Disconnected!

He is all of 10 years old. But watch him use his father's computer, and believe me, it will leave you baffled. In fact, he can teach you a thing or two about computers.

Of course, kids today are a tech-savvy lot. Not surprising, considering that right from the time they are toddlers they come into contact with tons of gizmos.

I am talking about my nephew here. Abhiram. We call him Ramu.

Ramu adores me, it borders on hero-worship. When I am in Kochi, visiting my family, he never leaves my side. And he is full of questions. I have no answers for some of the queries he shoots at me. And many a time I have had to throw up my hands and admit that I have no clue.

At times when he talks about computer games, mobile phones and such other things, I have had to tell him I really didn't have a clue.

I hear surprise in his voice, and a little disappointment, as he says, "Oh, you didn't know that?!!" I am his uncle, his hero, who should know everything. At least, his young mind thinks so.

During one of our conversations recently, I tell him that in my childhood we had no TV at home. "Why? Didn't grandpa buy you a TV?" he asks.

"It’s not because grandpa didn't buy a TV," I tell him. "There was no such thing like a TV back then. There were no TV channels, too. At least, it had not arrived in India."

"Oh! You mean no Cartoon Network? No Pogo? Then what did you do in your free time?" he asks, his face filled with an expression that screamed, 'C'mon you can't be serious'.

"Well, we played a lot out in the open, climbed trees, went swimming or fishing in the river," I say.

“Wow! Really? You went swimming and fishing in the river?” he asks, all the adulation returning to his little round face. And as I keep talking about my childhood adventures, I realise that Ramu, at 10, has never climbed a tree!

It is my turn to feel surprised. For the next few days, his questions revolve around swimming and fishing.

“Do you swim?” I ask him. “No,” came the reply. I see that he is feeling a little bad or embarrassed about it. “I gotta learn,” he says. I tell him to ask his father to take him for swimming classes. And he is determined to do so.

Then the conversation turns to fishing. After a barrage of questions, he asks me, “Will you take me fishing?” The excitement on his face when I say ‘yes’ is simply wonderful to watch. Over the next few days we dig out my old fishing rod and go out to get the paraphernalia to go fishing.

Ten minutes walk from my house is the river. Ramu and I walk down and sit down in a shady place on the bank. I show him how to string the hook and use the bait.

After swinging the bait in, we wait. In a few minutes Ramu is impatient. “Why aren't we catching any fish,” he asks.

“We will. Just wait till the fish bites the bait,” I tell him. Ramu waits.

Before long he looks at me and says, “You really don’t know fishing that well, do you?”

I look at him. What else can I expect from a 10-year-old who grew up on Cartoon Network, watching Tom and Jerry go fishing and catching dozens of fish within minutes?

A few months later, we go to Palakkad for a cousin’s wedding. We stay at a friend’s home, which is beautiful. He has a small bungalow with a veranda round it.

My three-year-old niece Mrinalini and I are walking on the veranda. She is holding my hand. That’s when a thought comes into my mind. Mili, as we call her, has never stepped on sand!

She lives on the second floor of an apartment building in Kochi. The ground around the apartment building is paved with cement. So even when she goes out to play she never steps on sand.

So I slowly lead Mili to the steps. She climbs down and on to the sand. Suddenly, as if something is burning her feet, she starts a hoppity-hop dance. I burst out laughing.

I call my brother-in-law and tell him how his daughter reacted to her feet touching sand.

How disconnected with nature are children these days. Never climbed a tree, plucked a fruit and ate it. Never played in the sand or swam in a river.

Here we are bringing up a generation in a concrete jungle, away from Mother Nature. Sad, isn't it?