In The Moment

It was just past sunset, the time when a hush seems to descend on the world. Like nesting birds, people had returned to the sanctuary of their homes ready for repose. The normally busy intersection now had little traffic. I was waiting for the signal to change which had turned red to allow the lone jogger to cross the road. The broad avenue I was on had a divider in the middle and was lined with trees along the median so you could not see the traffic on the other side. In addition, the road cut through a hill and on either side, you just saw the slope of the hill. You felt you were on some country road even though you were just moments away from houses and busy shops. When the signal turned green, I charged ahead accelerating smoothly along the beautiful road. With no one ahead of me, it was as if I had the whole road to myself. In the fading light and cooling air, with the windows down, as I sped up, I felt a satisfying thrill and broke into a wide smile.

As I look back on this, I wonder what was really special about it. Now and then, some ordinary experiences stand out in our memory. There are others that seem to provide for repeated thrills. For example, every time I am on a plane trip, I find the take-off exhilarating. If you fly frequently, you would think that the thrill would wear off. But I always look forward to it, savouring the calm as the plane waits for its turn to use the runway, and the rapid run up to take-off that follows. I am captivated by the thrust of the massive engines as they accelerate the plane from the top of the runway, giving it the necessary momentum and lift to fly. And as the speed increases and the noise intensifies into a roar, with the scenery a blur, I wait excitedly for the moment when nose lifts up and the next when, wonder of wonders, the whole plane is clearing the nearby buildings in its ascent. Up in the air, you barely feel the movement, but on the ground it is altogether different.

It is really not necessary to be moving physically to enjoy the thrill of rapid descent or dizzying motion. I remember the many times when I used to wait for the local train in Bombay. There is a tremendous feeling you get when you stand on the platform and an express train thunders along the tracks passing you by at full speed. The sudden rush of wind and the overwhelming noise of the train would envelop me and give me goosebumps. For the next few seconds, the platform, the other people, and the shops - all would disappear and I would lose myself in the scene as the train sped past me in a blur with the distinct fading sound of the whistle. Even now, I can close my eyes, imagine myself on the platform, and recall the experience.

We can be fooled to believe we are moving while remaining stationary. A simulation of motion is enough to create the sensation of actual motion. When we watch a movie on an IMAX screen, it is as though we are ourselves on the scene. I once saw a film about fighter jets which included actual footage recorded from the cockpit of the famed Blue Angels of the US Navy. I felt as if I was actually sitting in the cockpit feeling quite a thrilling sensation of flying. I marvelled  at the skill of the pilot as he executed steep climbs, sudden dives and 360 degree turns and simultaneously at the ability of my mind to share the experience so vividly. If it gets too real and scary, one can always close one's eyes and make everything stop. It is like a dream that you enter and exit at will.

I believe that the thrill and joy in the above have less to do with relative motion - real or simulated - than with our own mood. The mind is a wonderful thing. At certain moments, it lets go of all regrets about the past and anxiety over the future and totally dissolves in the present, enjoying spontaneous joy. Sometimes an external event manages to trigger this. A roller-coaster ride subjects us to twists and turns and multiple g-forces obliterating all other things from our mind momentarily. At other times, as in the case of the IMAX film, we willingly set aside those worries and open ourselves up. Can we achieve this even without such external stimuli, in ordinary moments? I want to say, 'Yes'. I think we can, if we are alive to the environment fully. We can then find joy in everyday experiences. Perhaps this is what is meant by 'living in the moment'.

The other day I was in the park enjoying a relaxing walk when I saw this beautiful golden retriever sprinting across the length of the park, back and forth at full gallop. As he passed me, I caught the expression of absolute joy in his eyes that was so infectious that instantaneously I too was transported. Suddenly, the grass turned a most verdant shade, the breeze had this healing cool touch and the sunlight planted a golden kiss on everything it touched. It was a rapturous moment. I stood there for a few minutes watching the dog and sharing in his happiness. I wondered which was the greater gift - the ability to share in another's joy or the ability to spread joy.

A Chip On The Brain

The alarm goes off at 6 am. You extend a sleepy arm and hit the snooze button and lapse back into sleep. Sleep is especially delicious after that. 'Just five minutes', you tell yourself. The next thing you know, you are late for work. This is a routine familiar to many of us. But now you can break it, thanks to Pavlok, the tough new personal coach which promises to help you change your habits. With this around your wrist, you had better quickly jump out of bed when the alarm goes off. If you do not, be prepared to receive a jolt of electric shock. Pavlok promises to help you shake off negative habits and whip you into shape. The threat of corporal punishment and public shame (Pavlok will expose your transgressions in social media) are guaranteed to transform you. If not, I wonder what will.

