Odd man out

Boarded a Mumbai local after a long time equipped with newspapers and pen to solve the crosswords and puzzles and while certain things such as rush, punctuality, efficiency remain unchanged, two significant changes are very visible:

(1) The mandatory fourth seat in a second class meant for three is no longer mandatory, but discretionary, depending on the existing lot occupying the seat. Seeing your age or condition, they may accommodate you as the 4th occupant, but you can’t enforce any right.

(2) No one is seen reading a magazine , a newspaper or a book or even chatting with a fellow passenger and each passenger can be seen surfing on his or her mobile phone – watching reels, videos, movies or chatting or talking  on WhatsApp! Obviously, as no one reads any published material, the railway platforms that used to be replete with book stalls and newspaper vendors are now totally missing there from and only major stations may have an odd newspaper kiosk. I was clearly an odd man out in the entire compartment. 

I recollect the good old days, when I would buy couple of newspapers from Andheri and an evening publication from Churchgate and would find almost every other passenger either reading or talking to a fellow passenger. Reading was informative, but that purpose from published materials is now no longer their  exclusive domain as apps on our smartphones keep us updated on world events virtually on real time basis. But other virtues of reading – improvement of our linguistic skills, enrichment of vocabulary, learning new expressions etc are now amiss , especially in the users of what’s popularly known as internet lingo! We are gaining information, knowledge, smartness, agility, ease of usage etc from our smartphones but losing out on social etiquette, good conversations, floral language and above all interpersonal connect !