The Epidemic Of e
Every morning
The newspaper rocketed into the balcony.
Pages were read, rustled and turned
By my father in silence, seeking enlightenment
About the world without.
I was enamoured by the twitter of birds
Wondering what they were conversing about.
Today, the e-paper has no smell of ink
It cannot be touched or, turned or, rustled.
Twitter is more screeches, shrieks and squawks
Producing a prodigiously perfect storm
In the teacup every day,
By a non-avian population termed Tweeple.
The prolonged shout of “post “
Making my heart pound as I rushed to tear open
Your long-awaited letter with a heart-warming 'Dearest'
I replied instantly…
Rushing to the post-office
Standing in queue, exchanging pleasantries with strangers
While waiting to buy a stamp.
Talking of stamps, I’ve preserved
All the postcards from around the world
Arriving with the postman’s smile.
It’s been forever since I received a term of endearment
When a notification pops up … with a ‘hi’ or ‘hello’
If I’m very lucky in the efficient times of e-mail
What memories! The mesmeric magic of markets
From above, rays of sun from skylights sculpted by grain dust
Below, playing hopscotch across puddles
Of putrefying vegetables.
An assortment of fragrances from flowers to fish
Competing for the attention of my olfactories.
The operatic chorus of countless shop keepers
Corrupting my attention with a handful of dry fruit
Slipped twixt my fingers;
My other hand glued to mother’s hand
Ere I wander while we meander through the maze of humanity
Feeling the texture of saris, the tinkle of crystal.
In the e-conomy, of e-marketing, e-retail and e-sale
Seated in the same place
I scroll up ‘n down the e-marketplace, click the mouse.
Lo and behold the stuff is at my house,
Sans the manic sensory experience.
Oh, the joy of book shops, book fairs and libraries
Rummaging through rafts for a bargain
Even better the treasure of a first edition
The chemical odour of a new book
Or even better, the old, smoky, musty and dusty.
Roaming the rows of the library
A sanctuary for silence yearned
Often clueless but always curious
Ogling at a pretty face
Twixt the gap in the bookshelves.
Presently, deprived by the digitized
Of touch and smell…and all pleasures sensorial
The e-book serves to kindle interest
In the Garden of e
Flowers and trees grow on 4K screens
Apple is no longer a fruit,
All knowledge is accessible
But manicured by Google’s gardeners.
While Siri and Alexa, listen to our thoughts,
Landscaping our minds to their designs
Supplanted with anonymous algorithms.
Having stolen the joys of serendipity
Our stories too are filched and filed away
To be cloned against us some future day.
Remember our meandering conversations over tea till sunset
Before the Old Monk joined in?
We understood our silences without a word spoken
Now we chat - I don’t see your face, rarely hear your voice -
In a language I scarcely understand
With the dropped vowels and emojis
A binary language ample with data
With a paucity of vowels which are banned
Creating noise in the head that annoys the reader.
What's Up?
Is a question we asked each other looking skywards
In drunken stupor
Transiting into a philosophical inquiry
About God or, galaxies ... or even UFOs?
Today, it’s the transport
For ignorance and untruth.
In e-ality
I've a thousand friends and followers
Who want to be friends on Facebook
Rather than be friends with me.
I'm getting the impression
The likes of 'me' doesn't exist in reality
Plagues have ravaged humanity
Oft changing the course of history
But none so surreptitiously
As this insidious epidemic.
If you thought e-crime and e waste
Was the most trouble we’ve faced.
Consider e-boys, e-bullying e-girls
With e-sexuality and e-toys
Smoking e-cigarettes
Bought with e-currency of course.
Two hundred and sixty-eight terms prefixed by e!
Is a tyranny designed to alter my reality irreversibly.
Sounds more like a pandemic to me
With scant chance of recovery
To which, I must neither surrender nor succumb
But survive, by inoculating myself immediately
With the vaccine of common sense.
everywhere, everything and everyone
Is prefixed with an ‘e’
Extinct are emotion and empathy
Will I continue to exist…to be me
If I choose not to be prefixed with an ‘e’?
©2020 Ranjan Kamath
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