This weekend I was casually reading through a technical manual. A lazy Saturday morning sitting on my sofa, legs stretched with few pages of manual in my hand. I was doing this just to convince myself that I was not wasting my weekends completely!! Whatever!! It was relaxing and nice. Amma went out to buy vegetables. On her way back she went to a neighbors place. She brought along with her our neighbors five year old grand daughter. She was getting bored at her place so she came along with amma. As she entered she noticed that I was reading something.
With a 5 year old's curiosity she asked me "Are you doing homework"? I replied "Hmmm....I am reading a technical manual". Then suddenly something flashed and I said "Yes I am doing my Homework". (I was indeed doing my homework for the weekend :) ) She quickly replied" I have to finish my drawing homework". She ran back to her place and got a sketch pen set and a drawing book. She sat next to me and started drawing. I recollected my nursery days. I was my drawing teachers nightmare. I was really hopeless at that. Even today i remember the plant I had drawn with a flower and leaves. The leaves were looking more beautiful than the flower I had drawn (relatively of course!!).
As she started drawing I started to ask her questions and give my own stupid answers. “Are you drawing a sun? Fill it with red......Red looks very good " etc.....( The drawing genius giving his golden tips to a five year old lol). She patiently listened to all my non sense. After a while I got back to my Tech manual (Thank god I did that!!). For a 5 year old she was remarkably quiet. Once I got into that manual I was into my own world. After twenty odd minutes she got up. She said "I finished my homework". I just took the drawing sheet from her and started to figure out what she had drawn. For a five year old she had done very well. There was much more than a Red colored rising sun!!
I asked her to explain what she had drawn. She started "Sun is shining so it is a day. There is an ice cream trolley. A boy has bought two ice creams and he is carrying one in each hands. There is a girl who is playing with
A heart shaped balloon (was that her heart!). The boy is eating one ice cream and carrying the other ice cream for the girl playing with the balloon!!!!!!!” She imagined and captured so much in twenty odd minutes!!! All I had managed was five pages of my technical Manual!
Imagination has nothing to do with the age or experience. We have all heard about this and may even believe in it. When someone actually demonstrates this we will be dumbstruck!! I learnt one real good lesson for life!! Anyone can teach us a lesson. It is up to us to learn from them!
Sayonara :)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
SMS FROM APPA
The age old generation gap always persists. I always felt my appa never made use of the technology properly. On the contrary he always felt that so called cutting edge technologies are spoiling the so called discipline and the order in today’s youth.
Let me come straight into the topic of discussion. These days all of us have cell phones. Even though to start with he was opposing the usage of cell phones as unnecessary commodity, today even if he forgets to wear his watch he always carries his cell phone. Both of us use cell phones.
The difference in opinion is with respect to its usage. He always thinks it is basically a phone and should always be used to call. I believe in optimal usage. If something can be conveyed in few words then i type an SMS and send only otherwise
i call. Most of us send and receive these text messages. All are familiar with the SMS lingo. Making the shortest word even shorter cutting off the vowels lol rotfl brb etc etc etc. A prank SMS from one of my friend had almost convinced my appa that his son was committed. It almost took two minutes of scrolling for me to show that it was a prank forward with no real emotions. The inherent ambiguity in the SMS lingo due to the optimal usage of letters made him feel it was ridiculously meaningless and far more confusing. I agree to this point because even I have got confused few times. This does not mean it is completely useless.
A few months back he got promoted as a regional manager and his responsibilities increased. From a single branch to over a hundred branches. He was finding it difficult to communicate with all the branch heads calling them up individually. Many a times the same message is conveyed to all of them. He discussed this problem with one of his peers and was a little surprised by his answer. He said he sends an SMS to all of his subordinate managers!
For the very first time he came to me asking help regarding SMS!! I soon recognized the best option as to create a list and forwarding it to the list. Big deal! We have been doing this for ages now sending forwards to a list! For him it was a pleasant surprise for the first time something related to SMS. I recollected the days when he used to teach me how to write letters. He was learning this new thing with great enthusiasm.
