TELLSTOY

Mumbai, that throbbing, pulsating metropolis, which doesn’t pause, doesn’t stop.  The commercial capital, they call it.  I was in Crawford market, jewellery shopping.  The shops here are pressed against each other.  Each shop keeper can look over into the others’ shop and overhear the prices quoted. 

As I passed from shop to shop, and paused in front of the shiny, glitzy wares, not a shop-keeper looked up.  This was odd.  The customer was, till recently, the most valuable commodity in Mumbai.   When did Mumbai change so much?  Did I not look like a serious customer?  Wasn’t I showing enough interest?  But this is just like me….. thinking, the fault lies with me!  And then it dawned upon me.  It was the same thing which we see in trains and buses, the same thing which professors see in their classes, the same thing which bosses see with their employees, the same thing I saw the shop keepers engrossed in.  Heads bent over their chests, earphones plugged into their ears, eyes poring over their phones.  The flickering screens throwing up images, addicting, pulling, not letting go.  The mobile phones we hold in our hands, our own leashes.  We hold the leash but we can’t let it go.  We move on very fast to the next video, tightening the leash. 

But as this scenario plays out in our present, it takes me many millennia back.  Our planet is strewn with archeoastronomy wonders which have survived for centuries.  The great pyramids of Egypt, the ancient temples of India, Mexico’s Chichen Itza, the Stonehenge in England, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and many more sites are all aligned to the stars.  Ancient man had the biggest screen to entertain himself.  His head was not bent to his chest, it was looking up at the sky.  Every night, it was a new episode.  Every morning it was a new show.  And he was not just watching on the side-lines.  He was an active participant in the show.  He had a thinking mind, a creative mind, which decided to pay homage to this great galactical show by creating structures which would honor the stars.  No wonder, we call our biggest entertainers “Stars” today.   And when we look up to them, they achieve “Stardom”.

This need to entertain our mind is deeply ingrained in us.  But whether the current scenario of screen addiction, leads us down a creative path or just numbs our minds, only time will tell.