By Ganesh Saili
We belong to a generation that somehow muddled through two centuries and passed the two-millennium milestone. In the 1970s, I began fooling around with a manual typewriter. The toughest part, if not nigh impossible, was getting a proper word count, counting the words per line and multiplying by the number of lines per page to get an approximate idea. Fixing errors was a whole other thing: you used strips of finger-length typex correction tape, which meant switching the ribbon to neutral, retyping the error to remove it, and switching back to the use-ribbon mode. Then you retyped the correction.
Below our home used to be the Remington Typewriter Repair Company, a small shop-cum-residence owned by the Kanpur-based Saran Lal Kapoor, whose son, the bright Prem, was my classmate. With snub-nosed German brushes he would ‘service’ our Olivetti typewriter. My only complaint was that even weeks later, our home stank of the kerosene stuff he had used to clean the machine.
Suddenly, without warning, we leapfrogged from manual typewriters to computers. Our relationship with Kores, which began with two miniature bottles of whitener and thinner, was over. There was a special pink correcting fluid that had a nail-polish-like smell and was used to correct cyclostyling stencils. Slowly, one by one, the stationery shops stopped stocking Kores correction fluids when they found out that kids were vaping the stuff to get a high. A collective sigh of relief welcomed computers when they arrived. The printers needed no monitoring.
Pic courtesy: Bruce Skilicorn
The wrong end of the last century, the 1990s, saw me trying to teach photography with analogue cameras to Officer Trainees of the All India Service. Ah! The perils of fogged film! I reminded them to load their film only in the shade. Twenty years flashed by, another era dawned with DSLRs, and then, just about the time I was done, the world of mobile camera phones dawned, and I gave up and walked away.
Of course, progress has come. I remember the red telephone at Seth Om Prakash’s Sitaram & Sons, who owned the only hardware store in Landour Bazaar (now there are far too many). We would pick up the receiver to hear the operator talk to you and ask: ‘Number, please?’
‘187 please?’ I’d say, asking after my father.
‘Ring later! It’s lunchtime! Saili Sa’ab will be in Chardukan!’ Philip Ryper, the telephone operator, answered, clamming me shut. Next came the ‘dial tone’ of the crossbar exchange and the kar-kar of the spinning-a-dial phone. Today, all you hear is ‘Network nahi hai!’ or BSNL (or what the bazaar boys still call Bhai Saab Nahin Lageyga). Look around, and you’ll see that we have taken to the cell phone like mother’s milk, and even a fuddy-duddy like me can make video calls.
Over the years, one has learned that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Life has taught me not to slap a man chewing gutka. Long years of teaching have taught me that it does not matter where you happen to be plying your trade, there will always be three kinds of students: those who learn from reading, those who learn from observing, and those who must pee on an electric fence to find out for themselves. It’s the last variety that manages to get any teacher’s goat.
Growing older, one knows that there are fewer things worth waiting for. And do wipe that grin off your face, for you will get there eventually (if you’re lucky). Instead of lying about your age, you will start bragging about it. You will be liberated from hair dye because there will be no more hair left to colour. Sooner or later, you and your hair will part ways; only a moustache might remain, albeit tinged with grey, which is easily fixed with a frayed toothbrush. Afterwards, the plastic handle of the much-reused toothbrush can help in drawing your pyjama strings.
We are the generation that tried and tried again until somehow we managed to muddle. Nowadays, if you are stuck, help can be found online; as my granddaughter Niharika nonchalantly suggests: ‘Just look for a video on YouTube!’
(Ganesh Saili, born and home-grown in the hills, belongs to those select few whose words are illustrated by their own pictures. Author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages, his work has found renown worldwide.)
