It’s an idiot, indeed!

***It’s a warmly lit up room, nice and cozy, a couple’s paradise. If you are imagining fireworks and sparks flying all around, you bloody hit the nail on the head. Yes, there are fireworks, there are the sparks...but of a different kind altogether. The sparks are flying out from the wife’s head. She’s talking to her husband, who is pretty engrossed. Not in the conversation, mind you, but giving utterly romantic looks to the TV, that’s playing some crappy movie. She mutters a few curses under her breath, a few of the sparks fly out straight at the husband, but he’s too busy to notice. He’s under the seductive spell of the TV.***

They say technology brings us closer. I say, bullshit. There’s a gathering, a get-together, and all you get to see is people booking their corners and gazing into their phones and tablets like it’s a crystal ball. If the phones begin their protest and go on a hunger strike, we feed them with chargers and let the idiot box take charge of the situation.

Since when did conversations with people become interesting, huh? If the television bores you to your marrow, you always have the option of turning it off, but when people begin pouring out their heartfelt feelings, are you left with any other option but to cock your head awkwardly and listen? No, no! You HAVE to listen. It’s such a pain, isn’t it, when people close to you think you’re worthy enough to share their most intimate feelings with? Oh, isn’t the television so bloody attractive that you’d ditch a crowd that’s come to celebrate your birthday and dive into the beautiful world of mindless stories and garishly made-up women? Absolutely!

And when the climax of the same crappy movie that you’ve watched a gazillion times is just about to begin, wouldn’t you just wring the necks of people who are chattering endlessly? Oh only if murder wasn’t a crime! Yes, as predicted ages ago, technology has completely taken over human emotions. Conversations and addas over tea and piping hot pakodas are a thing of the past. We do chat, but only on WeChat. Dinner time is now monopolised by the oh-so-fake drama of the so-called reality shows, and we, well, we just gobble it up like it’s our staple food. Dinners and drinks are only complete in the presence of the ‘saas-bahus’.

It’s called an idiot box for a reason. Unfortunately, like it happens in the real world outside the four walls of our homes, it’s the idiots who rule, and the sane ones who work their asses off!