Richard went to bed and into a world of dreams after watching a dreamy rom-com in a famous online movie streaming platform. His brain began directing a movie of it's own, where our love smitten Richard was the eye candy of the city and he was most sought after for all that he had got. He was in a beautiful scenic place , with Laura, the girl friend he was currently mollycoddling in his dream, and just when she came closer to bring their faces to a romantic gesture, Richard began to sweat and found himself unconsciously stripping to his shorts. With a jerk, he woke up to realize , the power had gone at his place and AC got turned off . He stopped just enough, as his elder brother was lying next to him and he had this look of shock at his brother's sudden subconscious sleep undressing. They both sat up , as it was all dark and vacuumed out and switched on their respective mobile phones to catch up on some late night memes and feeds, when a new tsunami hit them. The internet wasn't functioning and they began to fret more. Daniel, the elder one, sprung out the bed and started frantically moving his phone up and down and trying the basic strategies to see if his phone picked the internet and it didn't. He had to do something really out of ordinary - use his mouth to have a conversation with his brother.
Dawn broke, as the brothers found themselves lying in different corners of the room still in their shorts and the dreadful silence from the night still present. They got themselves out of the room , to find an equally upset father who was sulking , looking outside the window as though he was waiting for someone . His mother entered the home with the news of the neighborhood, that the nearby Cellphone tower had malfunctioned due to a reckless flying bird that got the wires cut and the PowerGrid was brought down as a precaution immediately . There was no expected time of power resumption . Richard quickly decided to hop on to his training attire, to escape the agony having conversations with people of the house and sped to his gym. Just as he stepped into the gym hall, his usually cheerful mates gave out a collective despondent sigh and "oh god, hell no" eye roll unanimously. Richard then looked at his gym master , trying to read why his arrival brought such a distasteful reaction when it struck him, the boys were already sweating and hearing each other's oohs ,ahhhs, arrgghs from lifting weights and speaker and lights were out , thanks to the same power situation and couln't have another guy walk in. He went to a corner , slowly unpacked his training gear and turned , only to jam into a dude's sweaty arms who just ran the good old T'mill. Dayummmn . Just when he thought his day could get any better.
A few blocks away, there was similar chaos , or perhaps . silent chaos as one could hear the clink-clinks and whoosh whoosh from the next-door salon as people had come to get a haircut. One could hear every hair follicle being nipped and every strand getting dipped in water. Usually the folks used to blare out instrumental music and pop numbers that made the customers naturally choose some higher priced salon services , an unconventional technique used unscrupulously in all places of purchase. You know, play some good music, get us all jazzed up and make us buy more than what we had planned to and end up ng the shop sending us into a guilt trip. The Salon front desk, literally were about to put a "We are Closed" board up to prevent any further entry into the shop as it was getting messy already.
Cabs refrained from moving on the roads as customers couldn't book any rides , and were trying to car pool, bike pool and what-not pool with each other. Food Delivery trucks, equally, were waiting to zippity-zappity-zoop all over the place, as their usual bout of customer orders were not coming in and they were perplexed what might happen for that day's turnover. Silence everywhere, as people began to take to the streets , banking on their left over bills (currency notes) as they didn't have any with them. Thanks to all the mobile payments and endless card swipes , one would actually start treasuring cash bills as historical documents. People began to stock up on essentials and grappling arguments began to rise as they could see how handicapped they have become , sans power and the internet.
Imagine, how things were done earlier, before the internet boom, or even when the internet began to slowly spread its vicious wings. With increasing number of apps and services that get developed in tandem, there is a loyal customer base arranging themselves in a virtual queue for any new apps being created , even as a competitor app was just making millions. Name any service, be it online retail & payments , food delivery , taxi booking, stock manipulation, package delivery service, there are 2-3 strong players in each category. We seldom realize how we all have hand-fed the unseen world of internet the bait, fishing rod , and trick ourselves to go take the bait to be reeled into the internet scheme of things. Now you might wonder, how can someone go in reverse gear, in 2022 ,when things happen so fast, at such minimal effort . This is not a nudge to go all flintstones and give up internet, but rather a retrospective pause and ponder at your own internet activity and usage of time.
Observe how much time you are online, doing something productive, apart from boosting your vanity or someone else's. Validate, how those endless swipes make you lose track of time, from the preparations you can do to seize the day and make it different from the day that just went before. Get in touch with your inner core, think for a moment what you will be actually doing when there were no grams and chats . The clock is ticking and every second , someone out here is breathing their last this very moment. And we are still here. For what ? You alone should derive this answer by solving your life's wants and responsibilities. In this new year, which TIME has yet again gifted us, let us strive to be more cognizant of our time, and others' too and rearrange the many wrong patterns that we have allowed ourselves to get trapped into. Value time, de-value your online time by re-valuing your lifelines. Pleasure can always be derived by humans, at any situation. Change of a passionate routine is not cutting your freedom, but securing the very same - from your unchecked wrong patterns.
After all, we started from just two people and look where we are.....!!!!