If you need Pavlok to keep you from becoming lazy, you might not want to indulge in Google Glass. With Google glass, one does not even have to pick up the phone and 'thumb' through the screen. All one has to do is squint obliquely, perhaps looking a little demented, and one can read the latest tweet or email or message. I am sure the next version will enable the user to look straight into the glass. Then someone could look at you and yet not be looking at you. And if that person starts laughing suddenly, it may have nothing to do with you. He or she is probably just watching something on the internet. But I am really not sure why we need this gadget. Watch Daily Show - Google Glass where some users try to explain the utility of the glass to hilarious effect.

Wearable Tech devices or 'Tech-Jewelry' as I would like to call them, are commonplace now. When blue tooth devices first appeared, it took us a while to get used to seeing people walking about with the little light glowing on their earpieces, looking a little futuristic. But now we hardly bat an eyelid when we see people talking to thin air. They are also free to gesticulate and many do which makes for some comic relief.

Perhaps we have become so indolent, not only physically but mentally too that we have accepted we are incapable of making simple decisions. There is something disturbing about the idea that we need gadgets to program our life, to get us to exercise, to eat healthy, to remind us to drink water, etc. etc. Nothing illustrates this better than Vessyl. You can think of it as the Holy Grail of nifty devices. This genius cup can tell you what you have poured into it. Yes, that's right. You pour coffee into it and in a second, it will display that fact back to you. It will keep tabs on how much you consume in fluids and calories from them. This segment from the Colbert Report sums it up beautifully.

It seems to me that we have a reached a certain crossroads in our evolution. I have often wondered if human beings were evolving what the next stage would be. I would not care to make a prediction but there is perhaps a clue in the tech-jewelry that we are now seeing. From Google Glass to Pavlok - there is a trend that is pushing technology closer and closer to our bodies. And people seem all too eager to embrace all this. Evidently, they are convinced that they need to program their daily lives using technology. In fact, many of the pre-launch offers for new devices are snapped up quickly.

For the longest time we have been trying to create intelligent robots. But it appears that it is easier to program intelligent beings into robots than the other way around.

Even as tech-jewelry is gaining in popularity, another frontier has opened up - Tech Implants. I guess implants are just the next logical step. While there are many applications for such devices, we may be headed towards a brave new world where our brains are connected to chips that enhance our capabilities in some fashion. Imagine accessing the worldwide web without wires and communicating using just our thoughts. We can listen to music and watch movies entirely inside our heads. But there is also the real possibility of our brains being hacked and manipulated. Will others be able to read our thoughts then? I don't think I want to be online in such a literal sense! I shudder at the possibility but the way people are willing to share their personal life on social media, it is probably not worth the hacker's effort.

I do think many will draw the line at being hacked by others. But there are plenty of people willing to hack into their own bodies to make them 'optimal'. Biohacking is the latest trend. Wikipedia defines it as follows: "Biohacking is the practice of engaging biology with the hacker ethic. Biohacking encompasses a wide spectrum of practices and movements ranging from "Grinders" who design and install do-it-yourself body-enhancements such as magnetic implants to do-it-yourself biologists who conduct at-home gene sequencing". I don't know about you, but to me, this is a scary prospect. I tend to think that the human body has been designed to be self-reliant. There are many processes inside that are autonomous but usually these are best left alone. I would worry that attempts to modify one function may have unintended consequences elsewhere just like prescription drugs which carry the risk of dangerous side effects. Sometimes the remedy seems worse than the disease itself.

Where will all this take us? If everyone gets an implant, can I afford to remain unhacked? Will I be able to distinguish those with implants from others? Will such technology remove the essential 'human' quality in us? If the past is any guide, a new technology usually leads the full analysis of its potential impact. But if you don't know what to make of all these new developments, relax. I am sure you can always get a chip implanted on your brain which will tell you what to think. And then you can sing with Pink Floyd (Brain Damage - Dark Side of The Moon): "There's someone in my head but it's not me" and mean it literally.