This showed me that he was just a twenty three year old father (Not a twenty three year old's father!!!) :). Appa did not stop at this and accept the solution. He called at least ten folks in the list and confirmed that message was indeed delivered to them!! Finally after all the confirmations he was happy with the solution.
A few days passed. Amma got an insurance renewal reminder post. She called up appa regarding this matter since the reminder was addressed to his name and he was out of town. A few minutes later I saw appas number on my cell phone. At the first glance I thought he was calling me for some reason and pressed the call receiving key. To my shock it was not a call it was an SMS!!! It said:
"Bike insurance policy to be renewed immediately with united India insurance"
When i first read this i could not stop laughing for 2 minutes lol! As i read it again and again i realized how crisp, clear and precise the message was! This was my appas style of messaging. I have got many romantic forwards, hilarious jokes, philosophical ones too but this message from appa will surely remain as one of the most liked message of mine. We tend to laugh at their formal ways of dealing with things and forget their level of maturity in communicating things. In the same way they tend to misunderstand the new technologies dismissing them as rubbish and waste of time. Neither of us is completely right nor completely wrong. As time progresses the right blend of innovations coupled with good old values will definitely help us making the world a much better place.
Leaving you at this note :).
Keerthy
Let me come straight into the topic of discussion. These days all of us have cell phones. Even though to start with he was opposing the usage of cell phones as unnecessary commodity, today even if he forgets to wear his watch he always carries his cell phone. Both of us use cell phones.
The difference in opinion is with respect to its usage. He always thinks it is basically a phone and should always be used to call. I believe in optimal usage. If something can be conveyed in few words then i type an SMS and send only otherwise
i call. Most of us send and receive these text messages. All are familiar with the SMS lingo. Making the shortest word even shorter cutting off the vowels lol rotfl brb etc etc etc. A prank SMS from one of my friend had almost convinced my appa that his son was committed. It almost took two minutes of scrolling for me to show that it was a prank forward with no real emotions. The inherent ambiguity in the SMS lingo due to the optimal usage of letters made him feel it was ridiculously meaningless and far more confusing. I agree to this point because even I have got confused few times. This does not mean it is completely useless.
A few months back he got promoted as a regional manager and his responsibilities increased. From a single branch to over a hundred branches. He was finding it difficult to communicate with all the branch heads calling them up individually. Many a times the same message is conveyed to all of them. He discussed this problem with one of his peers and was a little surprised by his answer. He said he sends an SMS to all of his subordinate managers!
For the very first time he came to me asking help regarding SMS!! I soon recognized the best option as to create a list and forwarding it to the list. Big deal! We have been doing this for ages now sending forwards to a list! For him it was a pleasant surprise for the first time something related to SMS. I recollected the days when he used to teach me how to write letters. He was learning this new thing with great enthusiasm.
This showed me that he was just a twenty three year old father (Not a twenty three year old's father!!!) :). Appa did not stop at this and accept the solution. He called at least ten folks in the list and confirmed that message was indeed delivered to them!! Finally after all the confirmations he was happy with the solution.
A few days passed. Amma got an insurance renewal reminder post. She called up appa regarding this matter since the reminder was addressed to his name and he was out of town. A few minutes later I saw appas number on my cell phone. At the first glance I thought he was calling me for some reason and pressed the call receiving key. To my shock it was not a call it was an SMS!!! It said:
"Bike insurance policy to be renewed immediately with united India insurance"
When i first read this i could not stop laughing for 2 minutes lol! As i read it again and again i realized how crisp, clear and precise the message was! This was my appas style of messaging. I have got many romantic forwards, hilarious jokes, philosophical ones too but this message from appa will surely remain as one of the most liked message of mine. We tend to laugh at their formal ways of dealing with things and forget their level of maturity in communicating things. In the same way they tend to misunderstand the new technologies dismissing them as rubbish and waste of time. Neither of us is completely right nor completely wrong. As time progresses the right blend of innovations coupled with good old values will definitely help us making the world a much better place.
Leaving you at this note :).
Keerthy
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