she: So what is new?
me: Son got married last week.
She:That is old news. What is the latest?
I was a little taken aback at this rate of ancience. (is there such a word? or is it a 'wordish' word?) Anyway you get the point , don't you? I mean the rate at which news loses its freshness. Here I am, still caught in the whirlwind-pace-of-activity mood, unable to grasp the reality that my days are no longer on auto-pilot, and that there are no major issues needing my immediate attention, no goof-up s to be set right, no follow-ups on things planned; and she says 'it is old news'. I feel that Rip van Winkle feeling that grips me ever so often when I am in conversation with the younger generation. One week is a long period in the scheme of things today.
Even a day can be a long period sometimes. I have known friends who get hassled if they have not received a reply to their emails within 24 hours. When this happens, I look at a copy of this painting and wonder about the number of days they waited in the past for a swan mail before they started getting worried. Growing up using the postal service, aptly named snail mail by this gen, I know we were happy to receive a response within a month. There was always the telegram and the telephone for important news (yes, the telephone was used only to communicate urgent information if it was personal; else it was mainly for business needs). 'No news is good news' as we used to say.Time was when people visited weeks after the marriage to enquire about the wedding and to share all the gossip. The D-I-L was still referred to as the 'new bride' until a year. Today this morning's news is already old thanks to the rapid speed of communication that the internet and telephones have facilitated. While we seem to be connected to more people than was possible in the pre-internet era, we also seem to have time only for the headlines and nothing more. There is more breadth and less depth, less time for the details. I suppose getting into the details of every news is just too much information overload considering the number of people you know thanks to all the networking that is made possible over the net.
In the past week, I met a few friends from my school and college days and relatives with whom I have been out of touch for a while. We talked about a lot that happened in our lives and the lives of our common friends with keen interest. Events from the past were as interesting as what was happening in the present. People asked for photo albums of past celebrations and went through them with keen interest - an activity my son would have classified as the height of 'joblessness'. I wonder if it is that; or, whether it is a manifestation of the way relationships and what they mean to us are changing.
Or perhaps we are becoming people who leave their past behind rapidly in being occupied with the present and the future. And I am caught somewhere in the middle - neither here, nor there. Meantime let me catch up with the happenings in your blogs.
Ed to add: Please read a brilliant post by Shefaly in response to this here.
31 comments:
:)
this spped has its advantages too...a nd i mean of the emotional kind. Cubby took his first steps last friday while i was at work. M thankfully was at home and took a video and uploaded it on youtube and i could see it then and there. more than me, his grandparents could cherish the moments even from a distance! :)
yet i love a handwritten letter even today, if we are fortunate enought to get it or active enough to write one! :)
watching old photos is a never ending fascination! we keep taking prints of Cubby's photos because watching them on comp just isnt as much fun!
but they are so convenient to send em to people!! :p
pros and cons of everything! but yes, the liesure and pleasure of "time" and "patience" does get lost somewhere!
lovely post as always!
cheers!
abha
would you please stop cribbing about 'this gen' and start posting about the wedding for us poor people?
hmf...thanks a lot for neatly consigning me under the label 'blog pal' - problem with 'your gen' people! We already discussed this in our conversation so I am not falling for this again. Go to hell!
Be thankful I provided you with meat for a new post you museum piece!
- your 'BLOGPAL'
@ Usha:
There is another way, as a TV ad says here in the UK (now but for blogging, you wouldn't know how this expression entered British colloquial use, would you?). The way in the middle - where the days of email/ text/ v-mail amnesty and letters hand-written with a beautiful fountain pen (no quibble about quills) on personalised stationery co-exist with days when three phones are ringing off the hook, the mailbox looks like the flooding Brahmaputra, Twitter DMs (direct messages) are piling up to respond esp those asking one to write for them, and sitting down may have to be scheduled for days later. It ebbs and it flows. The marriage is more important than the wedding, and aren't we glad that the story is now about the marriage? The memory is more important than the photos, and aren't we glad to have some to cherish?
Just my tuppence.Must go.My mailbox is calling.No time for space after fullstops.
Abha: I may be wrong but I do feel that in our urgency in communication via email we do tend to postpone the details to later by which time it is already 'old'. Email is fast as it is so why do we need to use shorthand and abbreviations in our communication? I agree on the many positives of the advances in telecommunication. But my issue is with the way we use them.
Seren: hehehehehehe. Soon girl, very soon, by my book!
anon the blog pal: You see I am half brain-dead with fatigue. So needed something to pump my brain back into shape. Am already getting energised with all these arguments and comments. The slime, aren't I?
Shefaly: Thank you for such a beautiful comment. I was breathless by the time I finished reading it.
Usha, I wrote a whole post. Thank you for catalysing it. :-)
http://tinyurl.com/59klmy
an awesome post and just to let you know, somehow i still like "snail mail" the hand written letters! Though none of my friends thin of writing me back the same way so am dependent on email too! :)
hey am adding you to my blog roll! hope youdont mind :)
sigh ..at the risk of sounding ancient, dare i sigh "those were the days!!!
:)
and i loved the painting on the wall (last post?)
kalyanatha pathi oru 3-4 post pannina indha kelvi vandurkathu illa :P
seems high school kids are writing exam papers in sms language to finish them on time and teacher's gaping at it without understanding. younger generation!!!!
sad state of affairs indeed!
Usha dont sound so ancient my dear . While I miss the exercise of buying stationery , writing letters and so on , I can tell you , with a daughter away from home , I am glad there's gmail, gchat and the cellphone . i couldnt bear the thought of wearing my nails down to the skin , waiting for a cream envelope or a blue inland form.
