Stop... or my Mum Will Click

This post by the newly wed Spaceman Spiff (Congrats again - btw) got me pondering. 

You and I definitely fall into the definition of the Computer/Internet Era. Everything that works for us today is achieved by the push of a button and life without a computer is unfathomable. Our parents though were part of a different age but unfortunately ended up having to spend the prime portion of their professional lives in the Computer Era; this crossover wasn't smooth for many.    

For instance, Amma was and still is averse to technology like a rash to human skin. She and technology are like the North and South poles of a magnet - never on one side even if they wanted to be. This however does not necessarily mean that she works around the desktop at home. She did learn, albeit grudgingly to not only use basic packages that came under the standard installation bouquet but also a couple of specialized packages which helped her finish her Doctoral thesis; suffice to say she stumbled along the way a bit but learn she did and the hard way at that.

Learning to use a computer and mobile phone according to her was in a way harder than writing her doctoral dissertation which in turn meant that we used to be beckoned to 'See why it isn't working' and get our regular dose of laughter watching her experiment with technology. She now uses a high end smartphone which she claims doesn't text properly because ' she presses one letter and something completely different appears'. She also religiously charges the phone for 8 hours in the night and keeps tabs on us - ie her offspring via her Facebook page - so much for teaching her how to use it. The fact that she doesn't quite understand why people post funny cat videos and meme's on a daily basis is a completely different matter.   

When one usually advances along the hierarchical ladder - one is expected to take up diverse responsibilities. So was the case with Amma - being a professor meant that she had to account for more publications and presentations in her field of work. So she started spending time on Online Journals, E-libraries and Google Scholar which helped ease her work. This is what happens when I was helping with one of her papers.

1. Background: It is past 9 PM.

Amma: Can you check why this page is not opening on the browser. It is an E-library page and I have been trying to access the journals on this library for the past 20 minutes.

Before I could answer, she concludes: Maybe they're closed for the night.

The fact that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry summed up my reaction.


2. A heated discussion is on between the father and the mother one evening.

Amma: Are you sure I won't lose any data?

Appa : I`m positive - you don't lose data when you change a monitor.


In the end it is heartening to see her actually try and master things like Skype, chat applications and voice calling because she can now reach me at will despite being thousands of kilometers away without having to depend on someone to set it up for her. Even if it means that she forgets the time difference and wakes me up in the middle of a bitingly cold night to tell me the maid didn't turn up today.