My daughter and I were hanging out in the living room, playing with our phones after dinner. I took a break, drank a cup of black coffee, and had just sat down in front of my computer to write my two-week column when my daughter yelled, “Someone hacked my Facebook!” Confused, I asked her to check my account, and we I was disappointed to find that I had also been logged out!
We work together to try to decipher the identity of our common enemy. We also debated who the imagined culprit might be. I started calling our friends to check if their phones were working fine. Confusingly, the answer is no.
My daughter, who is the most resourceful of the two of us, called a police officer who lives in our society. He assured her it was not a hack but an international collapse. So we sat down, drank black coffee, and thought about how this column would be written and sent. This was when I planned to take an online course to hone my design skills. Que sera sera, whatever happens, happens…
on off
Well, the internet is on and off all the time, usually at the discretion of important people. People may recall that just before Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address, a key U.S. government website made a disappearing act. Is the end of the internet imminent? This is a question people often ask. Social media platform TikTok predicts that all of these technologies, including the internet, phones, television, and even the humble radio, may soon disappear. Lo and behold, about four million people looked on in despair.
Is the end of the internet imminent? Will there be a total global internet outage lasting several months? Will the operation of the Internet, telephones, television, radio and various navigation systems soon come to a standstill? People are asking these questions because a video on social media platform Tik Tok predicted the scenario and was viewed by more than 4 million people. Columbia University in the United States has been studying this possibility since 2021. Closer to home, the internet disappeared haphazardly in Manipur, Kashmir and during farmer protests.
As I sit and think about how I send stories, book cabs, watch my favorite serials, send and receive WhatsApp messages late at night and listen to classic songs from the golden age of Hindi cinema, I am reminded of a song by Sahir Ludhianvi: “Yeh dunia agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai.”
old world charm
Anyway, I’m not the kind of person who meditates for a long time. I suddenly thought that I didn’t have these wires and cables before, and I was quite happy.
The end of all this technology could mean a return to the good old world of the swinging ’70s. Taxi be damned, I walked from my home in Sector 19 to the Government Girls College in Sector 11, carrying jhola on my shoulders. My friend and classmate Harry Bains would walk there from her home in the 17th arrondissement and we were happy to keep going. We did it to stay healthy and avoid the noisy boys on the bus. Once we reach the university cafeteria, we reward ourselves with sweet cold milk.
Arrived at the university, another long walk, but with my boyfriend and a 30 paise coffee from the student center. People would go to the Tagore Theater and watch just two movies – Doctor Zhivago and Sholay – during a one-year journalism course.
In old world newspapers, the chief deputy editor presided over a horseshoe desk, and we would sit on either side and learn to edit copy coming from a teletype machine. All the while, we learned, laughed, and listened to the stories of legendary editors and their determination. The rotary machine kept spinning as the page makeup artist deposited chunks of molten metal into trays. Everyone will come to the office and no longer have to work from home. The Internet is certainly not the end of the game, but the beginning of a new one!
nirudutt@gmail.com