What technology holds us for future?

Last few days, I have been trying to kill my boredom with movies. To my coincidence, the movies spoke the same thing that I had been thinking of lately; the future with technology. We are so depended on technology now, what will it be like after decades with much more powerful technologies? Will we rule over them or vice versa?

At present, I cannot imagine my day without my mobile phone. At work, I stay in front of my laptop. At home, I grab the remote control as soon my dad gets away for short break. I enjoy staying by side of these technologies. Even during get-together and outing with friends, the first thing everyone does is update their status. You cannot help but fall in love or maybe be parasitic with these technologies. They inform you, teach you, connect you, interact and even manipulate you but they never let you feel alone. They are always there when rest of the world is busy with their stuffs.

But have we ever thought how far will we go with technologies?

In the movie I watched last time, Her, directed by Spike Jonze, is a lovestory about Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with its Operating System (voiced by Scarlett Johanson). He is in the technological sophisticated future where people don’t use their hands to type on the keyboard. They instruct the computers. Theodore works in a beautifulhandwrittenletters.com where he dictates to write a beautiful expressive handwritten letters for his clients. Due to his ongoing divorce, he is stressed and unhappy about his life until he installs a new Operating System in his computer linked to a smart phone handset with earpiece. He chooses a woman’s voice for this OS. The installed Artificial intelligence is interactive, friendly and even provides suggestions. She makes his life fun and organized. And then, they fall in love.

But as it is a technology and keeps on updating, their relationship comes to an end. Contrasting to this utopian science fiction, Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuaron and adapted from the novel by PD Jones, is a thrilling nightmare future. For 18 years, no child is born. Human beings have been infertile for two decades due to the pollution. The last functioning nation, Britain is attracted by immigrants around the world but the military rule detains the immigrants leading to warfare nation. Amid this chaos, Theo (Clive Owen) comes across a pregnant girl. He puts up his life in saving this girl and the only baby girl she gives birth to.

The other one was an interesting science fiction animation, Wall-E. Human life has been lost from earth thousands of years ago. Few of them are living in a spaceship in orbit. The only creature on Earth is a solar-powered robot, Wall-E, that piles up dirt to stack as skyscrapers. Humans’ living in spaceship returns back to earth when they find a small plant growing that was found and saved by Wall-E.

All these science fictions provide a hint on future with technologies in different and interesting ways. The three movies had different stories linked with different futuristic realities. But the theme was same. Where and what will be to humanity with technological advancements? Will it have positive or negative impact? And to what extent? 

Today, we cannot live without it. We have smartphones to guide us through. We need to use our brain lesser. It cannot be denied that they are better than us (keeping aside the emotional intelligence).They are much more efficient and the time when they will start speaking our thoughts is not far. And at that time, will they be like the Operating System of Her that we will fall for? or the over experimentation of genes and hormones will make us infertile like in Children of Men or will it really lead to extinction of life from Earth like Wall-E? I wonder!

From stones to mouse

While I was sharing joys of my childhood memories with a friend of mine over the telephone, I suddenly realized how the generation has shifted from me. I am no longer considered as a new generation. There was a time when we as children used to play every sort of game utilizing every small resource we could find in and around home and contrastingly, there is a time when children only play computer games or plastic toys found in departmental store.

Though the latter part of the children’s game is applicable only in urban areas, the shift from 5 stones to mouse of the computer stroked me deep. In earlier days, children would have a bunch of friends in their neighborhood. Parents were less concerned about their stay at home because they knew their children were playing. Friends ranged from any caste and age really didn’t matter. Every small bit was considered as toy. 5 small stones that we used to roll in our hands, statues and silent LONDON game, the collection of match boxes, post cards of our favorite actors, the min pachaas (2 months long) holidays, the reminiscence of “Into Binto Rajan ma, Hamro Bhai Paltan ma” and certainly the runaway after “tinininini”. Those were the real fun days of then childhood days that are unforgettable.  By the way, I am not here to explain about how entertaining my childhood days were but to analyse the transition from that period to this day.

Playing games and enjoying are considered as one of the basic rights of a child for their proper mental and physical growth. Its not that children don’t enjoy their computer games these days. The point is they have become so isolated that they don’t need anyone except TVs and Computers. They can let the whole day pass while staying in front of TV or computer. Even, they have become master in playing Temple Run in their elders’ smartphone. Technological advancement has made them aloof from the outer world. They don’t really gather up with their friends and play after school and even in school, they are bound with the time limit to play with their friends and shout as children do for no reasons.

With the development in technology and ultimately the society, there is much increase in crime rate. We hardly let our children go alone out of the house premises. Even if they go, we look outside of the window thousand times to look if they haven’t gone out of the sight or if they are safe. The feeling of this insecurity is what development has brought with it. Though we cannot say that our country has developed much but while comparing with time of 90’s and now, it certainly has developed a lot.

The only concern is that how our child is missing to take full enjoyment of their childhood required for healthy growth due to bound of this insecure society and competitive lifestyle. They are loaded with bundles of books and homeworks. They start their schooling at the age of 2 and since the very first day, they are taught to compete and they compete to be the best for their whole life ahead. I feel lucky to have been born in 80s. I enjoyed pointless games then. I also got to enjoy video games and computer games plus cartoons of this generation. I saw the paradigmatic shift brought by the technology in the growth of children. 

