In this age of technological advancement, human qualities once prized highly are fast losing their grounds. Even the capacity for face-to-face personal communication is getting hampered by excessive honing the skills of modern gadgets like computer and smart phones. A recent study carried out by one of the top universities in America has found that excessive addiction to such gadgets for children takes away the ability to read the facial expressions of people trying to communicate with them. They cannot fully grasp the meaning of language and read the change in the shades of facial expression.
Jajabar, which is the pen-name of Binoy Mukhapadhya, wrote in his celebrated novel 'Drishtipat' to the effect that modernity has given people speed but taken away emotion. Today, a child is at ease with cartoon channels, video or computer games. So engrossed are they that they feel no urge to listen to the fairytales of Thakurmar Jhuli or folklores of Khirer Putul or to read Upendra Kishore and Sukumar Roy's child masterpieces.
Batman and Superman and many more have replaced those pieces and most importantly in visual forms. All they need is a click of the button and the impossible is made possible in the twinkle of an eye. The superbly done animation and colours are indeed a treat to watch for them. It all happens before their eyes. The appeal they cannot resist. They become a part of the game or the cartoon as they experience the whole show in a spell-bound fashion. What however no one notices is the total absence of imagination in the entire exercise.
Fairytale describes a character or an incident in great details and it is the imaginative faculty that is prompted to create images according to the capacity of a young mind. On the screen of an electronic gadget, no scope is left for the mind to create such an image of one's own liking. The picture is so clear and concrete that one is not required to fill in gaps left by sketches done by words. There indeed lies the problem. The creative faculty is numbed. Children are not challenged to bring into play their own creative faculty; rather it is done by others in the highly sophisticated photo shop of a western country.
What is worse is the failure on children's part to strike a balance between reality and fantasy. Most such children carry the legacy even to their adulthood. When young men and women on their travel are seen busy playing games on their smart phones or browsing facebook messages, one can realise how deprived they are from the sights and sounds of the real world. They will never know how a calf or a baby goat suddenly springs sideways on their run and come back to its mother. How an eagle spreads its wings in the air and suddenly swoops on the water of a pond, canal or river and emerges with a fish in its talon!
Well they have the opportunity to view such wonderful sights if they watch the National Geographic, Discovery or the Animal Planet. But they are more interested in cartoons and video games. In the process they get alienated from the natural world and also from people around them including their near and dear ones. They fail to appropriately respond to emotional appeal. A mechanical attitude develops unaware and the set of language stocks they command is a queer type. A look at the language used for facebook communication can indeed be a frightening experience. It is a mixture of Bangla and English as well as their offshoots -a hybrid type.
Is the world then heading for an emotional crisis? Most young men today have no patience. They want to get at hand immediately what they want. Some go derailed because of the temptation of things not easily available proves too much for them. Culturally bereft, they are posing a real threat to society. Crimes once unheard-of are being committed with nonchalance and at times with impunity.
A cultural reawakening is what can do some damage control if not resist the alien invasion. There is indeed the need for looking for the root. No better recipe than cultural roots can effectively fight this type of hegemony.
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