My First Encounter with Technology

Back in my childhood days the most technologically advanced gadget we had was a mechanical alarm clock. One could set the time one wanted to wake up and it would unfailingly ring the most infernal tone to make sure you did not miss your deadlines. The better and more expensive ones even had a snooze button that would allow you to steal a few more winks in bed. The black bakelite phone was a matter of pride in the neighbourhood. You could have one in your home only if your father was a government officer, or else there was a wait of five to ten years to get one; bribes or political connections could quicken the acquisition process to under a year. The wrist watch was a hand wound spring driven ornament that had to be attended to every morning by charging it, which meant twirling its tiny knob with some dexterity. The computer was a topic of childhood fantasies, an unseen device that could do your homework if only you could lay your hands on one.  

In those days of bliss, there came a technological disruption on my school campus. One of the teachers, known as Vasudevan Ji, got a digital watch for himself. Such watches were not available in India. Maybe he got one as a gift from a relative abroad, or just decided to squander away his three months’ salary in the grey market. But he did get one and what a sensation it caused in my boarding school campus of Netarhat, a faraway place in itself! The watch, as the whispers told us cost a whopping two thousand Rupees. Typical salary of a teacher would have been less than a thousand Rupees a month. But, Vasudevan Ji was clearly a gadget-lover of the times, or a nerd as one would describe such a person today. My wife doesn’t understand that my love for the latest iPad was schooled into me in childhood by such forward looking teachers; and it costs me just two weeks’ salary. Besides, an iPad also keeps time and sets alarms, same as Vasudevan Ji’s geeky watch. 

Well, the wildfire on the plateau of Netarhat also told us that the battery of the now famous wrist watch cost fifty-five Rupees and that it needed annual replacements! One could buy a new wrist watch for such an amount every year that would last a lifetime each. I am sure Vasudevan Ji must have soon realised that the watch that drained its battery in a year was also an annual drain on his meagre salary. All salaries were meagre those days. That just a few years later such watches could be purchased on the streets for fifty Rupees apiece must have come as a bigger shock to him. But, that technology beats you every time and makes your once-great possessions worthless in no time is a realisation that has dawned on the mankind only recently. 

Well, there were more surprises in store for us. During the annual athletics contest of the school, where teachers were the timekeepers in races, Vasudevan Ji decided that he would not use the stop watch from the physics lab. His watch had a timer too and it was accurate to a hundredth of a second. So, in the hundred metres sprint, when other timekeepers gave times of 13.4 and 11.8 seconds, Vasudevan Ji took our breath away with the second place of decimal, 12.69 seconds!  

Then we were told that the magical device on his wrist even had a light that could illuminate the watch face in total darkness. In an evening function, such as a play or a presentation on the epidiascope (more about that device, later), one would be lucky to find a seat next to Vasudevan Ji. One would ask, “What time is it now, Shriman Ji?” and he would flick his wrist, press a special button and say, “Twenty thirty-five twenty-two.” Well, we then also learnt that hours on the watch went beyond twelve and right up to twenty-four. Shriman Ji (we addressed our teacher thus) would oblige every time one asked the time even though each flash of light cost him probably an hour of battery life and brought the prospect of spending fifty-five Rupees closer. 

The digital watch of the early seventies was a bigger cultural and technological leap for me and my friends that those regularly peddled by Apple, Samsung, Tesla or Sony. It was pathbreaking.

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