Concert Disconcert

It was a beautiful summer evening. A crowd had gathered at the park to listen to the orchestra. The Philadelphia Orchestra was performing with a good number of serious patrons seated under the massive canopy of the Mann Center. Outside the canopy, it was a different story. The atmosphere resembled a picnic with people spread out with blankets and food. Some, like me, had obtained free passes to the concert which allowed them to attend sitting in the lawn. This was my first time attending a western classical music performance. The conductor was the famous Eugene Ormandy.

I knew nothing about western classical music. It seemed that I was surrounded by people who too knew little about it. It was just a great way for them to enjoy an evening in the park. The more serious audience sitting inside the sheltered area was no doubt better informed and looking forward to the event.

I was impressed with the formal attire of the orchestra and their incredible discipline and control. They have to be really alert to not miss their cues, I thought. I marvelled at the composer who was able to write the phrases for the different sections - strings, woodwind, brass and so on, and for such a large number of performers and the grand vision it took to do that. The conductor was masterful in guiding the orchestra, waving his baton like a magical wand. At one precise moment, I saw the drummer crashing the cymbals and then wait for the next such moment. When the music ended with a crescendo at one point, the audience in the peanut gallery (which included me) broke into applause. The conductor turned around, bowed, and said, 'Thank you. I hope you will find the remaining movements equally enjoyable'. I realized that we had applauded at the wrong time!

I have not repeated that mistake since mainly because I have not attended western classical concerts. While I do enjoy certain pieces, I do not have enough understanding and appreciation to sit through a full concert. I have been to a few rock concerts which of course are the very antithesis of a classical concert. People can and do sing along and dance wildly and generally make quite a racket often drowning out the music which itself is amplified to uncomfortable decibel levels. I decided after a couple of such experiences that the music is better heard on a CD player at home.

I do attend carnatic music performances regularly and enjoy them thoroughly. The atmosphere at these events is decidedly less formal than at western classical concerts. Here the audience lights are usually not turned off. I am told that carnatic performers like to be able to see the audience when they are on stage, appreciating the opportunity to interact with them. I can understand why since there is considerable improvisation. But this leads to some unintended consequences.

I don't think this happens in India, but in the US, many of the patrons bring their children along. Perhaps they are learning music themselves and can sometimes be seen making notes. Or the parents just want them to be exposed to Indian music. Many are generally busy with their smartphones. Some of the adults too seem to be doing the same thing. I have even seen some taking care of business on their laptops. If you have other things to do, why bother coming?

The serious listeners tend to sit in the front rows so that they can avoid distractions. People may be walking in out in the back frequently. There are also those engaged in intense private conversations. For some reason, they assume that their voices cannot be heard by the rest of the crowd. It is particularly annoying because everyone can hear them perfectly just at those times when the artiste is in the middle of delicate phrases. Younger children get restive and start fussing, crying, or running about. Still others are doing their homework which would be fine except that their parents get busy helping them with that. You can also see some young ones stretched out on the seats sleeping. Meanwhile, the lights shine on unconcernedly.

I do admire the artistes who seem immune to all the tamasha that is going on in the hall. How inspired would the musician feel seeing people engaged in all sorts of activities? I suppose that they focus on the serious listeners. But among these folks too, there are one or two that are overenthusiastic and get carried away. You may even find them trying to hum along. Others get very loud keeping time (talam) gesticulating with their hands raised to boot. In one concert, the mridangam player got so distracted by this that he had to stop and say, 'I am glad to see that you are keeping talam, but please do so quietly'.

Perhaps it is time to consider turning the lights off. But then I am afraid that the glow of the smartphones will take over creating a sort of disco effect. Sigh! I guess you can't win 'em all.

Picture: https://www.philorch.org/sites/default/files/styles/blog_poster_preview/public/blog/poster/Vail(ChrisLee).jpg?itok=EvQpLzna

Service with A Smile - Grin and Bear it!

I punched in the customer service number on the phone dial and waited. I was calling the bank for help after getting stuck while trying to transfer funds online. The call was answered by an automated response system with a smooth, rather smug-sounding voice that said, 'Welcome to ABC bank's telephone banking'. After navigating the various options, I finally got to a telephone banking representative.

