Virtual reality

I was travelling by bus along National Highway 2, and the young man beside me, after fiddling some time with his ‘smart’ phone, drew out a Lenovo notebook computer from his bag and started playing a game of cricket. I am sure all my computer-geek old boys and friends would assure me that such a game is a marvel of computer programming, but after watching closely for about fifteen minutes, I discovered just what I had expected: the ‘game’, such as it were, could be only called either insipid or asinine by anyone with a halfway developed mind. If I cannot play cricket (of the real variety), I’d much rather listen to music, read a book, or simply go to sleep (or meditate: my mind is rich enough to provide me with a whole treasury of games for which one needs no machine).

In any case, when the young man looked up for a bit, I asked him why he was so absorbed in the game, and he claimed to be a great fan of cricket. I quizzed him about legendary greats like Ranjit Singh-ji and W.G. Grace, and about the likes of Neville Cardus, and predictably enough, he had never heard of them. Nor indeed did he seem to know much about great Indian cricketers who had played more than twenty five years ago. Biggest surprise of all: he had never himself played the game – the real game – in his life.

I wonder whether the thought that flashed across my mind was, or was not, really incongruous – I was reminded of the great animal expert, conservationist and maverick zoo keeper Gerald Durrell once remarking that the world has grown full of young people who believe that milk grows in plastic bottles on the front doorstep every morning…