My mother used to reminisce that during her young days, information exchange between people would happen, yes, through people themselves. Although the history of print media in our country dates back to the 18th century, those were accessed by the niche literate society. Even in the early 20th century when my parents were growing up, communication was made possible by messengers, either formally appointed or casually encountered.
As such people were calm and patient until any news reached them, neither anxious nor curious. This also partly explains why people used to commonly marry into neighbouring villages, to facilitate easy exchange of communication. My mother recounted how in the early years after her marriage my father took up a vocation nearly 400km away and would visit once in a few months, akin to the modern merchant naval officer. Her life was confined to serving the elderly in the household and attending to other domestic chores, along with her mother-in-law, who herself was in her thirties!
Any news from her husband would be got through an acquaintance passing by. Compare this with today when every hour or less of progress of a journey is conveyed to the “anxious” recipient. There is no gainsaying that we are being flooded with information every second. The channels are varied ranging from the most personal to the ubiquitous cellphone which can be seen both as a blessing and a nuisance depending on whether urgent information is to be conveyed or one wants to “conditionally” avoid being reached.
Any explanation for failure to pick a landline call, like “I was not at home or at my desk”, will fail to work, as every missed call expects a reply! Or the recipient is termed a sociopath by near and not so dear. WhatsApp and the like which have attracted young and old into its fold even displays when the person was last seen online, so no escape here!
Let alone exchange of personal communication, the amount of news of all kinds hitting us is similar to a volcanic eruption. The sparks may turn to ashes before hitting the ground. I feel like a nanoparticle in this information explosion, finding my spare time inadequate to consume the ever parturient news bombarded through the Internet, TV and ever-loved newspapers and magazines. What to ingest and how best to retain the content in the overstuffed brain is the moot question. I for one have no Ganesha’s memory and I am told that this is the case with the majority. When I lamented to my sister-in-law that I could remember only bits and pieces from what I read the previous day, she replied that I was better off as she recollected nothing.
After some discussion and rumination, I have settled for the opinion that consuming news is to satisfy the mental palate for the moment, hoping that the news may be pocketed in some recesses of the brain’s memory bank that can be accessed when the need arises. Practising simple yoga postures may help strengthen retention.