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What is Technology to my Mom?


In one word, it is not less than a magic. She is illiterate in terms of reading and writing but wise enough to make decisions on what is good and what is bad. She doesn't know what the word "Technology" mean, so, she relates it to some magic when I utter that word in front of her. She often tells her village friends that her son works in a company called "X" (not supposed to mention the company's name) that comes up very often on TV in a week. 

I admit that she watches more English movies than I, even though she doesn't understand a single word coming to her ears. It is well quoted by someone that a picture is worth a thousand words and that proves well in this case. At the end of the movie she could tell me what the movie was about. Whenever "Spiderman" movie is aired on TV, she easily recognizes the characters and associates their looks with the village folks who look almost similar to the actors and actresses in the movie. 

Same way, once Abdul Kalam, our former President of India, was giving speech on some occasion. I told my mom that this is the person who contributed a lot in space research in India. She was not able to interpret the words "space research" and I told her that he is the man who helped to develop some instruments which carry our voice from one place to another. Of course, it was a vague answer, but I found it best example to explain her what is science in terms of her understandable language. So, whenever he appears on the screen, my mom tells me that today I saw the person who carries our voices and I smiled at her and also in the back of mind thought about Image Recognition, the way she matches every person the screen.

It is glad to have social networking tools around us for communication and expressing our thoughts to a wider audience. For my mom, that all seem a stupid thing. She believes the effective communication can take place only in person. I too support her on that thought, but I also love the technologies. 

One day I got an intership letter to go to Mysore and I gave this news to my mom. She was happy for me. She didn't know where this place was in India and I just told her that it is somewhere near to Bangalore which she was aware of, not by visiting the place or seen on TV, but one of her friend's son lived there. Very few days were left for the date of departure to Mysore. My internship period was of sixteen weeks. I did tell her that we can talk on cell phones, but she looked unhappy by my going far from home and every mother cares for his son in this way only, I guess. 

Following days passed quickly and I had to figure out what I coud do to make her happy. My eyes fell upon a tablet computer and found out that I can do video chat with her when I am away. My sister had a phone with front facing camera and this option seemed more feasible to me. I did recharge for 3G service on both the devices in the evening. At the time of supper, I told my sister to go into the kitchen and stand near to my mom so that when I call her she can accept my video call and show it to my mom. The most awaiting moment came. I cannot express that feeling in words, but it was like seeing the space craft launching in front of your eyes. 

I hit the button on the app and my sister received the video call on the other end. My face cropped up into my sister's phone and I could see my mom kneading dough. My sister brought her attention to phone and I could see the happiest face of my mom one son could see at the time. We had a video chat for fifteen minutes, though she was in the kitchen and I in the drawing room.

She left her work and came to me and asked what was that. I explained that this is an advanced service of talking to each other over phone. She joined her hands in front of the Goddess Amba and thanked her for such technology. Turning back she told me that it is all because God made it. I gave a thought over it and agreed with her because we human beings who innovated such ways of communications were after all the children of God.

So, eventually, there will be always a virtual connection between her and me. And we did indeed used video chat a lot of times.

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