'Thank you for calling ABC bank. How may I help you?'. 'Hi, I am trying to make a fund transfer, but it seems that I require a different kind of debit card now'. 'I can help you with that, sir. Please give me your name'. It turned out that the bank had switched to the new card format recently but was going about making the transition in a strange way. 'So I need a new card that has these set of numbers on the back to transfer funds?'. 'Yes, sir'. 'And unless I order it, the bank will not send one to me'. 'That's correct.' 'How come I did not get a notification about this?'. 'Sir, a running display message was put up on our website for a month'. 'But it is no longer there'. 'That's right'. 'Well, then, I guess I should order a new card'. 'Yes. I can order that for you, sir. Please note that there will be an annual fee for this card'.

I had to admire the bank's audacity. Consider this. The bank decided to change the card format, slap on a new fee, but did not bother informing customers about it. At the same time, the customers needed the new card to transact online. So much for customer service. But the story did not end there.

A week later, I received the card with a note saying that the PIN will be mailed separately and that I would receive it within thirty days. I could go online, it said further, and generate a PIN if I wanted. So I dutifully logged into my account and tried to generate one only to find out that online PIN generation had been disabled. Once again I called customer service and after the initial formalities, endured the following exchange.

'I am unable to generate a PIN online'. 'I can certainly help you with that, sir', assured the customer service agent. 'First, I must activate your card and then you should be able to use it online'. 'Great, thanks'. I thought I was home clear, but he was only getting started.  'I need to do some verification for that, sir. Can you tell me the joint account holder's name?'. Thus started a series of questions to verify my identity. 'Please tell me the last four digits of the card' and so on. 'You want my customer id? Is it the same as the login name?' 'Oh, it is not? Where would I find it?' 'The cheque book? Well I have to get it. Please hold on'. By now, I had pulled out the brief case where I kept all important documents. I started taking things out trying to find the various pieces of information he demanded, laying them out on the bed. Finally he asked for my passport number. 'Which passport number?', I asked. 'The one you gave us when you opened the account'. That was eight years ago! Another feverish search through my stash of old stuff and luckily I found the said passport.

After all this, he told me that he had activated the card and I could use it right away after generating the password online. He also asserted that I did not really need the PIN to make fund transfers. The new numbers on the back of the card were enough. I thanked him and tried my luck again. First, I tried to generate the PIN. Picture my surprise when I got the same error as before! But I was nothing if not perseverant. I then attempted to make a transfer only to be told that grid authentication had been disabled. I called the bank once again. I was informed that the activation may take a couple of hours to be posted and so I waited for some time and tried but to no avail. I had to give up then as I did not have the energy to go through another call to the help desk. I swept all the old documents and stuff back into the brief case and put it aside. I had a vaguely uncomfortable thought that I should have taken the time to sort the documents out and organize them but I was too exhausted from the calls.

After a week, I received the PIN from the bank as promised. Hoping that things would now be alright, I gave it another go. But the web page obstinately stuck to its tune. I had no choice but to call the help desk again. And you know what that meant. This time I was told that the card was in blocked status. To unblock it, the agent told me to authenticate myself first by entering the card number and the PIN I had received. However, that was apparently not enough. Once again I found myself answering the same set of questions as the last time. Out came the brief case again and I went through fishing for this or that document to play Twenty Questions. I now wished I had organized all that stuff. After the rigorous inquisition, the card was unblocked. I made sure I had the agent online while I tried the transfer and that it worked. Success at last. Phew!

At this point, my wife walked in and found all the stuff on the bed with me looking dishevelled and tired. 'What happened? Did you lose something?', she asked. 'Only my mind', I replied.
                                                      

I Tweet, Therefore I Am

People are never without their phones these days and they are ready to answer a call at anytime. No activity is spared - driving, jogging, eating, and even the toilet. You would think that nature's call would take precedence, but, no. I have actually known people who have lost their phones in the bathroom. In fact, I can readily imagine the following.

'Hey', says the person next to me. I am startled. There are many perfectly good places for exchanging pleasantries with strangers, but a public toilet is not one of them. Thankfully, he is not addressing me. He is speaking to someone on his cell phone which he holds balanced between his ear and his shoulder, a tricky operation at best even under normal circumstances. Sure enough, all it takes is the loud noise of flushing in one of the stalls and he shakes his head ever so little in reaction. The phone falls from its precarious perch, right into, you guessed it, the urinal. I depart the scene quickly stifling a laugh to avoid rubbing salt on his wound.

Now some of you are no doubt shaking your heads in disbelief. 'That can never happen. Who does not have bluetooth these days?', you ask. But my point pertains to a larger question. How did the phone become an extension of the human being? We find it irresistible to check the message as soon as the phone chimes. After all, what good is instant messaging if we don't? With all the means of instant communication, we are far more interruptible now than ever before. This also makes it impossible to leave work behind when we leave the office. As long as you are tied to the cell phone, 'you can run, but you can't hide'.

