Gods Must Be Crazy and the iPhone

I watched Gods Must be Crazy for the second time some time back. I found it hilarious - I guess I had forgotten most of the movie. As I was watching the movie, it dawned upon me that the iPhone was the coke bottle in my relatively sedate life.

I had subscribed to the mobile phone pretty late in life. But I had to acknowledge that it was useful - now I could sms people when I was going to be late. You see I have never been able to rid myself of this Indian concept of time - which is probably better viewed as a dynamic flow of life in the vein of the "Main Samay Hoon...." prologue that preceded every episode of Mahabharat on Sunday mornings. To bring it down to mere hours and minutes would be profane and worrying about keeping time would almost be vulgar. Anyways, the gist is - I was never punctual. So the mobile phone to me was a boon - I could call the people who were invariably waiting for me, apologise profusely, ask them to commence whatever it is they were doing - all as I was locking up my front door. I could then enjoy the next 45 min of my journey to the destination with relatively less guilt than otherwise.


But the smart phone - ah, the smart phone is indeed my coke bottle. I have come to the conclusion that much like the coke bottle the smart phone seduces one into believing that we need it. But do we really?  Perhaps its just the luddite in me - but do we really need to get excited that we can now read our emails on the can? My husband and son huddled together excitedly one evening to wax lyrical about the IOS5 - and they shook their head condescendingly when I failed to get excited over the new noticification centre or when I did not gush like a teenager about the Reminders feature.  I eventually did agree that the enhancements made on the IOS5 could prove to be useful - possibly the reminders feature, the changes with camera function, the photo cropping, I guess the newsstand is kind of cute.  The point though is that now that I am aware of these things, I feel compelled to use it.  Whereas my life was perfectly alright before this without these features. 


Take the camera function.  Yes, it is so lovely to have a camera handy at any time. Now you can capture all the fantastic moments of your life.  So you feel compelled to snap ridiculous moments like baby's first snot pool or my kid in school, playground, living room, kitchen, bathroom, eating, sleeping, nodding, kicking, running, shouting, crying .... I think you catch the drift.  And then the pictures of one's lunch, dinner, breakfast. The utter surfeit of photos have totally made good, interesting photos rare.  One wonders if every moment of life is captured, would there be any sense of nostalgia in flipping through photographs to run down memory lane.  That bitter sweet feeling of a distant memory has got to do equally with the images that are absent as much as the images that have been captured for eternity. 


Developments in technology have been fabulous - but for any invention or discovery it is its impact on our lives that would define the significance of the development. Take the invention of the wheel - that had far reaching ramifactions on agriculture, industry, warfare and many more areas (as well as being a contributory factor to the prevailing obesity in our society).  Whereas the smart phone gave us Angry Birds. The compressing of both time and space brought about by such smart devices should technically leave us with more time to do things that matter, the so-called "meaningful things".  But what do we fill all that time up with? Nonsense mostly.  Be it the information overload on television through absolutely unnecessary 24-hr news channels that make a mockery of breaking news through their miniscule minute-by-minute updates or the inane reality shows - there is one, I believe, which takes viewers through 30 rivetting minutes of peoples' disgusting obsessions like eating paper.  We talk less, read less, think less - yet feel more overwhelmed by things around us and the pace at which its happening.

So I have decided that just like Xi, I am going to fling my iPhone off the edge of the world - just as soon I as I have figured out where it is with my  'Google Maps for iphone'.

Sent from my iphone.

My Son

This year so much of my thoughts about my son have been framed by numbers- what is his potential T-score, what are marks he can realistically aim for? What schools can he realistically attempt to apply to? Where is he going to stand vis-à-vis his peers in this mother of all placement tests? How would he deal with it if he could only be admitted a school which is considered to be less than mediocre? How would I deal with it?


In the midst of all this is a 12 year old who is trying to cope with this year and balance the expectations around him with his own sense of some of his limitations. When I sit back and look at him – I notice there is a young individual being created with so many more shades than a T-score can define. I need to remind myself to take some time off my obsession with the PSLE circus, and get to know my son. This morning he showed me an email I had sent him when he was 8, titled “10 Reasons why I love D”. I had forgotten I had sent him that email. He was able to recite a few of those reasons from memory, as we waited for the file to download. He remembered the context of all the incidents I had described in that email. It was so wonderful – that he remembered and that he cherished that memory. Do I want his memory of this year to be his mother’s obsession with DSA, PSLE, T-Score and feverish reminders to read the questions carefully, check your answers, mind the time, try and remember the vocabulary, watch out for spelling else 2 marks would be wasted?

