Of This and That

When my 11 years old daughter was doing her English letter writing homework, I got to explaining to her that we used to write inland letters (recall those 35 paise blue papers , which later became 50 paise and were probably around 75 paise or Rs 1 when I eventually stopped using them) and that it used to typically take 3-4 days for it to reach its destination. The receiving person may or may not reply immediately, so it was easily at least 10-15 days or even a month before we would get to hear from the other side. She asked innocently “Papa, why didn’t you just send them an email or if it was urgent why not just call them on their mobile phone?” It is difficult for my daughter to imagine a life without these technologies and devices and I could not help but smile. It also took me back many many years and comparisons with our lives today just started to happen. In comparison to today, those days seem so simple and relaxed. I capture here a few of those thoughts. Inland letters

Date 14 th May. Time 7.45 pm. My reliance broadband connection stopped working suddenly. This had happened multiple times in the last few days, so finally I decided to call the Reliance Help desk. I dialed their helpline number and went through the painfully long IVR messages. IVR: Welcome to Reliance Broadnet Internet services. To continue in English… blah… blah… I picked the English option. IVR: Please dial your subscriber ID or blah… blah… and press # I did IVR: In case of issues with your broadband connection press 1 I did IVR: In case you’re broadband connection is not working press 1 What? I just pressed 1 already for it. But it is an IVR system. Cannot argue. So I pressed 1 again. IVR: All our customer service representatives are busy attending other calls. Someone will attend to you shortly. Note that you may be serviced in Hindi also . Hindi? Why? Why did you ask for my language of preference then? Anyway, I wait for maybe about 30-40 seconds with the mu