There were the days when I used to have three hours just to write A for Apple, B for Ball and bla bla bla and space to draw some random figures in the answer papers. I had to do nothing but fight with Bahini and some friends all round the day and fight with mum at the end of the day for the food I liked or I detested. At that time when some one asked me what I wanted to be, I would childishly answer,”Mo ta Thulo Vayela Doktol banne (I will be Doctor when I grow old)” with smile in the face. The days would start with chiya from Buwa’s (Grandfather) cup of tea and ended with Buwa’s stories. I got everything I wanted there… I was the king of my world then.
When TV came in that world and the thirteen minutes of ‘The Thriller’ came as the most exciting thing of my world I wanted to be like Michael Jackson. Folks used to tell me the story of Michael… how a Negro/Habsi became the American and all. I was during my primary school days, when I used to know it all without reading and finish all my homeworks in the school so that I would have nothing left but watch TV. As I grew older my Baba(DAD) made me addicted to books. He used to bring one book or other every time he went somewhere and the book ranged from fairytales to child magazine and simple-informatic books. All those helped me a lot to change from ‘I know it all’ to ‘Oh! I have so many things to learn’. Grades started to rise, I started to save money from Tiffin to buy Harry porter books(first one when I was at 8), started writing poems, started excelling at quizes and then all encouraged me to be an engineer when I passed my class ten coz I was so very good at Maths and Science. But somehow now I ended up studying Biology here.
Those were the good old Pre-internet days or little internet days, when I wouldn’t take more than a day or two to finish a good book. But as my count of springs increased, with some responsibility everything has changed. The free times, which are so very less anyways, that I used to spend with books is now overtaken by Internet,movies and more precisely social network. While writing this, I have now two books pending to be finished for I don’t know how many weeks sandwiched somewhere between my course of studies, my time wasted in Internet or watching movies or the time I spend trying to gather some sleep. I am not busy by any means but not free to do “good” things too.
In the days of my Highschool when wikipedia was the next best thing I knew, although google was always there as the GODFATHER of all Search Engines but I always entered my queries in wikipedia rather than google itself, and it had all the answers wanted, it was my tutor of the times. In the world where the famous words of the last milenium,”I don’t know” is buried in the deepest realms, and everytime you dare to say so, one or another will pop up and say, ”LMGTFY” (Honestly speaking I didn’t know what that meant untill one of my friend who happens to be a techie said that LMGTFY=Let me google that for you, and lol’ed me for being a moroon). Yes I suck at these things and even more I don’t like being part of this world. I belong to those good old preinternet days where reading books and hanging around with friends without any cause was the next best thing. I don’t like being poked, DMed or foursquared or chat-msgd (which I seldom reply) rather being called or taken out of home without any notice.
And what about other things? for example the kids (and I too) nowadays saves their tiffin so that they can buy a good DVD or two, or rather have o pizza rather than buying books. We spend a hell lot of time infront of TV or Internet or movies (provided the electricity is there). How many of will you go to theatre to watch Harry porter-the movie rather than reading Harry porter-the book? oh! wait I can count your numbers. and there so many words the kids know that I didn’t knew back then like blown away(isnt it rocketed?), suck(isnt it Chusnu in Nepali), ROFL,LMAO,FYI, and the f-word,the c-word and other slangs and bla bla bla.
When someone, I forgot who? but probably Bob Dyalan (and in the world where google has banned us from not knowing every.little.thing.till.date I didn’t waste time searching for it) said, “Don’t grow up, getting older is a trap”, he said it right. During my first year as a university student the first thing I knew was wikipedia isn’t my tutor anymore. My teacher famously said science is more complex than what wikipedia is, I didn’t have doubts. And not a little when Everytime I prepare for exams of my beloved subject staying up till 3 in the morning and then again waking up at 7 and still somehow sulk at it despite knowing all the answers. The world is a sophisticated high entropy(not going per thermodynamics) where every.little.thing.i.know isnt enough anymore. Wikipedia is replaced by Pubmed, medline and other sophisticated servers,the articles we have to use as reference to write any assignment most compulsorily be some published journals, and you need to be smart while answering your papers. Weren’t those old A for Apple days better by all means?
(note: the post was written as I again failed to do better in Shakin sir’s exam, in the subject I like most among other courses of mine, despite knowing all the answers and having enough time.. some thing never changes)
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