I would want him to know that even in the midst of this mayhem, I watch with amazement my little boy grow up into a wonderful human being. I marvel at how hard he tries and how much he tries to learn. Although, I am afraid at times when I look ahead and see a long journey and wonder if he has it in him to stay the course – I need to look back and marvel at how far we have travelled.

So, here’s what I see, when I just sit back and look at this lovely 12-yr old.

He has long eye lashes and the most beautiful eyes imaginable. When he smiles, those eyes light up and a wonderful sense of calm suffuses your being.

He has a guffawing laugh at times. Lately, that laugh explodes out of him when I make funny wordplay, or launch into mock agitation or mock lectures or when I come up with quirky full forms for computer related acronyms he is always talking to me about. He is discerning though – he will dismiss my less impressive attempts and will clearly let me know I was being merely juvenile.

He is caring. His mother works. So when he calls, he always asks, “Are you free to talk now?” It blows my mind and warms my heart, that he could be so generous as not to put himself at the centre of my universe. When ‘Aunty’ has had to wait for him, if he had been unable to get a message across to her that was going to be late, he always apologises to her. He feels sorry she had to wait for him.

He is mature. When there are times I comment on the fact that Aunty spends far too much time on the mobile phone, he chides me gently – “She has a family and she is away from them, you know”

He tries hard at things to make me happy. Maths papers, English compositions, Science questions are not really his favourite ways to spend his time. But he does so, to study – because I ask him to do so.

He WILL NOT do things that don’t make sense to him. No matter who tries to persuade him. He is the child who asked me, “How is it important to me in life to be able to ride a bicycle?”

He reads obsessively. Really. Notices on any noticeboard, any flyer or circular, any piece of newspaper howsoever obtained. The printed word fascinates him.

He reads Digital Life, a supplement to the Straits Times religiously. He has been doing so ever since they introduced the supplement. A friend once had a problem with the Windows 7 operating system. He solved his friend’s problem – much like a tech support personnel over the phone, while sitting at the dining table. When I marveled at his ability to do so, he answered matter of factly, “Actually Digital Life had a list of 100 common problems with Windows 7, when it was introduced. I remembered this problem from the list.” “You remember all 100 common problems,” I asked him excitedly. “Are you mad?” he exclaimed. “Of course not!” Made me wonder, which one of us was the adult.

He is infuriating. Every so often, he tries to push the envelope. That extra hour on the computer without permission, grumpy attitude, rude answers, doors slammed shut. He wants to remind us, beatific smile notwithstanding, he is at the cusp of adolescence. If I say things one time too many, he says he finds it annoying. Yet, very often things are such that I have to repeat them more than once to get him to do them. He is polite enough, though, to hesitate a little, before declaring that he finds my ways annoy him at times. Again I am astounded by the maturity this not yet 12-year old exhibits, to understand the difference between finding a person’s behavior annoying and the person himself annoying. I have resolved to change - and allow him to make his own mistakes. I hope he is understanding with me as I attempt to change.

He loves music. He refers songs to us and exhorts us to download clean/radio edits of songs with unsuitable lyrics. When he a heard a song on his friend’s MP3 player, he exclaimed “Oooh! I love that song!” with such fervor, it shocked me for a moment that he should so love something that I had not introduced to him. He is beginning to be a brand new person, all of his own making.

He loves a good argument. He has to have the last word in, but acknowledges quickly when he has been beaten.

His world lights up when talks about anything technology related. He says that sometimes he dreams that he was developed a super operating system and that he is launching it to an audience – a la Steve Jobs. He is going to found a company, he says. It will manufacture hardware as well develop software. Sometimes, I am tempted to say – that is too wide and vague a vision, D. But I hold myself back – at least he has one.

And that is what will drive him. Yes, he may take a more scenic route to that destination. And I am so glad he chooses to let me ride along with him.

How to work around difficult words

So this was a conversation I had with my daughter as we passed by a cute neon sign for a foot refloxology centre.

D: "So Amma, Appa likes to go for footsology, right?"

Me: "Foot - re- flex-o-logy"

D: ya, right - footrexology?

Me: Re-flexology

D: Tch ... ya - relaxogy, right?"

Me - reflex - o - logy

D: Appa likes to have his feet massaged, right?

:-)

.

Salwar Kameez

It was worse than yesterday.

Today she wore her black corduroy pants, which billowed slightly at the thighs, with an over-sized pink T-shirt, that was plain but had a dark blue stripe, about an inch and half wide, running down from the left shoulder. She remembered having begged Amma to talk to Appa about buying those pants.