A modern day Descartes may well exclaim, 'I tweet, therefore I am'. Some have actually embraced this idea. Whether or not  their hearts are beating is measured by how often they are 'tweeting'. So to re-affirm their continued existence, they are constantly tweeting. And, the larger the number of followers one has, the more validated one's existence is.

I guess celebrities and politicians have a particular need to remain in the public eye, but some of them are also afflicted with the 'foot-in-the-mouth' disease. Twitter has been the bane of a few of them. They will be wise to remember the old saying 'Look before you leap' or should I say, 'Think before you tweet'? Instead, it is 'Tweet now, retract later'. Apart from their trigger-happy tweets that give offense to some group or other every now and then, there is the indiscreet message or compromising picture that is somehow leaked, creating a media storm.

The constant online chatter that goes on may make one believe that people are communicating more nowadays. I think this is true in a general sense. If you must depend on face-to-face meeting, a phone call, or a letter to get in touch with others, you can only reach so many people whereas with a single tweet you could reach thousands. Yet I wonder how much real communication goes on in these online networks. It is estimated that more than 90% of all email is spam. And quite a lot of tweets and emails are merely forwarding something one received. The same messages keep circulating the net.  We can say a lot of things to a lot of people but still convey very little. As the old song goes, 'Everybody's talkin' at me, I don't hear a word they're saying'.

Technology makes it possible to feel connected at all times and places. Being addicted to this technology, we find it quite difficult to unplug and just be with ourselves. Only the most determined among us may be able to find some 'alone' time (I am sure there will be an app for that soon). That is assuming that people want to be alone. Perhaps, they actually dread that, and they like to feel they have company, even if it is virtual. But solitude is truly rewarding. I try to find some time every day to be by myself. I like to lounge in my backyard early in the morning or at dusk. Dusk is a particularly tranquil time as the entire world seems to become quiescent. The other day, just after sunset, I sat lazily watching the clearest of skies become a perfect bubble. While it was still too bright for stars to be seen, the thin crescent moon looked like a little notch in the otherwise flawless fabric of the sky. I just gazed at the sky and felt rejuvenated in the peace that ensued.

Solitude is necessary for our minds to reflect and to recharge. The mind turns quite passive with the constant flood of information that bombards us and needs the break to bounce back. Many creative pursuits require the mind to be dynamic and focussed, without disturbance. We get to connect with our inner selves when we are alone. It is an opportunity to take a look at ourselves and perhaps gain some new insight, or self-awareness; to become more comfortable with who we are. I believe this will make us more self-sufficient in the long run. Solitude, in short, is good for the soul.

"Learn to be happy alone. If you do not enjoy your own company, why inflict it on others" - Swami Chinmayananda

Sleepless on Steel Wheels

I got into the air-conditioned sleeper carriage at Bangalore station, expecting the overnight journey to be a comfortable one. The attendant brought sheets, a pillow and a blanket. Once the train pulled away from the station, I climbed into the upper berth and spread the bed sheet on it. After the conductor walked through the coach and checked tickets, I thought it would be a peaceful ride. As I got under the blanket, I was struck by how heavy the blanket was. It felt like the lead shield they make you wear when taking x-rays to protect parts of the body not being x-rayed. It was quite an effort to even turn once you were inside it. I suppose it prevents people from falling off the narrow berth!

This heavy, rough woollen blanket is quite in keeping with the style of the Indian Railways. The level of technology that goes in to the finishing of the carriage is somewhat crude. The ceiling looked like it had been painted by hand. The fluorescent lighting, the fans, etc. presented a tired look in tune with the blue-grey vinyl seats, with their hand-stitched seams. The fittings, the coat hooks, etc. were clunky and had sharp or hard edges. If you have tried to use the reclining mechanism on the chair cars, you would have noticed how clumsy, resistant and noisy that thing is. The faucets in the bathroom require an iron fist to operate. I could go on, but back to my present journey.

