The death of reunions?

Have you ever had the joyous feeling of meeting an old school colleague randomly on the street or reuniting with family after being away from home for a few months. I'm sure most of us have faced these situations. The joy and feelings are difficult to express in words. In a word, these events are called as reunions. The overwhelming emotions would occur because everytime there was a reunion, there would be tons of catching up to do and each person would indulge in narrating a string of exciting key incidents that happened. It was all so personal.

I however believe this feeling will soon be dead and the coming generations would not understand how it felt to have a reunion. The reason is the advancement of communication in todays world. Way back in our parents or probably grandparents time, the only way to keep in touch would be through letters or snail mail as we call it. Hence, frequency was very low and limited people had information of you whereabouts. Thus, reunions would be an overwhelming outburst of emotions and tears would flow profusely in most cases. There was no visual or verbal interaction. Then came in the telephoneand made it possible for people to listen to each other while away. Reduced the apprehension among close relatives and made it easier to reach out to more people. Reunions were slightly less emotional affairs.

Then came the big shift of cell phones/internet/email which made it possible for people in our generation to keep in touch with a wider circle of people costantly. Verbal interactions were becoming very common and visual interaction was catching on. However, the odd running into long lost friends was still exciting and fun.

Now, we have facebook, blackberry messenger, mobile internet et all. In short, we have instant dissemination of information visually and verbally. I have all the people i possible every knew on my facebook. They passively get to know whats happening in my life through my updates, picture uploads etc. My parents can see me on skype almost everyday and can get a feel of my life. I can see my home back in India and almost feel the vibe. I can update my travel details on the social media front on a real time basis, relationship status of single, complicated, engaged, married etc can all be communicated to all. So now, when I meet a friend after a really long time, there is very little catching up to do. Almost all major happening narrations are greeted with a I know response. Saw your pics facebook, heard from xyz, read on your post, you told me on gtalk etc are the most common responses.

The meaning of 'out of touch' has already taken a whole new meaning. There is no physical presence associated with that term anymore. It probably means you were in a place with no access to internet or cell phones. The current generation would never be able to experience that joy of a traditional reunion.

Infact, when I imagine going back home, there is almost no catching up to be done. I saw the same thing happen on a recent 'reunion' i observed. The reunion exchanges were a 'blink and you miss' affair.

I am not saying the progress is not good. It has indeed done wonderful things to help us grow on a commercial as well as personal front. It has enabled us to cope with emotional apprehension while being away from home for long periods. It has drastically reduced the amount of emotional stress people face these days. (The last one is debatable in case of long distance relationships i suppose). However, it has changed somethings forever. Long live reunions!

Music - The ultimate time machine

There is something about music. More often than not, it gets embedded into a part of our minds where we try to put all the important information in. It has happened so often that whenever i have my itunes dishing out tunes on random, some old song comes up and instantly i get transported to the moment i can associate with the song. The association is so strong that I can literally feel being there.

An example is the Jalpari song by the Pakistani band Jal. The moment I hear the song, i get transported to my trip with my best college buddies to Ladakh. I can see the valleys, mountains, streams and can literally feel the weather when i was there.

Sometimes I just wonder why cant we come up with a method to teach with music. With all the thinking that goes into innovative educational methods, we should be able to find a way to use music to drive home fundamentals. The bond that music creates is more often than not n everlasting one. I am not sure if this happens to all but I have experienced this almost always.

I understand that this may be too much for some people to digest and the thought might seem blasphemous to some. However, music is definitely the closest we can come to having a time machine. It creates a complex web of moments and melodies in our brains. It almost acts like a password to the window of the past.

Who turned the earth into a competition????!!!!

The tsunami and earthquake double whammy was a heart breaking sight for everyone around the world. I was amazed at the destruction and felt extremely humbled by the scenes. My heart goes out to all the Japanese people and may they have the courage to get through this.

Luckily, none of my Japanese friends had to suffer any personal grief due to this. However, thousands are still suffering as i type this.

The media coverage of the entire incident was quick and informative in the beginning. But as i continued to read the coverage, i was shocked to see how the world has turned into one big rat race. The rat race for economic superiority. The fact that millions are homeless and thousands are dead was only a reason for Japan to face 'difficulty' in getting its economy back to speed.

The first reactions were that the world markets are expected to crash. People seemed to be way more concerned about that than the fact that people were suffering. Reports were out stating that Japanese 'economy' would be greatly affected. Many other countries can be expected to surpass japanese economy. China can expect growth in exports to make up for the temporary shortage of japanese electronic components. Ipad2 might have difficulties in meeting demand as 3 of its key components were shipped from Japan.

Well yes, this news is important. However, is it also that important for us as a human race to keep the economic growth rate ticking. Cant we stop for a moment and make use of a pause button in our lives and actually show concern for the humans suffering in Japan? It seems like economic growth and development has become the ultimate goal of every nation. Each one wants to go one up on the other. So moments like these seem to be windows of opportunities to make the move rather than time to reflect and help rebuild.

This is where i sometimes fail to understand the concept of money. Money is something that has been created by us. But is the cost of money (in economic growth) more valuable than human lives. Who does this planet belong to? What are we here for? What is our ultimate goal? Where do we see ourselves in the future as a race?

Would love to hear your opinion on this.....

Guess who is back!!

Well.......i am getting back to blogging after a long long time.....just had to cos i had too many thoughts which were getting lost in the hard disk of my mind.....i decided its time to stop being lazy and put them all together.....

Well, i am now pursuing my MBA in Boston at Hult International Business School and am halfway through it......the last few months have been awesome and enlightening.....learning about business as much as i am learning about cultures.....internationally as well as indian cultures too....

It seems like a lifetime since i last wrote anything here.....got married since then....friends got married.....traveled around the world....survived terrorism bids on my city, earthquakes, tsunamis etc.....you name it and it all happened during these last few years.

So anyways.....here i am and now im back to make this blog my own.....with my views about everything....sometimes personal sometimes not....the rules are simple.....feel free to comment, appreciation, tear apart or jus put in a random comment of your own on these posts......jus dont spam it.....

so thats all for this one.....rest in next.....