmara was brightly lit!

By the time my parents were transferred to Arbaminch in the GamoGofa province at the Southernmost region in 1972, I was particularly fluent in Tigrigna  and could converse like a native! Arbaminch was somehow very different from Adowa. It was like living in a rather less developed town, surrounded by a dense jungle full of wild animals! Gone was the meticulous Italian town planning evident in the North, with well made roads, and moreover the houses were made of mud wattle slapped on to wooden frame houses.

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Towards more serious photography, A trip from 35 mm format to digital format

   

I have come a long way from the days when I had to beg, steal or borrow one of my father’s 35 mm format SLR Cameras. I had a choice of two cameras, an Olympus OM 10 camera of the year 1984, and a Nikon F-806 camera of a much later version. The Canon QL-19 camera was a workhorse manufactured in 1966, and it had a non-detachable but highly versatile lens! Although some may claim that the quality of the photographs of the 35mm roll cameras was better than the best of today’s Digital SLR cameras, where they were found lacking was that you were limited to 36-38 exposures per roll, and of course it was difficult to take a sneak preview of the photograph you had taken. You, could take a preview of the negative, before the actual printing took place, but the then negatives didn’t really give an accurate image, so then you had to go for contact prints, and after that the actual prints! The resolution of Digital Cameras might not be as good as the roll cameras, but then where they score over their predecessors is their versatility! You can not only see a preview of the photograph taken by you, but also you can bracket exposures and take the same photograph with different settings, since you are not limited to 36 exposures. Added to all this is the attraction of being able to print your own photographs on the Ink-Jet printer, and provided you have the correct photo-paper, you might even get good quality prints from home itself.

                                              

Where the DSLR scores over its predecessors is that photographs taken on the digital camera can easily be uploaded onto your favourite website or can be shared amongst relatives and friends. A lot of editing can be done on the soft copies of photographs at home itself. Before graduating to Adobe Photoshop the Amateur Photographer can experiment with some of the bundled software that  come with the laptop like the Microsoft Office Picture Manager, or Windows Photo Gallery or the editing software bundled with the Digital Camera. Before experimenting with software, however it is very important to be able to understand the working of the camera, and to learn the importance of lighting. The idea is to take the best photographs so that less touching up and cropping is required! One of the cardinal sins is to take photographs with the subject pat in the centre of the photograph. The best ratios are 2/3 or 3/4 position of the subject with respect the to rest of the photograph. While photographing human subjects, birds, insects and animals, it is a good idea to focus on the eyes. Having an autofocus makes things easier for the candid photographer, but then there are situations with tricky lighting conditions where the autofocus doesn’t work at all! In such situations, you will get better results when you switch to manual focus! Often the view you get on the LCD screen is a simulation of what you are photographing, so you need a view finder or an eye-piece which will show you a more real view of what is being photographed! Rough idea of exposures means that an f-22 aperture will give you the best depth of field ideal for landscapes, while an aperture of f- 5.4 will give you more blurring of the back-ground, ideal for close-ups. Bokeh or intentional blurring of everything except the eyes of the subject or any other object which is to be high-lighted is achieved by using a bigger aperture. The Canon 1100 D DSLR  Rebel camera is an ideal entry level camera which offers both manual as well as automatic settings which give the photographer control over a large number of settings. It also makes good sense to have of at least two lenses, ideally a lens range of 18-55mm and another kit lens of the  range of 55-250mm. The second kit lens is ideal for zooming or telephoto options, while the first option offers wide-angle ranges preferably for portraits! The first photograph was taken on a Canon 1100 D DSLR camera with a zoom lens set at its 250mm setting while the second shot of poppies was taken on a telephoto lens at the 96 mm setting:

                

The shyness of the stag would have prevented the photographer from coming in close to the animal. The zoom lens therefore came in handy in shooting a long distance subject without frightening it!

               

One misnomer today is that the greater the mega-pixels of the sensor, the better the photograph. The reality is that the quality of the photograph depends on the number of pixels combined with the optics. Smaller cameras cram a large number of pixels on smaller sensors. This compromises the quality of the image. The larger the sensor, the better the image! Camera shake is another issue, especially when using a long telephoto lens. Later camera makers have come up with an innovative technology where camera shake is minimised with servo motors which try to minimise movement with the help of servo motors. The use of a tripod, however bulky will help give you even sharper images! For example, the photographs of the moon and the rising sun given below were taken on a Nikon L-100 Coolpix, 10 megapixel  camera placed on a tripod:

                

Compact digital cameras which are fully automated come in handy when you have to take snaps of the spur of the moment as is exemplified by this photograph which was taken on a Nikon L100 Coolpix Camera (which although is not a compact by any means as it has a large sensor, good optics and a 15X optical zoom) on the spur of the moment:

Today almost anyone can take photographs thanks to a large number of cell-phones which come with versatile cameras with megapixel sensors ranging till 12 to fourteen million pixels! Some of these mobile phones are even equipped with an effective flash. Cell phones are easy to carry and so they are always present to take the most remarkable and exclusive photographs which even professionals might not be able to take, because, obviously it would take a lot of time taking out that DSLR from the bag, and then setting the exposure would take too long!