The rocking motion of the train started to make me drowsy and I expected to fall asleep soon. But unfortunately, that was not to be. The trick with sleeping on trains is to beat the other passengers to it because you never know how many of them are going to be snoring. Tonight, I was beaten by several others who were 'soundly' asleep before I could even count ten sheep. I could hear at least three distinct snores from the sonorous sleepers around me. As you have doubtless experienced, once your attention is drawn to snores, you cannot ignore them. After every note, your wait for the next one and the next one and so on. I was even trying to figure out if there was a rhythmic pattern in the stentorian rasps from my co-passengers. The a/c coach provided considerable insulation from the train noise and that only made it worse. As I struggled to find sleep, my mind went back to the time when we did not have the a/c coach and we travelled the regular sleeper.

In the a/c car, you are insulated not only from the sound of the train while it is in motion, but also from sights and sounds of the station when the train stops. Vendors do not come to the window selling tea and snacks. The hectic activity outside looks like a silent movie. The atmosphere in the sleeper coach was vastly different from the quiet of the a/c coach. You were one with the scenery, whether moving or stationary. When the train stopped, you were greeted by the flurry of passengers getting in and out and vendors jockeying for spots near the window. It was quite a challenge to stay asleep, especially since the fans slowed down when the train stopped. You see, the voltage in the compartment fluctuated with the speed of the train. Lights burned brighter and fans got louder and faster when the train picked up speed. And when the train stopped in the middle of the night and the fans slowed to a crawling speed, you were greeted by the snore chorus in the ensuing quiet.

None of these bothered me when I was little. I would look forward to any trip by train with great excitement. From the moment you entered the station, everything was  a veritable feast to your senses - the book stand,  the food carts, fruit-sellers, coffee/tea vendors, uniformed porters with gravity-defying loads of suitcases on their heads towering over the crowd, and the general bustle on the platform. Every moment of the journey was savoured. Sitting by the window you could imagine that you were standing still while the scenery unfolded in a moving picture. As the train sped past the city, the rural landscape emerged offering wonderful vistas. You could watch the pink sky grow dark, turning distant trees into silhouettes, and see the star-studded sky unimpeded by city lights, or wake up in the cool air of the morning and enjoy a sunrise over verdant fields. Not even the occasional mishap of getting ash (steam engines ruled the day in my youth) in one's eye could dampen the enthusiasm.

I used to travel the Bombay-Madras Mail regularly when I worked in Bombay many years ago. This marathon journey which took about thirty hours and spanned two nights, was quite the endurance test. The distance was about 1300 kilometers or 800 miles and so the pace was leisurely, some would say, slow enough to try your patience. There were about two dozen scheduled stops on the way and some were quite long. The train used to stop for more than thirty minutes at Guntakkal, enough time to go into the waiting hall and take a shower there in the bathroom! I know, because I have actually done it. There are other stations which, I believe, were created solely as a service point for passing trains.

Seasoned travellers come to know the route very well. You find out that there were special things you could get in certain places. You get to know where to buy breakfast or lunch. I remember the gentleman who told me to ignore the vendors proffering tea at the train and took me over the footbridge to the canteen that he claimed had the best tea in Guntakkal station, in fact, in all of south central railway according to him. If you were lucky, you had a Gujarati family for company for they always carried lots of food and loved to share the same with you and even invited you to join their card games.

The train was like a lifeline to some folks. The local vendors would often bring their seasonal produce to sell on the train - a quickly sliced cucumber or tomato salad, peanuts, fruits and the like. They would board the train with their wares, go through a few coaches making sales and then get off a few stations later to wait for a train that would take them back. This was their livelihood. There were others who did not have anything to sell, but would bring a broom, clean the compartment (littered with peanut shells and other debris after the vendors had been through) and then ask for some money. Obviously, they did not want to beg and felt that they could provide a (much needed) service to the passengers. The passengers did not usually mind the unsolicited service, although only a few paid for it. The Travelling Ticket Examiners (TTE's) that rode the trains did not seem to mind them either. Talking of TTE's, I used to feel a little sorry for them. A lifetime of riding these trains is quite taxing in itself, but they had to wear a tie and a coat as part of their uniform on top of that. If I remember right, the shirt and the trousers were white, perfect for the dusty ride.

As one grows old, the magic of trains mostly goes away, but even now I enjoy looking out of the window from a moving train. If life is a journey, I would like it to be train ride. The destination is here and now. Life is just the passing scenery outside.

I must have fallen asleep sometime during this reverie despite the snores around me for the next thing I knew, I was being woken up by the attendant announcing that we were approaching Chennai Central. I got down from the berth and prepared to leave the train and face the next ordeal, the Auto Standoff, of which I have already told you everything.

