Bye to Connectivity!!

The e-Age communication technologies!
Can we stay without them? Can we throw them out of our lives.
In any crowd of people a large majority can be be found browsing social network on their smart phones, chatting through public IMs, lost in conversation over mobile phone and much more.

Off late I began to notice how engrossed I was in these. I was having my phone around every moment of the day. The first thing I did after switching on my computer was logging into the IMs and Twitter. Every few minutes I took a glance at the phone for a SMS, a mail , a SN alert or a call that I might have missed.

Its a virtual life we are living. Talking to people thousand miles away and ignoring the life at hand. Its a partial attention given to the task at hand. The cons are endless. But at the same time we cannot shy away entirely from the communication technologies. For now we need this devil.

So I decided to try a experiment. A social experiment. Perhaps a personal test.

I decided for abstinence from all forms of connectivity for a few days.
 No phone, no SMS, no IMs, no Facebook, no Twitter...
And will be blogging each day's experience. (yes, I am not shutting out on Blogging)

Day 1

The start was not hard. Switched off the 2 mobile phones. The empty pocket was feeling too weird, so I left one of the mobiles in my pocket in its switched off state. However, I kept taking my mobile out of pocket out of habit, only to be reminded by the dead screen. I was indeed quite into it.

Back home refraining from Facebook, Twitter and IMs was harder than it first seemed. Still managed to hold myself so far. Now only time can tell how this goes.

Day 2

The exercise seems to be sinking in. I did not reach for my phone every few minutes. I did leave one in the pocket to keep it 'feeling alright'. The downside were there too. I had hard time doing the work which would have been easier with a simple phone call. Also I started missing the people I used to be in touch always through these technological boons. Wonder if its just going to end as a self-harrasment in the end.  For now I am going to continue with it.

Day 3

Today, being a weekend, was harder than the other days. I found myself putting effort to keep my mind off what I am missing out on. The original objective of getting rid of communication for reducing distraction from the things at hand was somewhere lost. Also an additional downside is that I forgot a birthday of a dear friend. I totally relied on Facebook for those. I think I need to have a better alternative. However, things did seem to work in way. I took a hard time tracking down one of the mobile phone. Not using it for the few days had put it out of my mind completely. A definitive victory I would say.. for now.

Day 4

Definitely a better day. The whole day had been busy in shifting house. With all the packing and unpacking the phones were out of mind. The internet connection will take a few days to be shifted to the new location. So that rules out the temptations of the internet based connectivities - twitter, facebook, gtalk, yahoo, skype. On a brighter note, now that all these are not eating up on my time, I am finding a lot of spare time to catch up on those long pending 'to-do' items. Made quite a lot of progress on a book that I had been reading at a snail's pace so far. 

Day 5

Things started going bad. My parents got worried not being able to reach me. Called up a few friends, they in turn called more people starting a whole chain reaction of calls. The word reached my office mail and also my roomie. I am quite determined to keep this going; hence I used a pay phone to call my mother. Wonder if I am being stupid.. Nevertheless, I explained that things are fine and I am staying of mobile for a while. Hopefully that will take care of the whole furore.

Day 6

The problems starts in office front too. People started complaining they are unable to reach me. I hardly used to get a official call in a week on my cell phone. Wonder why this sudden rise in the incoming traffic. Also can a person shun these things completely in today's world? I think not. Atleast not the mobile phone. We are too used to be able to reach others through a few button clicks. In a simple summation these technologies bring problem both ways - whether you use it or stay away from it. Though the things are getting difficult I will stick to the regime for a couple of days more.

Day 7

Things got out of control today. My manager tried to reach me on urgent matter and had to call up a number of people. As a result of this, I was meeting people at every corner asking me to report immediately. Hence, comes the end to this experiment. I understood though it is possible to minimize the use by conscious effort, it is not possible to entirely do away with these things. Atleast not the mobile phone.

Final verdict: Its definitely a easier and calm life without these communication. Only the present moment affects you as nothing can reach you from distance. But we cannot afford to lead a cut-off life in today's world. 

Photowalk in Pottery Town

Date : 4th March 2012
Members:Me, Abhish Lohithan & Rajat Mohanty

I and Rajat was new to photography and we decided that going out on photowalk was probably the best way to learn.
We didnt want it to be too elaborate, least we lose sight of our original purpose. A little bit of searching on the web gave me this lovely location. It had all the promise of a good photography location. We decided to give the place a shot.
On that day I started at 11 in the morning. I was still not clear on how to get there. From Majestic bus stand I took a bus to Shivajinagar bus terminus. Once I reached there it became clear to me that the Blogs and forum posts had misled me to believe the place to be close to Shivajinagar bus stand.
Rajat met up with me at the bus terminus and together we enquired on how to get to pottery town but not many recognized the name. This was the digital age so we flipped out our mobiles and hunted a few more blogs, a homework that we should have done before taking the leap. It was then I found out that Pottery Town is too inconspicuous a place and the nearest prominent location is known as Fazer Town. This was something the bus conductors could recognise and hence we hopped on to one that could take us there.
From Fazer town its just a 15 minutes walk. The way is pretty easy to find.
On reaching the place we found that its nothing more than a small locality of some 20 or so houses, each of which doubled up as a shop cum workshop. This was quite not upto our expectations.
Instead of waiting for Abhish, we decided to take a stroll around the place. The area was pretty small, however the way people gave casual glances at our cameras confirmed that photographers frequent here.

Once Abhish reached we prepared our gear and approached a shopkeeper. Its was the first on on approach from the road. The man was kind enough to permit us to watch and shoot while worked and informed that he would be making fresh set of clay glasses shortly.

We shot at the pot and pitchers drying and also the ones already prepared and put up for show in the shop. Once the shopkeeper started making new pots we had some really dynamic shots. The light inside wasn't adequate and we could not use the flashes too, least we disturb the man.

Fast focus prime lenses are the best options here. Unfortunately I didn't own one, and had to make do with a wide angle.

Soon we were content with the shot we had and we left the shop after thanking the man. It was a short outing but a good one considering the shots that we got.