Skip to main content

LIFE AND LIES #74 | Everything Is Digital

As the euphoria of Friday night started to dissipate, Nitin realised that he must have had one too many. His colleague Gaurav had offered to go out and he had agreed because he had no other plans. And now they were sitting in a BYOB, located a stone's throw away from his office building. New to the city, Nitin was still familiarising himself with the BYOB culture of Gurgaon. Yes, Gurgaon. Gurugram just doesn’t sound right.

“Are you alright,” Gaurav asked when Nitin returned from a washroom break.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Well, you say that but you look otherwise.”

“So I encountered this here today and before in another BYOB,” Nitin tried to change the topic. “There is always a guy, standing next to the paper towel dispenser in the gents’ washroom. Is this a common practice?”

“Maybe. I didn’t notice,” replied Gaurav.

“It’s just that,” continued Nitin. “All he does is take out the paper towel and hand it over to the person who just finished washing his hands. I wonder if this is another service upgrade in premium convenience provided to us or a downgrade in the overall humanity scenario. And somewhere, AI is creating movies and writing stories on its own. AI avatars are participating in beauty pageants. Wasn’t it supposed to happen the other way; AI did the mundane jobs while humans had ample time to hone their creativity and to innovate?”

“Woah, easy there,” said Gaurav. “I’m human, not AI to process so much information in a single go, that too when I’m drunk."

“At least,” Nitin chuckled. “That remains a human thing. AI can’t get drunk like we do.”

“I think humans like to feel special. A guy waiting on you to wash your hands makes you feel special. AI can’t do that yet.”

“Feel special, sure,” Nitin scoffed. “I used to take pride in the fact that I worked in Digital. You can do a lot of good for the environment with the help of digital intervention. Not just monitoring climate change, air and water quality, but also waste reduction. And then one day I realised that Swiggy and Zomato, powered by digital platforms create so much waste in plastic, just because I’m too lazy to cook. Same for Flipkart, Amazon and Myntra, because I’m too lazy to go to the market. Packaging plus the delivery guy wastes so much fuel during returns and exchanges that used to be covered in a single outing by someone. Block your calendar and be done with the shopping. But no, instead we have the incessant scrolling that powers the gig economy. Of course, employment has increased, but we have downgraded the definition of someone being called employed. But sure, I feel special when whatever I order comes to me wrapped in a nice package; like the first time I ordered a book from Flipkart, back in 2011, and it was delivered by a postman. Wait a minute! Where did all the postmen go? Did the government fire them all?”

Gaurav didn’t say anything just smiled, nodded, and signalled the waiter for the bill. Nitin realised that he shouldn’t have gone on a roll like that with Gaurav. For a moment, he had forgotten that he wasn’t sitting with his friends, Neil and Mukesh.

They left after paying the bill but as soon as they exited the building, Nitin felt a burst of hot summer air on his face. Even in the night, there was no respite. Some questions bothered him again, the same ones that found him every day when he stepped out of his air-conditioned office building after working a day in Digital Transformation. What’s the RCA for this 52-degree temperature? Preventive Action and Corrective Action for protection against the heatwave have been communicated to all, but what is the permanent fix? Who’s the SPOC working on this?

“Bye Nitin,” Gaurav said hopping into the cab which had just arrived. “See you on Monday.”

“Bye-bye,” replied Nitin whose cab was still 5 minutes away. While he waited, his train of thought continued. “I better go write a thing or two before AI renders my passion obsolete. Also, soon it will be Monday, and in the office, they will be talking about ‘leveraging AI for Business Transformation’ during one of those meetings and I would have to restrain the writer in me from deviating from the topic and starting to talk about the AI dystopia out loud.”

***

Liked what you read? Leave a comment!

Click to read more about Neil Nitin Mukesh







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

LIFE AND LIES #77 | The English Teacher

When we are young, the world is full of possibilities. We can do anything, and become anything. We antagonise anyone who even hints at thinking otherwise about us. It's probably why most of us have a story to tell where the villain was a school teacher. Even I do. I don’t remember exactly how I ended up in the Headmaster’s cabin that day. All I remember is that back then I blamed my House Master for it. It wasn’t just me who had bunked the STD XII Pre-Board exams. There were many. But he made a scapegoat out of me. And the moment, I set foot inside the cabin, I received a big slap from the Headmaster. My ears rang. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened that day. The Headmaster instructed him to call my father. Tell him to come or his son would be rusticated. I wasn’t a notorious student. I was good in my studies and had no disciplinary complaints against me. Had this incident not occurred, I would have completed my schooling in a few months with a clean record. My fat...

LIFE AND LIES #98 | Talk To Me

*** The woods are gloomy, dark and scary. You were supposed to keep me company. Even when the roads diverged, You promised me we wouldn't split. Talk to me, man! The mountains spit fire. The rivers run acrid. I walk the barren valley All by myself. Talk to me, man! You and I had concluded long back That life is a joke and Death is the punchline. Then why am I not laughing? Talk to me, man! While I grow old and frail, You'll remain forever young. I say that out of envy Or maybe to content myself. Talk to me, man! I hope you have the answers now To all the questions that befuddle mankind: God, soul, afterlife, rebirth, heaven and hell. You can go on a rant about them if you want, But just once come and talk to me, man! ***

LIFE AND LIES #100 | The Blurred Lines

Nitin was utterly shocked when he woke up on Saturday morning with a hangover and without any recollection of what had transpired the previous night. He had been drunk before. He had lost all of his senses before. But everything always came back to him the next morning. However, that day, it didn't; complete blackout. There must have been something bizarre in that drink. Over the course of the week, though, he started remembering flashes of it and began looking for an opportunity to talk to Sandhya, sober and alone. The weather had taken a sharp turn today. A sweltering sunny day gave way to a cloudy evening with thrashing winds. As everyone raced to the office window to watch the scene unfolding outside, Nitin saw Sandhya signalling to him by pressing two fingers to her lips. He couldn’t help but smile. She knew he loved to smoke in this weather. After all, she was his smoking partner in the office. Together, they went downstairs, but as soon as they stepped out of the building, t...