Paramjit Bakhshi
Chai, samosa, chana, coffee, bread omelette, fish cutlet, misti doi, beggars, coolies, hijras, Punjabi/Hindi song, platform announcement, noise and stink, mundane conversations and above all chaos. The train has arrived at Shillong! But please, do not be alarmed. For it reached here, on the twin rails of creativity and imagination, and not those of steel. The ‘Indian Train Song”, composed and performed by the Shillong Chamber Choir, which I heard only recently, bowled me over. It was sheer novelty, to hear the many ordinary voices one ignores on a train journey, resurrected, in an elegant vocal interlace of rhythm and harmony. The humdrum was lifted to the sublime, and yet, retained its distinctiveness and vibrancy. What works for the choir is also the choreography, the vivid expressions and the pleasing body language of the singers. Although the entire repertoire of the SCC leaves the audience, from Mumbai to Washington, mesmerised, this number for me bore, a stamp of creativity, one rarely encounters, in everyday popular music. What a surprise too- a train song from a city without trains. It is the SCC’s creativity and adaptability that has enabled their music, to become Meghalaya’s most innovative, and perhaps the most unexpected, value added export.
For centuries creativity has suffused our music, painting, sculpture, literature and dance. On the other hand finding inventive solutions has also enabled man to overcome his physical limitations. From being able to start a fire, invent a wheel, bridge wide rivers, scale the highest mountains to manufacturing ships and air shuttles in order to cross and explore the oceans and outer space, we have certainly been exceptionally inspired. Our footprints are on the moon and our spacecraft have landed on distant Mars. In the last five decades human creativity when applied to technology has changed the world even more rapidly and is bringing the future at an ever dizzying speed. Like a roller coaster ride, this is both scary and exciting. Yet unlike the roller coaster, the option of not riding this change is unavailable. For good or for bad, it is here. And like they say – you can run honey, but you cannot hide. Here is a thin slice, a mere foretaste of what could be coming our way.
Robots will soon be cleaning our homes, and in a span or a year or two, we will see cars which drive themselves and even cars which fly. We will own suitcases, which we won’t pull or push along. They will merrily roll behind us, synchronised to our cell phones. Our alarm clocks will run away and hide, to make sure we get out of our bed, and a battery powered foldable cycle, will fit into our bag. Being tested are life saving buoys, which will be remotely and quickly deployed towards folk in danger of drowning. For those lacking the ability to master diverse languages, an “in ear language translator”, will enable communication with a person speaking in a different tongue. If the intrepid Elon Musk has his way, you will lead a multi planetary life, and may even live, on a colony on a different planet. Of course, no matter where you live, you shall exist much longer. The average worldwide life expectancy, which was thirty one years in 1900, and currently is seventy nine, will extend in another decade or so, to a hundred years. A wit predicts, that the hardest thing to do in the future would be, to find a chat name, that hasn’t been taken. Contrarily, another bright spark points out, that when the present walks into the future, it will be tense. Having seen a somewhat rosy picture, let us also look, at the other side of the bitcoin.
It is estimated that seventy to eighty percent of all jobs, will disappear, in the next two to three decades. They will be wiped out, by advances in 3D printing, software, information technology, and artificial intelligence. Already of little importance in industrialised economies, manufacturing jobs, which got off shored to the third world, will, thanks to 3D printing, significantly shrink. Our off shoring gains will also get reversed. “Embedded Computing Design”, magazine, predicts that a single worker manning a 3D printer anywhere, will replace ten low wage employees. Consequently there will be little left, to “balle balle” about in Ludhiana, or yell “bhalo “ for in Bangladesh, or to celebrate in China and with less than one tenth of the jobs back, nothing much to Trump(et) about in America, or make it great again. 3D printers, we may not realise, can potentially make almost everything- from our organs to multi-storied buildings. Software already has, and will continue to disrupt, traditional businesses. Just as it made Amazon, Aliexpress and Flipkart, software will continue to assist creative business entities, bereft of physical assets, become leaders in their field. Uber, with zero investment in taxis, is today the biggest taxi company worldwide just as Airbnb, sans any hotels of its own, is the biggest seller of hotel rooms.
“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.” wrote Paulo Coelho, in a different context. One of my favourite quotes, this statement affirmed a psychological truth, which is now turning out to be, something of a prophecy. Routine occupations will be the hardest hit. Others may not be aware, but old tea planters will testify how there used to be paniwallas, pankhawallas, dakwallahs and rotiwallas. They are all gone now. Our friendly cab driver and the personal chauffeur, will soon join the list of people, whose services we will not require much longer. Neither will we be shaking hands in the future, with many librarians, clerks, typists or stenographers. There will no chaprassis or peons left, to salaam us. Technology will make, even the already much exploited cultivator, pant to play catch up. Many developments such as agricultural robots, hydroponics, agroponics, vertical farming, and roof top agriculture are set to revolutionise agriculture, beyond the realm of the uneducated peasant. Meats, such as chicken and beef, are already being “cultivated” in labs on Petri dishes, directly from cells, by scientists and not farmers. Sadly, the story won’t end there.
It is not just the uneducated, or the less educated, but even professionals, will suffer the onslaught of artificial intelligence. A doctor, reading outputs from various diagnostic machines, is already more of a technician, than a specialist. The introduction of cheap wearable devices, to monitor our bio medical markers, and the increased use of robotic surgical equipment, will ensure his obese wallet get slim. “Watson’, the fictional sidekick of Sherlock Holmes, though real now, but neither a doctor nor a human, is busy enabling mere nurses, differentiate various types of cancers. The same Watson, of IBM lineage, is also “supercharging lawyers with artificial intelligence” as a result of which, young lawyers in US are left with very few openings. Who says everything artificial is worthless, in the case of intelligence; synthetic seems destined to overtake yours and mine.
Even teachers, yet unable to impart creativity, will find their ilk much reduced. As prices of smart phones decline, education will increasingly become internet based. Two or three teachers, now coach, through VSAT, hundreds of IAS aspirants around the country, and in a smart classroom in a school, even in ‘backward’ Tura, a giant screen stands in for a teacher. Bleary eyed students will now, regularly and painfully sing “to Sir with love” as more and more teachers, get laid off by institutions.
Though the poor and the middle class will be the worst affected, unaware millionaires, snoozing on mattresses of black money, will also be hurt as their stash becomes transparent, taxable and less trustworthy. Wealth alone will cease to fetch high returns; money will no longer breed money automatically. To do business, as is becoming evident, you need neither your own money nor or your own property but just a single creative idea. Money bags, in the form of venture capitalists, will need to take on high risk, with start-ups to get decent gains.
Efficiency and productivity, being the name of the game, one wonders how most of us, will find sustenance. Quite likely many of us will be culled off by the rich, euphemistically as collateral damage. The remaining few, like Robocop, might exist, part human part tech. Epicenter, a Swedish company, is already implanting employees with tiny microchips and turning them into cyborgs. One thinks only the chamchas will safely survive, as they have for long, without ever being productive.
All this brings me back to a very human worry –mera kya hoga? Will columnists exist in the future? Does ST stand for “Simply Today” or “Surely Tomorrow”? Not knowing for sure, I better hedge my bets, and with some creative juices, water and stretch that love story I penned, into an operaaaahhh. Hopefully some opera-tively creative musician will look for a script. Could even be a certain, Mr. Neil Nongkynrih. Creativity after all, is not a luxury, even for the SCC.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]