Days of my life!!

Quite a few years ago, in Mumbai, I had heard a PJ on why they had changed the name of Madras to Chennai. Apparently, everyone in Madras wore lungis' and not regular trousers' or jeans' and hence, in Marathi, "Chain" (or Zip) " nahi" (not there) - thus arriving at Chennai!!  Ok, I do realize that the above PJ was too pathetic even for my standards, but last month when I was in Chennai, for a couple of days, what I experienced was so very different from the typical lungi and kanchivaram yielding, rasam drinking image that the people up north have of Tamil Nadu's capital city. I landed there at about 8am in the morning and the heat and moisture was the first thing that hit me even as I disembarked from my flight. In some 20 minutes, I was out of the airport in my pre-paid air conditioned taxi and what I saw was a very typical early morning hustle and bustle that one can easily associate with any metro city in India - wide roads, traffic ...

Yesterday, I finally decided to get a little more serious and interested about my much awaited, upcoming trip to the US and decided to start by doing some research on the Hotels that I was going to be put up in. So, I went onto Google and started reading the reviews that other users' had put up.  Apart from the usual banter about the rooms, toilets, gymnasium and hotel staff, almost everyone commented on the fact that the wireless internet was not free! Ofcourse, charging for internet in Silicon Valley is like committing a sin, but I really wondered if we could actually do without staying connected? The Answer - a simple NO.  So, let's take a closer look at the manner in which Technology has changed our lives! Let's start with the humble Telephone. An instrument which, some 20 year ago, was a more than just a mere liberty. One could feel really proud to proclaim that he owned one of those large black or red analogue phones with a unique circular dial and a eve...