#365DaysOfWriting — Day Seven
Yesterday, I visited Bombay Coffee House with Sanika Tillway and Divya Srivastava. We had a hearty dinner there. Before you think this is a restaurant review, it’s not. But if you were to visit, I recommend the brownie milkshake — heavenly bliss on a humid summer evening. And it’s more chocolatey than the chocolate milkshake.
Anyway, back to what I’m going to write about today. It’s on the subject of conversations, and how they’ve evolved over time (at least in my lifetime). I have this habit of keeping one ear open for interesting conversations around me. Yesterday, at the Bombay Coffee House, I heard the following snippets of conversation:
“Ah hello, it’s so good to see your face in person after Skyping for so many months…”
“Hey you saw that video on YouTube? That trailer yaar, so awesome…”
“Kitni baar bola BookMyShow se ticket book kar. Sunta hi nahi…”
“Beta, zara mere account mein paise transfer kar de na woh tumhare bank app se…”
What’s the common thread in all these conversations? Apps. Technology is so deeply ingrained in our lives these days, that almost no conversation happens without mentioning it. Let’s wind the clock back a decade, where even going out and having a meal in a restaurant was a pretty big deal. These are some of the conversations I remember from back then:
“Arre hello hello! Aaj tak toh sirf phone pe aapka aawaz suna hai…”
“Yesterday in between that serial they showed the trailer for that new movie. It was so awesome! Arre that new Amitabh film…”
“I’m telling, you let’s go and book tickets right now. Baad mein line lambi hogi, aur phir milega nahi…”
“Beta, kal subah zara bank jaake yeh paise deposit kar lena…”
I wonder what conversations will be like 10 years from today, around 2025–2026. Will we be able to download food? Will Netflix make multiplexes redundant? Can people communicate with each other via holograms (like what Modi did a year or so back? Or like Leia did via R2D2 in A New Hope?)
I can envisage a conversation with my kid about 15 years down the line, “Beta, I’ve sent you the food via food-mail. It lasts only till 2 PM. Download kar lena!”