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In Search of a True Hero

One very important issue before all of us, and  our children today, is  finding a true, ideal hero endowed with much sought after character traits,  abilities and qualities. The present trend of lionizing the villain of the piece, perhaps even romanticizing him or her is perhaps the result of not being able to identify a true hero or leader today! It is perhaps the result of boredom, the desire to do something off-beat, the excitement of doing something forbidden, the thrill, that electric current, going against the flow, the current, the desire to be different, to stand out from the crowd, that makes the villain more trendy, likeable, and a desired leader for our young ones! Today we don’t have living epic heroes like perhaps Odysseus, or Jesus Christ,  Ram and Laxman,who are passé and   rather naive and boring! All we have are Robin Hoods, Dons and Buntys on whom movies and remakes will be made because they are so popular daring and adventurous! So then does it mean that today breaking of rules, going against the law, doing wrong things, sadism, cheating, killing, kidnapping are more desired qualities in the leader we want to follow, perhaps because these qualities appeal to our baser instincts, some primeval instinct which in the modern world lacks stimulation because everything is so predictable and follows a set routine?

Obviously, what we lack today is that cathartic experience which helps to vent our desire for adventure, or bottled up feelings, a safety valve which would help us going? The ancient Greek Play Wrights knew the need for Catharsis in their plays. The Ancient Romans encouraged the sport of Gladiators fighting each other to death in the arenas. Savage, no doubt, but then perhaps it did help contain the dissent, dissatisfaction and frustration of the common man with the system as a whole. The victorious gladiator would become a hero till he himself was vanquished by another more skilled gladiator! So, then, it can be said that people need a cathartic experience and they identify themselves with the person who best leads up to that cathartic experience. The normal, good heroes are not good leaders because they don’t lead up to that cathartic experience, they are stereotypes, and so called flat characters who don’t change, they are predictable, mundane and rather normal. The Anti Hero, or the villain however holds more attraction, his few acts of kindness endears him greatly, he has a rather raw, brutal kind of charisma, he is bold, and adventurous, so he is more likely to become the hero that our youth identifies itself with! There used to be this Cartoon Character called Fido Dido, a character linked to a popular soft drink, and this Cartoon Character’s popular by-line was, “Normal is Boring!” This was a by-line which most of the youth identified itself with!

So  then if today’s society idolises Jack Nicholson in Batman, or Hitler, or perhaps Idi Amin, or Mogambo,in the film Mr. India or Amjad Khan in the film Sholley, it is because they were anti-heroes, they stood for rebellion from the staid laws and rules of the society, they were somehow, “different”, hep, and not run of the mill! The role played by Amjad Khan in the film Sholley is so popular that his dialogues keep popping up in advertisements on cable T.V. and you have people imitating him in adds! Robbing banks, stealing bikes, running away from the law, all these made the movie, Dhoom 1 so successful that a sequel to the same movie was made! The enigma and mystic  of John Abraham in Dhoom 1 made him more popular character than the character of the police man trying to catch him! Movies project popular public sentiments, trends, and beliefs, so when movies present a popular story  the policeman trying to catch the villain, more often than not the audience watching the movie can be heard cheering the thief while trying to escape from the policeman. In a battle of wits between the policeman and the thief, it is the thief who is given the wittiest by lines, or refrains! So you have the popular dialogues, “Mogambo Khush Huwa” and “Kitney Aadmi The?”

Does it mean therefore, that mechanization, automation, and the use of computers has made life so dull, predictable and routine and mundane that we  need an anti-hero of the likes of Mogambo or the Joker in Batman to bring back that zest, excitement back into our otherwise dull lives? Is this desire or hunger for change in an otherwise predictable life give rise to the burgeoning of cults and sects of the likes o the Ranch Davidians and a Leader like David Koresh? Unfortunately, we don’t have the Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood ranging around with his cohorts,  we don’t even have the tongas or horse carriages and rural areas where Gabbar Singh ruled the roost! Nor do we have the shark infested tanks owned by Shakal, another villain in a Bollywood flick of a few years back! Blame it on industrialization, over population, shrinking forests, and shrinking natural resources!

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Slice of Life-A Poem

    

The clouds can be seen scudding across a deep-blue sky,

While  noisy  birds  flit   around  hopping  and chirruping!

Flowers   red,  white  and  pink nod their heads with joy,

As  a  cool  fresh  breeze  whistles  a  tune  of merriment!

 

Little children toss and tumble around like frisky lambs,

As nattily dressed  men and  women nod to each other,

While young  lovers laugh and  joke as they hold hands,

A heady scent of joy and merriment on the winds wafts!

  

The kind sun  gazes  with   warmth  at  the  scene below.

As  everyone   goes  about  their  duties  with  smiles  on

Faces,  and   a  spring   in  their  steps.  A  world  where

All  of   God’s  creation  dances  to a  joyful  tune of life!

A marriage  procession  merrily   passes down  the street!

Relatives   and   friends   of   the  groom  dance,  pirouette

And clap, in drunken revelry! And, the trumpet announces,

The   grand  entry of  a groom  on  a  majestic white steed!

                   

The grand  temple bells  ring in a  clamorous chorus till morn,

The scent  of incense sharp wafts  through  as garlands adorn

The  deities  fair!  Children croon  and  women scream as the

Giant wheel rolls up and down, whirling in a slow, lazy speed!

The excited  babble  and  chatter  of  children  and  grown ups

Enjoying  games and food throbs through  the air! The sweet-

Meat  seller  announces  his wares  and children gather for the

Goodies along with a little stray dog wagging its tail for scraps!

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