When ‘Apple' was just a fruit

The past with its nascent technology or the present that is ruled by it? The argument never ends...

AD: Hi, I've been trying your number for a long time...

BC: I was speaking to my cousin Arun from Bengaluru... He was lamenting the fact that his daughter was growing up without the little joys that he had experienced as a kid.

AD: Why do I get the feeling that you are going to blame it on technology?

BC: Well, back then, we had one TV channel, went to the theatres once a month, had lots of friends, played outdoors, read lots of books – that was so much fun! And now...

AD: Kids are having more fun now - almost 200 channels on TV, computer games, chats, social networking sites... There's so much to do...

BC: Isn't it eerie to live in a world where your best friend is a computer?

AD: Look back at your college days, when you used to wait for days for a letter from your folks or send them telegrams when you needed money. Today, all it takes is an e-mail or an sms...

BC: It's been decades since I passed out and I still have those letters and birthday cards preserved for posterity. You can't do that to mails and sms-es...

AD: Well, we're saving trees for sure...

BC: Possibly true, but why would you want technology to kill the most charming form of personal communication when you can use it to make recycled paper?

AD: Hey, we are all moving towards a paperless world...

BC: Looks like it will not just be paperless, but also friendless. Kids seem to be more interested in messaging their 'friends' on social networking sites than stepping out to make friends in their neighbourhood.

AD: Crowded neighbourhoods... cramped spaces...

BC: During my times, space was measured in terms of distance and area. Then we started launching rockets and satellites and space came to be measured in light years. Now, we live in an era where servers and hard disks rule, and space is measured in GB...

AD: But technology has helped medical science come a long way. Everything can be cured...

BC: ...except the common cold!

AD: You are mocking science now...

BC: You are entitled to your views, but I still pity these kids...

AD: You are wasting your time. The last time I heard Arun's daughter talking to her friends, they were all feeling sorry for you.

BC: What? But why?

AD: They were shocked to know that you grew up in a world without Facebook and mobile phones. They were curious to know how you managed to keep in touch with friends who were abroad, what you did when you desperately wanted to speak to a friend in the middle of the night...

BC: I didn't, I used to sleep when it was night.

AD: But how did you search without Google?

BC: There were libraries, encyclopedia volumes...

AD: You would have had to wait for a whole day for the latest news. No twitter, no mobile updates, no breaking news...

BC: Well, the wait didn't kill us...

AD: They had another question – with no iPods, YouTube, mp3 and streaming formats, what did you do for entertainment?

BC: Have you listened to all the remixes going around today? Just tell them that back then, we listened to the originals.