Dear London,
My name is Mushfique and you were a part of my life for about two years when I left home from Dhaka, Bangladesh to pursue my Masters. I must say my experiences with you were bittersweet but memories still leave me wanting for more.
For me, you were always my home away from home. Growing up, I've always idolised and dreamt of being a Londoner someday and when that day came my joy knew no bounds. I was a faux- Londoner: trying to fit in with the locals, trying hard to take up the culture and ending every sentence with 'cheers'.
From day one, I loved everything that you had to offer to me: the tube, the buses, the pubs, the busy passers-by and of course, Her Majesty the Queen. God bless her soul! I voraciously took in all the culture, the fashion, the food, the knowledge and music of all things.
As time went by, I quickly grew busy with lectures and studies and forgot about you. As I moved out of my halls, I realised that the shiny city that never sleeps has an ugly side as well. I was working late at nights, waiting tables and and serving drinks to patrons. It was from that time that I had the real struggle. Working 12 hour shifts taught me some important lessons of life, something that I will remember for years to come. I am thankful to you, dear London!
As I went on from one house to the other in search of a cheaper place to live, I had the opportunity to come across some amazing people. Everyone had a story to tell and I sat down to listen to their experiences. Experience has been a great teacher and there's something to learn from everyone only if you listen to them.
When it was time for me to end my hectic but amazing student life to return home, there I was alone in my room with two suitcases ready to be loaded in a cab. As I was getting ready to say my goodbyes to my flatmates, two years of London literally flashed by in a moment. I still remember that morning clearly: it was snowing heavily and I was massively drunk. Tears were running down my face and I was blank for a good few minutes. As I was getting late for the airport, I knew I had to get on to that cab.
Thank you, dear London, for giving me some of the best times of my life. I've been incredibly fortunate for all the experiences, both good and bad. I'll see you soon, my love. Cheers!
Imagine a room full of people, a room that's silent and devoid of emotions. All you can hear are the clickety clack of the QWERTY keyboard that the people are clicking away mindlessly on their smart phones or phablets. Some of the people are breaking out in sheepish smiles in an attempt to feel normal from all the loneliness surrounding the big room full of people only to discover that someone has 'liked' their photos or made a comment about a status. The constant gratification of 'likes' on different social media platforms have consumed us in a way that's absolutely revolutionary! This makes me like the notion of liking. Some of them are swiping left, right, up and down in order to tirelessly spend their time and not make eye contact with anyone else in the room. It's like a halo effect, spreading from one person to another. Welcome to the 21st century, ladies and gents...the era of technology and alienation of the human soul. An era that has bastardised technology into some sort of a tool that makes us humans stupid and more ignorant even though we have the proverbial world in our fingertips.
As I crack open my beer and sit down to write aimlessly about what's wrong with everything, I can't seem to figure out where to begin. That reminds me of a time when I was traveling once on public transportation and I made a remark about why the country is so fucked up. Upon hearing this, the driver said, "the country is fine, it's the people who are corrupting it." That struck me and hit me like a ton of bricks!
When I see memes about my generation being the last generation who were photographed at birth with conventional cameras, it makes me feel ancient. But there's an unsaid underlying message that they are trying to give out through these memes: brace yourselves! Back in the day when there were no smart phones or internet or XBox, I believe I was happier. I was content with reading comic books after coming back home from school or saving that lunch money to buy that new cassette at the music store. I used to be ecstatic about making teams with my mates to play cricket and get into silly arguments about not being on the same team. I miss being excited about going birthday parties where it involved having cakes, playing hide and seek and just messing about. The 21st century has eliminated that human connection and made it comfortable where you can listen to music on the go or read an ebook on your Kindle or meet the love of your life on Tinder. Are we forgetting how to engage on a human level?
It's tragic that kids nowadays are born into technology, starting from the moment they are born. Selfies are kind of defining the way we celebrate moments now and we tend to come up with horrendous names that end with -fie. I'm not moaning about technology, it has done great things for me personally. But it's just that we've lost the human connection in the humdrum and the confusion of all the technology that surrounds us. It seems that we all rely too much on facebook, whatsapp and skype for our basic human interactions. To many, it would be crippling if some of these social networks vanished all of a sudden. Technology has created a false reality where we are all too busy for each other and our life updates come through facebook statuses.
As I am nearing the end of this 'digital' piece of writing that's aptly called a blog, I can't help but think that I am part of the non human connection as well. My favourite fictional character Hank Moody would have preferred a pen, paper and a bottle of whisky to bust out thoughts when inspiration struck and so would I. But as I said, we are slowly losing that sense of engagement in the humdrum of technology. So, let me end this piece with one of my favourite lines by Hank Moody from the show Californication that brilliantly captures my thoughts about technology.
