Emojicon

 We ‘re a sad generation , with happy pictures , time bound to our apple watches and fitbits timing and tracking our steps with no joy to walking anymore , capturing with our lenses to post the morning but worried about the tan , rushing to drink the lemon water with a dish of honey to miraculously dissolve the fat that stuck stubbornly just like Dobby . The joy of drinking ones tea gets marred with less milk , counting calories in the biscuit intake or the rusk that had been the staple of Indian since time immemorial. One again rushes to tackle the day again bound to the screen fiddling for news , absorbing the blue light , dealing with news over Whatsapp , some true , some fake and the endless scrolling to the reels and tiktok laughing away ones sorrow or sadness or disappointment and some like me connect with ones children via FaceTime . 

We are prisoners to our phones, chained to them with an invisible umbilical chord , without any parole.  But , sometimes , we get carried away with all the scrolling spewing hate , being rigid and divisive, spewing venom dividing on basis of religion . If technology has given us umpteen benefits ,we should also remember the dark dark times of Hitler, Stalin and Lenin and all the dictators who spilled so much blood that earth is permanently red there . A ghostly whisper still carries forward the pain and anguish ..

How is that instead of learning from this pandemic and it’s fatal repercussions we are all back to the sam e, we all just needed to be human and act human . Man is at its dangerous place in history , either we survive or perish at this brink where climate change has altered us , and our insensitive mannerisms are so marked that we want to kill first and ask later just cause the person is dark or practises a faith different than others . I write away , punching on a keyboard hoping to reach all of you , my faceless readers set apart virtually . 

And here , our plant doctor ( an illiterate man who has green fingers and can resurrect anything ) can just by the mere turn of the wind and the position of the sky forecast everything . 

We have forgotten to be one with nature but instead will download an app. To just be calm ! As , Sema said ,tussi ulajh Gaye ho and that hit hard . A generation that is now afraid of showing its true emotions but hides behind an emoji because its safer . I hope one day we can go reclaim the easier, simpler , calmer life minus the humdrum of an app or a so called reminder on our Apple Watch that tells me go walk or climb the stairs as I have been inactive ! Nerds who read this , maybe this is the next start up , how to unwind and relax minus an app telling me not to  .

An eye opener

 A chance visit to the biggest eye hospital in the region opened my eyes again!I was sitting in the office waiting for my turn , where a young girl was sitting on the patient’s chair and had just finished her eye examination. Her query was for a lasik operation whereas her spectacles would be removed and she would be cosmetically more appealing to society. Her aged father got up from the sofa next to mine and said in chaste simple punjabi that Doc Saab , I want her glasses to be removed because she has to get married and he didn’t want any problem . He wanted to make sure that her lenses would help and if the number would never come back. 

The pleading and the voice of the father stuck a chord in my heart and as I write this  I am forced to face the sordidness of the society . He wanted to know how soon she could resume work , how soon she could give her exams  and whether getting a foreign made one or an Indian lens would be better. How many fathers face this ? A society that is still so hellbent on dividing us by labels and categorising us on basis of color , looks , height , lenses and believe it on the structure of our noses or our necks! Truly an animal’s mart .

The father kept on talking to the doctor as if the magic wand or the operation would improve her chances of marriage and he looked for reassurance and guidance . Just because he was the father to a daughter it seems he had to go through this . How many fathers of sons ask their boys /men to go through this operation ? Do they even ever consider this operation? I don’t even know why I am writing this , or why I am revisiting this again and again . I so want to hold the fathers hand and tell him his daughter is more than this , and is more valuable than all this . He doesn’t need to measure her from this , but our society values women to be perfect and and to be an arm candy , she needs to be presentable ( whoever coined this word is an idiot ) . We worry about superficial things and sound very sanctimonious and make statements but when it comes to our own self , we have double standards . The groom can be beenga tedha but heaven forbid about the girl . 

 I wish , yesterday I had reassured the father but am guilty as the rest our society.