The Exclusive Time Zone

"You live in a void, a time-zone an era that never existed. It's somewhere between today- tech-savvy, fast moving and yesterday- the time without this technology." 


Since I heard this evaluation of where I exist, I can't  help but keep playing the conversation in my head. Each time, I feel a bit more proud of it than before. Though this was supposed to be a reprimand, I can't help but take it as a compliment. I live in a exclusive time-zone. It is super-cool.

I was a child in the 80's. I knew a world without much of its advancements. A teenager in the 90's, the advancement started. I stared at them wide-eyed, and saw them enter my life so easily. I adapted I learned. An adult in the new millennium, advanced with all the mind-blowing advancements, yet yearning for the time when there was no advancement.

Putting it very-very simply. I know how to use a laptop/desktop/whatever-top, I write and send emails, check Facebook and all that jazz. Yet my emails are never what my letters used to be. Getting one, does not make me as happy as tearing open an envelope and reading a letter over and over again.

I maintain a blog, but what I write here, is not even close to what I wrote to my 'Dear diary'. Not even close.

I can type fairly well, but I can write faster. Pen and paper make the words flow. They are my magic. Writing on bits of scraps is more fulfilling than complete, saved word docs.

I read a lot online, it is never as good as reading from a book or a page. Books are beautiful. The print, the paper and the way it ruffles, that's what makes reading a pleasure. Turning pages in real has its own charm, you flow with the story, it could be a matter of life or death. Clicking next, does not do that to me.

An old book is more exciting. So many must have gone through these, now yellow, pages. They must have experienced all kinds of emotions and created mental images of the characters. When you pick up the book after years, you join this secret club. You take the same journey and you come out, feeling a little sad that it is over a bit too soon.

I am not too sure, if x number of page views give you a similar feeling. Maybe they do, and I am yet to feel them. Numbers, however are the anti-thesis of words. They are dead, cold, sometimes harsh. They tell the truth, rather they lash it out in your face.

This does not imply that I hate technology, or I am reluctant to embrace it. The reluctance comes in when I have to replace one with the other.

I don't want to. In my time zone or era, black and white co-exists with colour. Carriages and cars ply on  the same road. The writing pad and the iPad lie side-by-side. Google loads, while I rummage through a fat, dusty encyclopedia.

Okay, I am a hopeless romantic. I do wish that people talk, the way they did in Pride and Prejudice, and in my era they do. Some of you probably co-exist with me.

Hello! I think it's you, hiding behind an old, thumbed version of, lets see, a Dickens?