Thank God for whiz mail
shefaly: brilliant and I shamelessly accept the credit for catalyzing it.
Sakhi: I love long emails too but no one seems to write them anymore. With rapid exchange of information, we don't seem to feel the need either. Thanks for adding me , will add yours too.
Suma: They suited another time, another style of life. Not today's.
I am glad you liked it - I copied it from a card and rearranged the figurines.
Praveen: 3-4 post a? yaaru padippa?
Aiyo, exams in sms language a? kali muthi pochu.
Mrs G: of course I am grateful to be living in the times of email and webcam and skype. Just wondered if it was altering the nature of relationships. pssst...I was just trying to provoke some argument - what to do, feeling bored. :P
An event that happens over a 24 hour period is condensed into a 1 page article and delivered immediately. People read it in 5 minutes. So naturally, it becomes old when another 5 minutes readable article is available. Yes, it is interested to look back and see how things are changed.
Time's Up! Worse I know the finality of this announcement but still watch it go by doing nothing.
-I shall read Godot again and muse on Nihilism and Dadaism as time flies past.
Tick-tock!
There was a time I wrote, today I just type.
There is no time for details. everything has to be a bit fast foodish, ready for consumption. In such a state, be it this gen or that one, no one is ready to stop for a moment and breathe.
Sometimes you have to stop time like the Verma painting you have or Dali's work that features on the response to this blog.
In the meantime, may I suggest you to watch Carlos Reygadas Silent Light. Would be nice to see if you can notice time in it.
Good post though!
Psst... I still write snail mails and I belong to my generation!
Sometimes I feel that the brain is addicted “More input” as the crazy robot Jonny 5 used to say. The speed does not matter. The brain is like a giant monster, which is sometimes bovine in nature. It takes in all it can eat, and when it finds leisure, it sits to chew its cud. Yes even in these days of high speed, it happens. This post brought this image to mind.
http://thoughtroom-whatsnext.blogspot.com/2008/08/greed.html
Could I link up to your post?
The spreading of news through internet and mobile phones are much faster than the forest fire. Sometimes, I feel these mobile phones are irritating when we are busy are work.
age of instant gratification. i've been meaning to write about it for so long ... my first time here ...got here through shefaly's page. awesomely written. :)
Usha, all the e-age 'boons' have a lot to do with the way we value time. We just made a move this Monday from Tamil Nadu to Delhi, and are yet to set up the TV... we find that afternoons and evenings are really ours, and the whole weekend too!
If you get the time do read (Why) Should we fast-forward so?.
Had blogrolled you long ago, but could not visit often.
Enjoyed this post.
BTW - you have been awarded.
Mrs V - no, technology has shrunk the world . Look how its brought all of us closer to each other .However, what triggered off your post was your friends response at your comment - for you , it was the lingering after taste of the wedding so fresh in your memory - for her it was just news - a matter of perspective,perhaps?
Somewhere along the way , we have forgotten to teach the younger generation the art of patience, experiencing an emotion , in others as well as themselves - the art of empathy which is so important .
Therefore, Mrs V ,I have sent you a chat invite on gmail . Perhaps we can get together for a chinwag - at your convenience, of course !
don't fret.it is the speed that prevents people from enjoying simple pleasures of life.If a week old wedding can be old it is their problem.continue to enjoy remnicising about the events that precede and followed the D day.You have a right to it.
Yes, the pace with which the youth today are rushing is as if there's no tomorrow.
Mrs V - In the context of the Ravi Varma painting -I am tempted to prompt you with Kalidasa's Meghadootam ( cackles merrily )
hey Usha,
something for you on my blog...
Pazhayana Kazhithalum, Pudiyana Puguthalum!
Information explosion...very small attention span...
Surely not 'living in the present'!
Nice post Usha as ever.
and of course congratulations on your son's wedding. :-)
I love being in this age when communication is so easy...as you said - how we use it is the key.
I do still love looking at albums. As for your son's comment - that's cos he is a man! I have to tie my husband down if I wanted him to look at our wedding album and we've been married only 3.5 years :)
m.veeran:Now we can understand why TV channels are in such a frenzy to make and break news, no?
maami: We all go through that at a certain stage and then ... we stop noticing. :)
moonstuck maniac: Will try to get hold of the film. Thank you. You still write them? and you have people who read and respond? lucky lucky you.
Thoughtroom:will check yours and yes of course you may link.
manasa: but sometimes we wonder how we lived without them. I guess the key is in how we use them.
roop: thank you. do write about it.
Swarna: so true. thank you for adding me.
Mrs.G: I know. Poor souls, it is a miracle that they even managed to communicate with the devices at their disposal - swans and clouds. Wonder if they were all psychic.
MM: Thanks.
Bala:
Noon: Thank you. And thank you again. :)
Mrs.G: Thank you for the invite but I find you are usually busy. will catch you soon. :)
Hipgran: I am still in a daze. I have to then recount and enjoy. It is going to be a while before i digest all this. :)
Pradeep: It seems that they Have to - there doesn't seem a choice.
Eve's lungs: I know, with the kind of pathetic communication levels I am surprised that they managed to communicate at all. Swans, clouds, what next? i suspect they were all telepathic ( or is it tele pathetic!)
The MM; Thanks. passed on.
Bala: it is a paradox of our times that we have all the devices to be connected all the time and yet we lack the time to do so.
And thank you.
anon:Do you think so? hm... that's interesting. Considering that all people who were interested in seeing the album were women too...
I have been married for 4 months now and friends still say.. newly married... so i think different ppl move at different pace.. not everybody in this generation are fast and not everybody in the previous generation are slow :)
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