“They are all going to trek up the hill, behind our college,” she said referring to her new found friends at a junior college in India, where she studied for six glorious months. “Amma, I can’t wear my salwar kameez. Everybody will be in jeans!”
That was before she was awarded the scholarship for Junior College studies in Singapore. Yesterday, she had worn her salwar kameez; a long sleeved, shapeless tunic, that stopped above her knees and cotton pants that were slightly baggy at the hips and thighs and narrowed at the ankles. She had left the scarf at the hostel, even though she knew her mother would not approve of her wearing the salwaar kameez without the scarf draped across her shoulders.

She walked into the main hall at the Junior College in Singapore, where she had started JC1, four days into the school year. She had only set about getting a passport when she got the letter, in early December, informing her about the scholarship. Orientation was in full swing. It seemed to her she had walked into mayhem – there were girls in dark blue pinafores, light blue pinafores, boys in all white, white and dark blue pants, some with military-like buttons on their school uniform.

She should have easily disappeared into this disorder; shrugging dramatically to explain her attire as “On scholarship from India. Nobody told me to pack my secondary school uniform!” But cultivated arrogance was something she could not master, even many years later when she became the Country Head for a leading FMCG in Singapore. She felt as if the orange and green salwar kameez made her stand out, like how they made Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh or other prominent leaders stand out in the huge billboards they put up before the elections, while the rest of the party workers formed the background. It felt like she could not go anywhere without being stared at. She did not know how she participated in all the activities that required her participation, but she did not flinch from any one of them. The school was awash with girlish giggles and boyish guffaws; everybody, it seemed to her, was laughing at her.

She wore the ill-fitting corduroy pants, T-shirts and the white sneakers today, in an attempt to blend in. So innocent was she, that she was not even aware of the fashion faux pas the fabric of her pants represented. She had only worn the pants on that one day when they had trekked up the small hill behind Fergusson College and quite forgotten how she had longed for her salwar kameez that day. Tears welled in her eyes, as she kept tugging at the T-shirt which already was un-fashionably hanging over the billowing pants, around mid-thigh.

She rushed to the computer room at her hostel after dinner. She had not felt like eating the vegetarian fare prepared for her by the bewildered caterer at the hostel. The caterer had thrown a fit when informed he had to innovate to provide vegetarian meals for the three Indian students - “I am not paid enough to create magic!” he had probably screamed in Cantonese. Many years later she was able to distinguish between the sounds of Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew and Mandarin. That was when she had also learned to appreciate kai lan cooked the Chinese way, with garlic. Today, she just felt she would choke on the uncooked leaves and pushed the plate away when she found it had been cooked with garlic.

She was going to IM her parents, who had arranged to go to a neighbour’s house as they had a computer. But it was arranged they had to keep the interaction to minimum, the internet access was on a dial-up modem and the neighbour was conscious about his telephone bills. The conversation was a variation of their unsynchronized phone conversations, where they both stared to talk at the same time and then stopped simultaneously to allow the other party to speak.

Throughout the session, she reassured them that she was doing fine and was adjusting well, even though it had only been 2 days.

“It’s really great. There is so much happening. I am so excited,” she typed.

“Of course, I miss you guys”, followed in the next box, as her insides suddenly coiled.

“But we have this orientation thing, were there are a lot of activities. Nothing like anything I have experienced in India.”

“I feel great, Amma. Thanks for having the open mind to allow me this experience.”

She stayed back in the computer room, after they had signed off their goodbyes. The screen showed the record of their conversation. She read through the session, tears flowed freely now.

“I lied, Amma”, she typed. “I don’t feel great. I feel like curling up and crying.”

She clicked cancel and put her head down on the keyboard.

Take a Hike

I recently got ticked off for saying someone liked to go for hikes. It was an innocent comment, in admiration of an active couple, who in their 60s are still into hiking and trekking, activities which they have enjoyed since their youth.

But my usage of the word 'hiking' elicited a snort-smirk combo of such gargantuan proportions, that the original intent of the comment was totally hijacked.

Apparently hike is a pretentious way of saying "walking through the woods".

The dictionary defines hike as "a long walk in the country". So presumably it is an acceptable word to define that activity. Much as swim is an acceptable word to describe an activity which is to "move the body through water by using arms, legs etc." and walk is an acceptable word to describe the activity which is to "move by putting forward each foot in turn".

But apparently somewhere through evolution hike has earned some sort of snob appeal. Of course, where there is snob appeal, there must be the anti-snobbery brigade - ridding the world of the scourge of vainglory by eliminating the use of reprehensible words such as hike and trek. A fatwa has to be issued against both people who enjoy this immodest activity and those who defile the sanctity of unaffected conversation by uttering words such as hike and trek. (As with any religious edict, intent, context or an understanding of the character of the offender are no mitigation.)


