Everything seemed to be at peace in that sun burnt streets of Srirangam. Somewhere, a stray dog squatted under the shade of a tree, trying to take a short nap, as an emaciated cow chewed off a piece of notice stuck on a wall. The roads were deserted except for an occasional two wheeler or a car. The majestic Raja gopuram, seemed to stand undaunted by the scorching heat, psychedelic against the azure sky. As almost all the old people of this Brahmin dominated quaint little town tried resting their aching bodies and drifting off into a siesta, at 45. Thiruvadi Street sat a short, dark nonagenarian, stoic and avid, listening to his favorite twenty year old granddaughter. What was she babbling about, he thought .The little girl, who once went to school clutching his hand, who adamantly cried to go back home, as she hid from her teacher, behind him when he came to give her lunch, his pattu (silk), who tottered with him to the evening market, in a frock, her hair neatly plaited with a ribbon, bursting with queries and ideas about the world she was getting to know, waiting for her thatha (grandpa) to get her favorite strawberry lollypop, his dear one ,who he fed chapattis soggy in sambar, was now acquainting him with what she called “a most wondrous machine”.
She was telling him about computers and internet. The computer, she said was an electronic device that could satisfy most of the needs of the common man; with internet, one could see and chat with a person thousands of miles away, book tickets, get songs and movies, transact money…The old man looked on, unable to comprehend with this latest advancement that was a dream in his time. He asked,” so, if I have to withdraw money from the bank how can I do it with a computer”, for which she asked, “ why would you want to withdraw” .”For buying groceries”, he said. ”That’s simple, you can just order all the groceries you need over phone and transact money online to the shop’s account”. He looked sullen. Something troubled him. All his questions got answers, but none satisfied him. If the launderer could come home to collect all the clothes to be washed, who did the washing, a machine? Then what about all the people who could have replaced it, desolate and penniless, looking for another job? And the government was talking about five year plans to alleviate poverty! What a paradox! He sighed glumly and thought of his own school days when he would walk for furlongs to his school, when food was unadulterated, when the air was clean, rains even though not perennial, satiating. Few were educated, but education was pragmatic. Individuality was praised and there was room for creativity. He then studied a science that he thought would ameliorate lives and serve mankind. But what he saw now was a suppression of the natural human instincts of spontaneity and creativity. If everything could be done by machines, then where was the scope for one to exercise the ability to think and reason that sets man apart from all other species? The technology that had evolved from science had over powered man and mechanized the world. Machines not emotions ruled man. Not being able to vent his natural instincts, man had taken up the radical path of war and weaponry. The world was torn by strife and disharmony. Men had no tolerance, for another country, another religion or another race. It was a picture of discord and pathos that flashed in his mind. A turmoil raked the frail man, as he sat blinking his cataract stricken eyes at the blur that was his granddaughter, who smiled at him, with an expression, he felt was pity. He patted her and murmured sadly, “at least I will not have to see more of this!!”