Lost Letters

"It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time saying anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to." (Treebeard, From The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien)

I love the sentiment expressed by Treebeard. If one has something worthwhile to say, one should take the time to say it well. And those hearing it should take the time to absorb it. In the age of instant messaging and Twitter, this probably sounds incongruous. I mean, even if one says something halfway profound, others may instantly 'like', forward, or 're-tweet' it. It will reach thousands, may go viral and so on. A few may truly appreciate it. But it will certainly be replaced by the next soundbite that comes along and forgotten the next day. So why bother spending time on it?

It is hard to believe that a mere twenty-five years ago, we kept in touch through hand-written letters. Phone calls used to be expensive, often requiring operator assistance, and email was unknown. Letters were the primary means of long distance communication. With letters, we had to wait for days to receive a reply. The waiting heightened the sense of excitement and anticipation and made the actual arrival of the response more satisfying. As you read the letter, you imagined the writer's voice speaking the words. A simple description of the kitchen garden producing tomatoes painted a vivid picture in your mind. You filled in the gaps in the news from that side, because you knew how the uncle in question would have reacted to it.

Taking the time to write a letter does not necessarily mean a lot of pages. In fact, often we had limited space as in an aerogramme or an inland letter. How to convey all the news and other stories of interest within that was a challenge that required some serious application of mind. In addition, a letter cannot read like an essay. It has to sound conversational. It needs to convey information, but communicate at a very personal level. The stories may be newsworthy only to the sender and the receiver, but some letters become public documents. While letters by famous people have been published as books, I doubt if emails will be cherished in this manner. Imagine a book titled, 'Barack Obama - Collected Emails'!

It was not just letters from friends and family. There were also others offering admission or employment to anxious students or job applicants. And then there were the money orders delivering cash at your door step. Talk about convenience! In the villages, the postman often played a role in the actual communication beyond merely being the carrier to the many who could not read or write. He was a virtual member in their families! He would read the letters to the recipients and would also transcribe their replies. You have to marvel at the level of trust between the postman and the villagers. The postman was probably privy to many of their personal details. But then, there were few secrets in the village.

Receiving a letter from a foreign country was especially exciting what with the colourful stamps, postmarks, and various stickers - 'By Airmail', 'Par Avion', etc. that were affixed on them. It was airmail then, but the same thing is called 'snail mail' now. Since you wrote only once in a while, there was much to say. The occasional mix-up in the mail provided some excitement as well. One of my letters to India was sent to Indonesia by mistake and then made it to its correct destination a couple of weeks later with cool markings from different countries received from the long journey.

It is little wonder then that the arrival of the postman used to be awaited with much excitement. Nowadays, I cannot say that I anticipate the postman's daily arrival with such eagerness. In fact, I sort of dread it, for I know that almost all of the mail today consists of marketing flyers, offers for credit and so on; in short, junk mail. I thought I could just throw it in the trash, but a friend warned me of 'dumpster divers' who manage to retrieve sensitive information and use unsolicited credit card offers to open accounts with stolen identities. I stopped throwing junk mail away after that. But this has resulted in a new problem. I am now in danger of being buried in junk mail.

With the scare of identity theft, I have been collecting mail offers and now must find a way to dispose off them. I have bank statements dating back a few years. I bought a shredder and started to shred them, however, the accumulated backlog of several years made this a daunting task and almost impossible to get ahead of the flood. I have now changed all my account settings to stop receiving paper statements, but unsolicited junk with scary potential to be misused continues to pile up. I have to take boxes of old junk mail to a nearby facility for shredding.

Today's technology has indeed been a blessing. At the same time, I wonder if we tend to consider things that come easily as not very valuable. A quick email or message deserves a quick reply, no more. The flip side is that any delay in acknowledging the missive creates the impression of indifference or neglect. It can even lead to needless worrying over the welfare of the other person.

I suppose we must accept that as with everything else, change is a constant. But I do miss the hand-written letters. The physical act of putting pen to paper has a level of involvement that cannot be matched by today's instant communication. The fact that the letter is actually transferred to its destination, travelling hundreds of miles, I think, enhances its value. I see the hand-written letter as the equivalent of Old Entish described by Treebeard above, in today's world.

Perhaps, I could keep writing letters by hand just for the sake of it. And sing with the Moody Blues, "Letters I've written, never meaning to send".