So Close, No Matter How Far

We live in the so called “jet age.” Here a place is a plane ticket away, any object we desire is just a card swipe away; people are just a push of a button away. It seems money has demolished physical distances and built up emotional ones.

The more the means of means to communicate have multiplied, the more the reasons to communicate have gone, or seem less important. The blame for being out of touch has shifted from the mail-man to the service providers – Hutch, Airtel and whatnot.

Remember those days (or at least as you saw in the old black and white films) where a mailman’s visit was as awaited as Santa Claus.

Just a few years ago, in school perhaps, we used to use the landlines to call up friends with whom we, possibly, had just spent the whole day with. There was always some reason – a new titbit to give, gossip to catch up on etc.

In college, it was e-mail and Yahoo and MSN. And we sent cards, letters, and small useless mails just to keep in touch. Wasn’t that the sign-offline most of you used – “Keep in touch…” The landlines had taken a back seat.

Then, of course, communication came to our pockets in the form of cell phones – the world was never any smaller. And the mails and insta-messaging became more of a pastime.

And now, the online communities spread like wildfire burning up our need for the landline, the mails, the IMs, and sometimes even the cell phone. Our world is Orkut.

When we have all the simple ways and means to stay in touch, how much do we actually bother? We always find reasons not to get in touch with someone. Sure we have them on our contacts, have added them as friends, put them in our address books and all over the place, but more often than not they are just a measure of your popularity.

There seem to be a lack very pressing enough reason to talk to friends. When was the last time you called your best bud from college? Those titbits and bits of gossip are not important enough anymore. Are they?