Prolonged Cloud-Commuting. La-Nina calling shots.

The bloom of winters is not fading away even though we had our customary festivities i.e. Lohri, Makar Sankranti that announce the onset of warmer days ahead. New Delhi has become the cathedral of mist and heroically steps into the league of western urban climatic realities.

It happens so may times that your touch phone requires sustained efforts as you finger pulps, frozen cold, fail to evoke the senses out of that intuitive-gone-numb touch screen. 

While driving, your pupils remain mid-dilated to capture the maximum visual field, courtesy the smog. So many penurious people, who inhabit in footpaths and streets, succumb to hypothermia while we continue to liver our quota of saturnalia. 

Those of us who have been non smokers attempt to exhale in twilight to visualize what it likes to see the impression of smoke coming out of our lips.

The days have shrunk considerably in length and the people working in night-shifts might feel cheated by the elongated spree of winters this year; the hubbub of night fails to settle. I read in newspaper that this prolonged duration of winter this year is attributed to La-Nina effect, an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon. Is the climate giving us a clue for some precise messages?

The incessant binge of freshly brewed coffee, the chatter of colleagues over unending supply of roasted cashew nuts and home made pakoras (the fried snack made by batter of gram flour), the picturesque surroundings when even the ordinary looks carve out a memorable artistic expression – a photographer’s delight, the shattered and shriveled appearance of those living out in the open, the helpless stray dogs, the feeling of being involved in cloud computing in the office and in cloud commuting when driving back home, the incredible number of hours spent beneath the quilts and cushions, the aggressive beams of the cars that work overtime due to Sun’s leave without notice, the terror of touching something metallic with bare fingers – Winters give us a different slice of life.

I miss the clunk of Typewriters.

I miss the clunk-clunk of the iron molded typewriters. Yes, its good to be in the company of computers and printers, but my heart has started craving for the authoritarian typewriters. There were days when no office was ever complete without the chaotic clunk of those metal buttons. The frequency of clunk was more or less directly proportional to the amount of business the office was doing. Even now, whenever I see some old Hollywood film, the sight of a blonde girl working calmly on the typewriter while her superior is puffing cigar in the next room seems so familiar.

Time paced hurriedly and computers took over. Printers took over, fax machines took over, cloud computing took over. Nothing remained the same, though the poor typewriter always tried to make space for every other competitive product. Alas, the dignity and respect that the typewriter displayed for the superior species never got returned back. When the typewriters were about to be introduced in the market, there was quite an uproar by a certain segment of people. Poor spellers lobbied against the concept of mechanical typing and imposed the severest of resistance against buying typewriters. They were afraid that they won’t be able to hide their inaccurate spellings with illegible handwriting. But as the typewriters entered the commercial markets, they created a legend. In the late 19^th century, the most popular typewriter was appropriately named as The Dollar Typewriter.

I have passed a large part of my early years in various B town cities of India; and owning a typewriter had always been considered a thing to be proud of. As a child, I have fond memories of trying my finger pulp at hitting the cold, hard buttons and seeing the carbon making imprint on the recycled paper. It used to be such a pondering process; I don’t know was it the love of typewriters or was it the sense of seeing a form of creation with wide eyes, but I had always loved to watch a typewriter in action. Even today, if I get a choice to install some software by which I can hear the clunk sound of typewriter buttons when pressing my computer keyboard, I would go for it without second thoughts. I am sure many of us have deeply attached sentiments with the legacy of typewriters; if any one is planning to start a typewriter aficionado group in India, consider me IN.