Ever found yourself wondering about the over-abundance of information around you? Have your ever felt that you’ve somehow been left behind? How there’s always something you wanted to find out more about, but that list keeps on growing ‘cos, well, you can literally find out about anything now? I know I have! Constantly! I always wanted to know more about the Palestinians and the Jews and the whole feud they have going on for ages. Or about the second world war. I remember studying about it back in school. But back then it was just study material you HAD to know. Which also meant you only HAD to know it until the end of that dreaded history exam. Which is precisely what happened, isn’t it? So, here I am, with the world at my fingertips, wondering where to start?
The exact same thing happens to me when it comes to music too! A million artists coming out with a billion albums containing a zillion songs every year. How can you keep up with them? Earlier, life was much simpler – there was just one MTV you watched, with a handful of artists that you knew being featured again and again. One year my cousin bought the Best of Grammy Awards album, and we were introduced to maybe 4-5 new artists in one go. We didn’t really buy the full albums then, well, except for maybe that odd Michael Jackson album. We recorded mixed tapes (or assorted cassettes) from every possible source we could get our hands on. So, one hit wonders actually were one hit wonders for us! Like Vanilla Ice and his ‘Ice Ice Baby’, or the Fine Young Cannibals and their ‘She drives me crazy’. Those were the days of the VCR, where we made video cassettes of our favourite music videos. Those were the days of just 3 genres of music: (a) Its awesome (b) Ahhh…its so-so, and (c) It sucks! And for the more well-informed, maybe, a couple more like (d) R&B (which for most of my childhood I thought meant Red & Black) and (e) Jazz – which never really came to India as far as I can remember – no, Gary Lawyer doesn’t count!
Today, there are a zillion genres of music, let alone the million artists making the billion albums with the zillion songs. There’s rap, hip-hop, punk, punk rock, house, lounge, club, metal, heavy metal, rock, indie rock, country etc etc etc. And when you can’t put it in any of those genres, you just casually call it ‘alternative music’! So, just imagine how things have changed! For example, when someone generally asks you “what kind of music do you listen to?”. That used to be a simple question 10 years back. You’d just go “Preferably, awesome…if that’s not around, then I also listen to ahhh…its so-so music”. Ok ok, you’d actually go, “I like Michael Jackson, Phil Collins and Snap”. Now, the same question is turned around to “what kind/genre of music do you like?”. Scary question that! The safe answer, which you’d probably hear from 90% of the people is “ahhhh…I love all kinds of music…no particular genre as such”.
Yeah, so where were we? Ah – the information age! Next case in point – social networking. Facebook – the Wall – Poke – Superpoke – Twitter – tweets – pictures – pictures of complete strangers – pictures you still end up looking at for no apparent reason. There have been huge debates around it – invasion of privacy, Facebook is evil, Facebook causes divorces, Twitter causes you to be banned from your team. I’m sure there are churches in the USA, preaching against Facebook right now. I can bet on it! I can imagine Sheldon Cooper’s mother sitting in her parish and the hundreds of Texans screaming with her against the darned devil ‘Facebook’! I seriously thought of getting off Facebook myself. The idea of some random Sharma aunty sitting in Gurgaon looking at what her nephew’s best friend’s classmate was doing. That nephew’s best friend’s classmate could well be me. Then, I thought to myself, “now, nobody’s going to want to watch that!”. And here I am, still doing my bit to make Mark Zuckerberg richer!
Twitter, I’ve heard, is the best thing since pointy shoes – I mean if you like that kind of thing! I admit it, I’m not on Twitter. Just too lazy to open an account. Or maybe I’m intimidated by the whole concept. How many followers will I have? Oh my god! That loser from Symbi can’t possibly have more followers than me!!! I have a blog! Some people even read it occasionally! I’m bound to be more popular than HIM!!! Nah…just leave it to laziness for now! Twitter – an amazing concept really. A chance to hear from your favourite stars – directly. You don’t need to wait for Lehrein (remember that???) or Zoom TV to tell you that SRK is shopping in Vienna! He tells you on his own – bloody show off! Then, you can follow that most outspoken Indian of all – Mr. Shashi Tharoor. If I ever join Twitter, I’m definitely following Shashi Tharoor – the guy’s intelligent, can SPEAK and looks good too! He’s been a phenomenon for the Indians in their 20s to Indians in their…well, Indians on their death beds to be honest. So much so that we were almost considering dressing up like him for my sister’s wedding – not just me, even the groom!!!
My friend forwarded me this twitter message (or tweet) from the Arsenal boy, Jack Wilshire, today. The teenager writes before the Champions League tie off against Barca at the Nou Camp “Big game tonight and I am buzzing for it! Can see the stadium from my hotel room and its massive”. Cool, isn’t it? Would you ever hear Jack Wilshire share that at a drabby press conference? But, there’s a flip side too. You tweet anything, you can get reprimanded for it, as Kevin Peterson would well be aware of now! You can’t be famous and be open about what you feel. You have to be diplomatic. You have to tone your emotions down! Exactly opposite of why you’d got onto Twitter in the first place! That sucks!
Then there’s spam mail flooding you from every direction. There are mails trying to sell you all kind of stuff. Some want to congratulate you on winning the lottery. Some want to sell you a house which you can’t afford. Some even try convincing you that you need larger (read enhanced) body parts. Thank god for spam filters! Now only the “enhance your…body part” mails somehow get through to your inbox! We’re so used to getting junk mail that we don’t even mind having to make the effort of deleting it! Spam is very much a part of our lives now! I was just thinking of how life would be if you could put in a spam filter in your head to block off stuff coming through your ears into your brain. You know, just stash it away in that spam folder in some unused corner of your brain. Like when your mom tells you to “clean your room” - ahhh, that goes into SPAM, please!!!! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Or would you end up like Adam Sandler in the movie ‘Click’, spamming away just about anything and everything?!?! The girlfriend asks you about shopping when you’re watching football – SPAMMMMM!!! Hmmmm….I wonder!
Nope, I’m not dishin technology! No, sir! All my blogs do appear to be doing so, I know. But, hey, you’re reading my stuff here without me having to go to the Times of India office, the Editor having to go through my article and considering my writing “printable”, and then on one fine day it appearing on the paper only for you to be holidaying in Goa that weekend!!! Instead, its right here…its not going anywhere…I can tell a hundred people that I’ve written this piece (or all of 222 friends on FB to be precise) at the click of a button! Its great! The Internet has made our lives so much easier that I wonder how I did my homework before Google came along…
I guess I’m just propagating the good ole days, that’s all.