We live in a world where the hip quotient is revered as much as anything else in defining our choice of clothes, vocation, holiday destination, leisure activities - pretty much in every sphere of our life. And fads and fashions, as with physics, follow the newtonian law that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So you also have the proliferation of the anti-hip.

The proponents of both views are in essence similar - they think they are uber-cool for either embracing a trend or totally holding themselves above such trends. In expressing his disgust at the usage of the word hike, presumably due to the implied hip quotient of the activity and thereby the perceived pretentiousness of people who engage in these activities - my friend proved himself to be as totally consumed by the very affectation that he sought to decry as indeed the self-proclaimed hiking aficionados. To me - it seemed like they were 2 sides of the same coin.

So here's the deal. 'To hike' is a perfectly acceptable verb to describe the activity of walking through wilderness. Yes, there may be people who emphasise the accoutrements of the activity and thereby appear pretentious. But there are people who genuinely enjoy the activity. The existence of the former should not necessarily tarnish the character of the latter. Much as deifying trends is annoying over zealous vilifying is equally annoying.

Perhaps, the next time someone snorts at an innocent statement, I will just ask them to take a hike.

The Unimpressed

"Hey, your school has been mentioned in the newspaper," I shouted to my son. I showed him the paragraph where the principal mentioned that XYZ school uses motivational speeches and Homework Clubs to help children deal with exam stress.

My 10-yr old literally dived into the paper to read the article but when he emerged from the papers he wore a patently unimpressed expression.

"Well," he said shrugging his shoulders, " motivational speeches just means random babbling by the Principal on assorted topics. Homework Clubs? They are no fun .... they are menial!"

Thank you very much, young man, for sharing your views.

Credit Card

Bombarded with yet another long list of items that she wished to buy, I decided it was time to teach my 7 yr old daughter some basic lessons on personal finance. I was trying to explain to her that there is only finite supply of money we have access to, which means we need to save and therefore delay gratification. Made for an extremely interesting conversation:

Mom : If you had $5on Monday and you spent the $5 on Monday on menthos, markers, keychains, stickers and everything that you wanted, how many dollars do you have left?

D: Zero dollars.

Mom : What if you need to buy an exercise book on Tuesday? You have no money left.

D: You can give me the money.

Mom : But I can only give you $5 every week - and I have already given that to you. So I have no more money left.

D: Appa can give me. I saw he had many $5 notes in his wallet.

Mom : O! But all Appa's $5 will be gone when he buys petrol on Monday. Then he will have no $5 to give you.

D: (silence)

Mom : You will have no exercise book then. So do you think it was correct to spend $5 on Monday on things that you did not need?

D: But I like menthos and keychains.

Mom: But you will have no exercise book and teacher won't like that. But if you only spent $1 on Monday, how much you have left?

D: Four dollars

Mom: Yes - then you can buy your exercise book on tuesday, right?

D: It's ok Amma - if I have no dollars, the Bank can give me the money!!!!!

The concept of having to have money in bank first before you can withdraw from the bank was bewildering to her.

We headed to the supermarket after this conversation, to buy things for her birthday.

We piled our cart with things for loot bags, pizza, and her birthday gift. As we approached the cashier, she asked me "Amma, how much money do you have?" "$40, I think." She was silent, but her eyes ran over all the things in the cart, and she looked a little worried. As the cashier rang in the purchases, her eyes were peeled on the little rectangle that rose above the register to indicate the total cost. She got shifty once the numbers raced past $40 and let out a soft "Whoa" when the green numbers finally said "$140.40."

I could almost hear the silent prayer she uttered while I rummaged through my wallet in search of my credit card. Her eyes lit up when she saw that magical piece of plastic that could instantly wipe away the deficit of currency notes. There was a spring in her step as she helped me carry the purchases to the car.

On the way back, as is her habit, she recounted everything we did at the supermarket. She rounded up her re-cap with, "And Amma ,the cashier was so kind, because she let you use your credit card." I could already hear soft admiration in her voice as she uttered the words credit card.

I tried explaining to her that I still need to pay for the purchases. I explained that at the end of the month I instructed my Bank to pay the credit card company all the money spent over the month.

Her eyes widened, "See Amma, I told you - if you don't have the money - its ok - Just Ask The Bank to Pay!" (I am sure she added a 'Stupid' - at the end of the sentence in her head.) Exasperated at the circularity of the conversation, I tried again to clarify. "But I have to save money and put some money in the Bank, before I can ask the Bank to pay for my credit card. If I spend all my money, and have no money in the Bank - I will not be able to pay my credit card bill, sweetie!"

"It's simple," she exclaimed triumphantly. "Just put your credit card into the bank. When there is no money .... ta da Credit Card."

End of Lesson One.