Light & Joy

My daughter was studying for her Computer test and there was a portion in her text book about LED vs CRT monitors. So I started explaining to her about LED and CRT - at least to what extent I knew. And then my eyes fell on the Tubelight in our room and I told her that this was an LED tubelight. I told her about the advantages of the LED tubelight and how it turns on immediately when we switch the light compared to the Fluorescent tubelight that we had in our previous home which used to take a couple of seconds to fully light on. And then this is how our conversation went - 

She: "Yeah, yeah, I remember. I miss that tubelight so much!"

Me: "Huh? Why? Since that light used to take a few seconds to turn on, we bought these LED tubelights!"

She: "Yeah, but in those few seconds, I had so much fun! It was like a dance party!"

I was speechless! Because at that instant I realized what we think as a technological advancement is actually burying our kids' joys! I mean, in a few years' time she is going to completely forget about the Fluorescent tubelights and their flickering. In fact, we as kids used to have so much fun & giggles calling our classmates as 'Tubelight' in case someone is slow in grasping just for this exact reason that a tubelight takes a few seconds to fully turn on. All those jokes are no longer applicable now with the advent of LED tubelights! 

In fact, even the Salman Khan starrer Tubelight is also made on this exact concept. Speaking of which, now if someone Googles Tubelight, the only thing we get to see on the first page is about the movie, not the electrical light emitting device! Poor Tubelight (the fluorescent one, I mean) is getting whacked down and down to the point of extinction! 

This also reminded me of what my wife always says how much fun she used to have when the power used to get turned off. In my childhood, when the BESCOM turned the power off which was a regular thing for months together especially in summer due to lack of water and hence lack of Hydroelectric power generation - usually called as 'Load-shedding' - I used to get irritated. Because that meant, I had to study under the candlelight, get bitten by mosquitos or even miss watching cricket on TV. But on the other hand, my wife apparently always had fun whenever there was load-shedding. In fact they were waiting for the 'current to go' - as we say in local language - because all kids could enjoy in the dark night under the moonlit & starlit sky. 

That's when I realized that the kids nowadays hardly get to see moonlight nor starlight. Stars yes maybe here and there some nights, but moonlight & starlight so rare. With the technological advent of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) and Inverters, especially in apartments, kids hardly experience loss of electricity and power outages. And as such, they never get to see the dark night and amaze at the beauty of it nor even play in moonlight/starlight. 

Lo and behold, there goes one more childhood joy due to technological advancement...

😔

"Sammy!"

I was just scrolling through my latest posts and I see nowadays it is mostly about kids and their wonderful talks! And here goes another...

A couple of elderly grannies were sitting on the porch of our apartment lobby in the open air with apparently one of the granny's two-year-old granddaughter who was walking here and there, pointing at moving cars, autos, etc. And right there, another mommy happened to cross by with her own two-year-old daughter in the toy-like pram which the mommies can easily push around and at the same time go walking. So, this first one pointed at the second one and the second one's attention too got withheld by the first one - which seemed like a common setup because kids get usually attracted to one another for some reason and start playing around! 

Looking at this scene where the kids are trying to point one to the other, the grannies prodded the first one to say 'Akka' (Kannada translation of 'Sister') which is a common term used for other girl kids. And the mother tried to say the same thing to her daughter and prodded the second one to say 'Didi' (Hindi translation of 'Sister'). While the adults are trying to make the kids get accustomed to learn the customary greetings, the neurons in the first one's brain finally clicked and she pointed to the second one with renewed confidence and blurted out:

"Sammy!" 

While the grannies were still trying to make out why she said that although they were trying to make her say 'Akka', it was time for the mother's neurons to click now: Sammy was indeed her daughter's name and she realized that Sammy and this other girl were actually classmates in the daycare! So the first one actually recognized Sammy and even Sammy had actually recognized the first one - in an ambience outside of the usual classroom, which is actually remarkable - although not to the extent of having remembered the name as quickly as the former! So, now that the mother understood the context, she then started explaining the whole thing to the grannies who finally got it too!

I was waiting at the lobby for my elevator while this whole thing got played out right in front of me, and it seemed fascinating to me how couple of toddlers who did not even know how to talk could make the adults understand what they had already recognized and how, even as adults, we so easily fail to understand our kids sometimes. 

Here, the adults were trying to teach something to the kids but the kids finally ended up teaching something to the adults...!

😊