The Hindu Business Line : Not daunted by technology

There are any number of senior citizens in India who have happily embraced the changing technology to keep in touch with dear ones living all across the globe.

From the world of haves and have-nots we are moving to a world of know and know-nots", remarks a tech happy G Srinivasalu, a 65-year-old retired bank manager, whose morning starts with a new age ritual: switching on his PC.

"Gone are the days of switching on my radio set first thing in the morning. When I think of how long we have come from the days of radio to the Internet, I wonder if it's all in one lifetime," says the senior netizen.

The older generation has evolved this attitude more to communicate with children living overseas and not due to professional compulsions, as they all retired just as IT was at the threshold of their workplaces. So did Srinivasalu from Canara Bank, but he got familiar with the world of `Yahoo' and `Google' to communicate with his children living overseas. E-mail, he found, was much cheaper than long-distance calls.

When Srinivasalu's son visited him last January, he acquainted his parents with e-mail and Internet. "He bought us a PC. Now, not only are our telephone bills smaller, but I also feel smart that the world is in my hands," says the former bank manager.

For Vijaya Patil, it was not so much the need to communicate with her relatives, but more to get in touch with prospective bridegrooms and their families (for her daughters) that brought her close to the virtual world. "It all started a year ago when my elder daughter received a gift coupon from NIIT offering free coaching classes. She could gift this to a woman of her choice."

So Vijaya took up the offer. "With so many youngsters around me, initially I felt like a fish out of water," she says. But after a few classes, when she was drawn into the exciting world of the Net, there was no looking back.

Though her prime intention to get acquainted with the computer was to browse the Net for matrimonial sites for her daughters, she got hooked on to other sites offering information on health, latest books published, and the like. "I have a Thyroid problem and have surfed all the sites that give information about the problem. I'm also an avid reader and can now download books and read them." Every day, Vijaya, like Srinivasulu, religiously logs on to the Net for at least two hours. "I also work on the multimedia and try to paint and sketch," she says. She also confesses that she's not an expert at using the PC and still has a lot to learn.

"I still have problems viewing some attachments and forwarding them, but let's say I'm comfortable using the Net."

Getting hooked to the Net is not the privilege that's reserved for the youth, if you go by the number of senior people that visit the cyber cafes everyday. Says Kumar, owner of Cyber Point, a browsing centre in Bangalore, "After 11 am, out of 10 people, I have at least 3 senior citizens who use the PC for about an hour everyday."

He says almost all these users come there to write or receive mails from their children living abroad. Kumar has helped several of them open an e-mail ID and operate it.

For Usha Ramamurthy, 62, new technology is not a big challenge. "I started sending e-mails to my daughter as soon she went to the US. Now, I chat with her and my grandchildren regularly," she quips.

She has always been a binding force in the family and she realises the benefits that the new technology can offer and has made the best use of it. "When you have a reasonably cheap and good method of keeping in touch with family and friends, it should be used," she says enthusiastically.

But how did she actually learn to type the messages?

"My son taught me the basics, like switching the machine on and off. The rest I experimented and learnt on my own."

Necessity is the mother of not just invention, but also is the fountainhead of a great deal of learning. When Usha's husband was hospitalised for a minor surgery recently, she had to learn to use the cell phone and now it's time to learn to send SMS, she says cheerfully.

In contrast to this zealous group of senior citizens, there are a whole lot of their contemporaries quite averse to the idea of using the Net or the cellphone. "More than anything, it's fear of technology that's keeping my mother from learning to use the Net," says Priya S, who urges her mother to try her hand at browsing or sending an e-mail. As Usha says, "Everything develops out of a need, even learning skills."

But the three cheers should go their spirit to embrace, learn and adapt to new ways of life.

Picture by G.R.N. Somashekar

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