Know No Neighbors!

I drove down the picturesque Mumbai-Pune Expressway, thinking about the meeting that had gone well that day, the client that we had bagged, and longing for a hot shower and a good book. Taking the sharp bend where the expressway ends and Pune begins, I smiled as I remembered how, not so long back, this little stretch was a deserted piece of land, with a single two-lane road running through it, the monotony interspersed by the occasional village kaka wobbling past on a decrepit bicycle, or the desultory horn of an aging truck. Today, thanks to the super-boom of real estate that Pune and other similar Indian cities are experiencing, this once-desolate stretch of Wakad has turned into an unrecognizable melee of construction and hoardings promising swanky lifestyles to Pune’s up and coming urban populace.

The new meaning of “Social”

I am not one to bore my readers with my own opinion of whether this is good or bad (or maybe just a little, since I rule the roost, at least in my own blog space J). But what I do feel strongly about is the impact this breakdown of traditional social structures is bound to have on the next generation.

What we are looking at here, is a future where my sons spend as much time, if not more, with their virtual circle of friends, partaking of games like penguins, online cricket, farmhouse or a host of other admittedly interesting occupations, than with the neighbourhood kids, and giving me weird looks when I force them to plug off and go spend an hour in a real playground. I have been pestering my six-year-old son to reply to his grandparents’ letter that they painstakingly wrote to their grandson and posted (yes, Indian Post still exists!). He gives me ‘the look’ and asks me innocently to help him log on to his email account so he can mail back to them (Indian Post, you better watch out).