Chinmayee Manjunath

I thought about my life as a digital immigrant – I will never be from the place I inhabit, but my children are. What do I want to teach them about where I come from? I think it is yearned for and portrayed in the new music I love. That’s the reason I love it: it depicts and imitates the beauty of solitude. You might think I’m projecting; maybe I am. I do spend a lot of time daydreaming. I learned how when I was little.

– Lauren Laverne, writing in The Observer

Over the past week, I’ve found myself thinking about this all the time – remember what life was like before the Internet?

When we had to use memory in such an applied fashion. When connections were real, because they were not easy to build. When the world was so much simpler, and so much more complicated all at once. When attributes like punctuality and commitment were much more valued than they are today. If you said you were going to show up – literally, or symbolically – you had to show up.

We’re all digital immigrants, most of my friends and I. And the older we get, the more we long for the things we’ve learnt to live without.

Some years ago, A and I were in Alibaug at a lovely bungalow by the sea. At dinner, we met a friend’s friend who divides his time between Bombay, London and Saudi Arabia. He talked about how hard it is to keep leaving his wife and children behind, and how he’d never be able to do this without FaceTime and Skype and all the modern luxuries of keeping in constant touch.

That night, I remember thinking about my childhood, when my father travelled incessantly, to every continent and country possible. We were given minutely-detailed itineraries by his assistant – with flight details, hotel details, phone numbers of local offices and always a local contact person.

My father would call once when he checked into his hotel, and then again when he was checking out. He wrote us postcards and letters. For a while, he kept a diary for me that I would read when he returned home. My mother and I would pray for his safe travels a lot every day, because we had no way of knowing where he was at a certain point. There were no pictures sent on Whatsapp. No text messages, or Skype calls. We saw photographs if he’d had the time to take any, and the rolls were printed on his return.

It happened, from time to time, that his flights were inordinately delayed, and we’d calculate the time difference – based on the chart printed in the telephone book. We’d think about the time it may have taken to clear immigration and get to the hotel. And then, when the silence got unbearable, we’d call the local contact, a bit embarrased, quite worried and mostly apologetic. I never remember any of them being anything but kind and patient. They’d call the local airport, and ring us back. These connections were built for a fleeting purpose, but with so much compassion. 

When Papa travelled, he was absent from our daily lives. And when he came back, his presence filled that void to bursting.

I titled this post the end of absence, after the book referenced in the piece, but also because there is no better way to describe the manner in which we live now.

We’re now all always present. It’s a curse, and then, perhaps, a blessing.