Shweta Raj Kanwar on the apathy of the ideology of technology
LIBERALISATION, PRIVATISATION and Globalisation – the LPG word that seemingly occupies an integral part of each one of us, makes me wonder with amazement as to where we are rushing to with this huge global advancement! And what are we actually leaving behind in the process of this self-centric attitude that has been developing within each one of us today! Self-centered I say and I shall prove to you how this disease of self centralism has inflicted each one of us in one way or another.
The other day as I walked past the university mall, a group of university boys and girls basking in the winter sun, I entered into a verbal conflict – a couple, they were and the guy literally hit his girlfriend across the face. That being done, I was amazed at how the guy’s friends, instead of resolving the matter or sympathising with the girl, were busy clicking pictures of them with their iphones and the very next moment, the picture was being uploaded in some social networking site under the caption (screamed out in public): “Single is happy, couple is slappy!”
Talking about 911, the emergency helpline number that evidently takes hours to reach its destination given the traffic in India (I guess we need to call them up an hour before the incident actually takes place if we want to save a potentially injured patient!) A couple of days ago, my friend staying in a PG had this tragic and horrible realisation of “being born in India”, given the fact that we Indians are so apathetic towards issues that do not seem to affect us. On her way to the university, she witnessed a man on a bicycle literally hit by an auto-rickshaw which also ran over him, leaving him desperately limbless and crying in pain. The people around- some started chasing the auto rickshaw, some began clicking the picture of the pitiful plight of the limbless man, the cars and scooters zooming away in apathy and the others just dialling “911” and waiting for it to arrive while the helpless man crying and panting, helped over by just a single individual and the others just witnessing the drama. My friend approaching each and every car for help but none stopped by as they had no time, none but one out of an evident fifty or so!
None had the time to help a man on the verge of death! No one had the time to get involved in a police case that would follow if they helped the victim! No one had the time to be bothered by the life or death of somebody else! They possessed ample time to click pictures with their i-phones, they had the minutes to stand there and call 911, they had the spare seconds to witness the ongoing ‘nautanki’, they even had time to make excuses for not helping out the distressed man, but none had the time to assist the man, get him into a car and rush him to the nearest hospital; besides this, they have all the time in the world!
The very next day I see a local daily publishing the report of the horrible accident, blaming the recklessness of the driver for the mishap and most probably, the picture of the helpless man uploaded in some social networking site under the caption, “Indian drivers a menace”. Consider the irony here!
Concerned only about our day-to-day activities, we move through life like robots. Our minds have become pre-programmed whereby anything and everything that comes in the way of us and our daily tasks is treated indifferently. We have lost the religion that guided us. We have compromised the religion of ‘humanity’ for the ideology of ‘technology’. Technology is a by-product of humanity; it need not be compromised for the same!
As Albert Einstein rightly said, “I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.”
I believe the generation of idiots has begun, including myself, while I sit here and type this article to be published hoping in the whole infinite world if somebody had the time to read it, by read I mean, read in between the lines!