Computer Games

With enough reasonable respect, reverence and a balanced tone, I summoned up courage to politely interrupt and ask a kid, what he was playing, when I stood beside him, watched the monitor, and the kid, twisting and turning around in that chair, shaking his head in all directions, quite unawares, while all his attention was simply swallowed by that gadget, the mouse, or whatever.

I felt amply rewarded when he chose to give me a very brief reply instead of that stock reply “don’t disturb”. ‘Uncle,’ he sermonized, ‘don’t bother to get to know what it is, your age is never going to allow you to get a feel of these kinds of complex fast games on the computer. I am maneuvering lots of hurdles, challenges and its sorts to reach a goal, and with as many points as possible,,,’

‘Okay, okay,’ I said, and simply attempted to grasp by watching the monitor. True, (I felt with a chuckle within myself) there were many complex choices, hurdles, etc in that game. I soon got lost into my own thoughts… did I miss something in life? Is it too late to have a feel of this type of games? That kid’s parent had gleefully announced that this was prescribed to improve a child’s creative abilities, quick-response-potential etc, and it is therefore that he invested into a PC and rushed to supplement it with choicest varieties of games. This kid was already an expert at hoodwinking the innocent parent about what was ‘syllabus’ , what was project, and what was extra-‘activities’. They all looked alike, and there was no yardstick to keep a measure and check at what the kid did during that precious ‘home-work’ time. That is not the essence of new generation kids. It is simply that we did not bother to keep ourselves updated with technology, whatever the reason.

Now my personal search took me to my childhood days. The hurdles, the tasks, the unexpected ‘turns’ that the ‘road’ displayed in that computer game reminded me of my earliest attempts to deliver a can of milk from my ancestral house to an aunt who resided about 5 kms away. The route was narrow, through lanes bounded by slanting fences made up of thorns from bamboo trees. The one-way-lane was full of boulders, pits, etc which served as storm-drain-cum-walking path. So, the rain water used to create newer hurdles to even regular users. At that age, carrying the milk can, dangling at the hinge held by thin semicircular hook called handle, avoiding spillage was by itself a formidable task. My aunt could very easily make out any spillage exceeding a spoonful, from the mark on the can, up to which milk is measured every time. Now the uneven path, boulders, etc needed my eyes to be focused a few feet ahead of my feet, all the time. But overhanging protruding thorny fence would take me by surprise. As if all this is not enough, there is invariably a sure ‘surprise’ element. The surprise is only about where it happens along my path. A buffalo would come in the opposite direction. I mentally try to pray and appeal “dear buffalo, I am carrying a precious cargo which is yielded by one of your own brethren” (At that age, I even failed to notice my twice-error in gender, where the approaching menace was also a female, as much as the cargo-yielder! Perhaps, brethrens was more appropriate for brotherly-comrades, and had nothing to do when the competition was entirely between women). Anyway, the choice was to run back fast, duck into some narrow crevice, remain out-of-notice-range of that ‘black-bull-dozer’, and maintain the milk-level intact. Rain was for me ‘No Prob’s” at those occasions. Less chances of adversaries from opposite direction.

I had my share of ‘live’ computer games with similar hurdles, probs, etc…

That made me wonder, where we lost that ritual of visiting ‘native’ place, during school-annual-holidays. My parents had belonged to a generation which had migrated to cities to seek more ‘respectable’ white collared jobs. Salary was paltry, but job security, and some terminal benefits formed the early temptations. So, they could not alienate abruptly from their roots, which were invariably in simple countryside villages. We had our share of compare and contrast. We were not spared from ‘observations’ by village folks. They easily made out from the restless-looking kids, as contradistinguished from ‘rest-of-the’ kids and remarked “they are from ‘patnam’ (meaning town), and they find it difficult to pass time”. This remark was made too often and had its severity on me, of a thorough undervaluation about city-bred-kids. They made it sound in a ‘matter-of fact’ tone that for village folks there was no such thing as boredom, or problem of ‘spending’ away the time. I needlessly misconstrued myself to be a representative of the city-kids, burdened with the unenviable task of redeeming the allegation that we are incompetent to deal with excessive-leisure problem of a village life. How I went about it, is a story in itself.

But when I look at today’s kids, they have no connecting cables with villages. Most of the ancestral homes are given up. The linking descendents have been alienated and children have only flats and ‘apart’-‘meant’s as permanent addresses. We are almost into having BT-kids, like that BT-Brinjals. It is a question of time. Country-eggs gave way to table-eggs (with veterinary dozes of antibiotics through the caged birds—their laid eggs), ‘ apple’ tomatoes in place of sour-country-tomatoes, and the likes.

No, I really don’t mind having remained a bit ‘backward’ or cattle-class, compared to computer wiz-kids. I would never exchange those sweet village memories and rich experiences for anything.
Psn(8th April, 2010)