Not so pleasant plastics

 I had a big smile of joy with the colors of Holi. But as the dusk shadowed the earth and I returned back home fantasizing about my afternoon, my smile just faded away when I saw plastic bags in every corner of the streets.

Though there have been much awareness campaigns and programs related to environment conservation, I don’t think people are really concerned; either because they don’t care or they haven’t learned about how important the topic is. The alarm of protecting the earth has already rung and it’s high time we take it more seriously.

Even if I am well educated and I learn about the impacts of pollution, carbon footprints and global warming, I haven’t been able to be an activist saving environment. Also, I don’t usually use the concept of 3Rs. I don’t separate biodegradable and non biodegradable products at home and I use plastic bags!  However I do endorse and appreciate eco friendly products. I make an effort to keep my city clean by not throwing things especially plastic bags and non-biodegradable things haphazardly. I always use dustbin. Sadly, an educated UK returned friend teased me for being oversmart. I wonder who the over smart is here. Most of us know that plastic bags stay around for at least 1,000 years and it is even more harmful for environment when burnt. But the painful part is they rule city area so much that they can be seen everywhere. If only, we avoid plastic bags from shopping stores and road side bazaars, we can make huge impact on environment.

Bhatbhateni Departmental Store has taken initiative for avoiding plastic bags by charging Rs. 1 and endorsing Hamri Bahini Campaign (use of cotton bag to plastic bag). But most of the buyers don’t know why they were charged Rs. 1 for plastic bag. They only complained that they were charged.

I was pretty much impressed with my last visit to Ilam in 2012. Ilam declared plastic free zone in 2010 and claim itself as ‘Green city’. No shops sell plastic bags. Also locals carry cotton or paper bags when they go for shopping. The city has started coloring its house in Green color as a part of awareness campaign.  Green colored dustbins can be found in every electricity pole. Each house also had it outside their shops.  I was surprised and enthralled with the unity they had for protecting their environment. They knew that they were protecting themselves and this is the only mantra that we have to create in the minds of every people in this earth. And I imagined if only the project of banning plastic bags can be implemented in the place like Kathmandu Valley, how beautiful the city would have been.

Nevertheless, there can always be if this and that but its better we realize our individual responsibility of protecting ourselves and our environment. 

Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

A narrative story of ‘Revolution 2020’ by Chetan Bhagat drives your imagination to a set up of Varanasi but overall doesnot seem to be much impressive as expected. The triangle love story of Gopal, Raghav and Aarati reminded me of a typical bollywood lovestory where both heroes love heroine and heroine end up loving the most sincere, down to earth and true hero while the other hero sacrifices his love for the sake of his herione’s happiness.

Revolution 2020; love.ambition.corruption plots the story in very holy place of India, Varanasi. The story begins like a true story narrated himself by the writer, Chetan Bhagat, who attends a program as a Chief Guest in an inauguration of an Engineering College, Gangatech University, where Gopal is the director. The story then continues with the flashback of three friends with the narration by Gopal.

Raghav and Aarati are the childhood friends of Gopal; Aarati, love of Gopal considers him as nothing more than a best friend. These three individuals come from different economic background. Aarati’s father is a bureaucratic officer; Raghav is from a middle class family while Gopal belongs to a poor farmer family who has land issues with his uncle. 

These three individuals have their own ambitions in life. As Gopal’s father struggles with fulfilling day to day needs, Gopal dreams of earning lots of money and his father believe that the only way is by becoming an engineer by getting degree from a top University. Gopal fails both exams of IIT-JEE (Indian Institution of Technology Joint Entrance Exam) and AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination), one of the most competitive engineering entrance examinations and disappoints his father. Then he is forced to move to Kota, where intensive coaching classes for entrance are given. But after he found out that his love, Aarati and his childhood friend, Raghav are sharing romantic love affair, he gets devastated and end up failing the entrance for second time. Gopal’s father, Baba, unable to bear this failure and passes away leaving Gopal an orphan. Soon, he gets support from MLA Shuklajee, a politician who later is found with lots of corrupted activities through investigation done by Raghav as a reporter. Though Raghav passes AIEEE examination and also finishes his engineering from the top university IT-BHU, follows his ambition of becoming a journalist and bring revolution in the country. He works in a top media house Dainik, from where he gets fired for writing about news of corruption done by MLA Shukla. He then opens his own media house and starts his newsletter continuing the story of corruption. While Aarati dreams to become an airhostess, finds the job as Guest Relation Manager in Ramada Hotel.

In this way, the story twists and turns with the life of these three people and narrates the story about love, ambition and corruption. In a way it can also be said that these three characters are set up with each of these adjectives; Aarati as love, Raghav as ambition and Gopal as corruption, though they donot exactly match the adjectives in the story. The story shares the real world scenario about how corruption has dwelt under politics and the way medias are getting sold under these corruption. Likewise, on the other hand, it also tells how medias are fighting back to bring revolution from such corrupted politics. 

सोसियल मिडियाको जालो

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