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This Is Your Time Capsule To An Era Without The Internet

by HackerNoon ArchivesNovember 2nd, 2017

Too Long; Didn't Read

He ploughs there all day, with the sun drying up his mud-stained back. A child watches from a distance.

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My good friend — Prathibha Nellihela — captured an amazing picture whilst travelling on a moving train. I tried my best to write a micro-story that would do that majestic picture any sort of justice. Things got interesting when I got sucked into that picture and imagined myself walking through that peaceful pre-modern landscape. I walked through that world that I was blind to, with no past or future in mind. I was given a mere peek at what ‘life before the internet’ really looked like. It goes something like this..

A man stands, with a plow in hand, on a water-drenched paddy field. I don’t know his good name. I’m looking from afar.

He ploughs there all day, with the sun drying up his mud-stained back. A child watches from a distance.

The child smiles. The father struggles back a sweaty smile, hiding his toil.

Life is as simplistic as it comes, with the ‘Internet’ being an unknown word to this family of three.

A mother cooks lunch in a mud-walled hut overlooking the paddy field. Good times had finally come! The Water Gods had blessed their crop, just yesterday.

Her main mental worry was whether the elephant-fence that her husband built a week back would hold up — terrorism and home robbery were unheard of in this area.

So was ISIS.

Terror attacks are instigated by the neighbourhood elephants, not by neighbouring humans. And the attacks are aimed at their valuable crops, not their invaluable lives.

Rape and sexual assault are heard of once in a blue moon when the well-known village pervert acts out on his feelings.

The difference is, everyone knows who the culprit is. He will be beaten up by the village folk when he does act out.

No one is worried about Tweeting their worries — these people don’t even own mobile devices to post #MeToo quotes.

‘Tweeting’ is what the neighbourhood birds do — meant in its most original sense.

Government corruption still exists, far away from their innocent mud-walled home.

This family would support any election candidate in a heartbeat if he promises to safeguard their only source of job security — the irrigation tanks keeping their paddy fields alive during the long drought seasons.

When drought comes in, out goes their lunch. Sometimes their dinner too.

These two parents don’t own university funds for their unborn children — their life is a day-to-day function; a struggle to survive on a meagre income, promised by the Water Gods above.

Crypto-currency and bitcoins are unknown to these people — their money isn’t large enough to entice any robber. They do exchange money, but not boatloads like you and I aspire to do.

Their needs are limited, so are their wants. What they need is right there at their fingertips — a comfortable home, a sealed roof, a green paddy field and a happy child.

Prayer to a sleeping statue is their only source of inner-peace, with the promise that tomorrow will bring them life, shelter, food and safety.