VS.

So I was at a family gathering for Eid, and for a while, I was the only guy in the room with 5 women from different generations from the family. For at least 10 mins, there was nothing said, and all the women were glued to the tv watching Star Academy, the 24 hour channel.

I despise that show more than anything else on tv. Actually I might say id rather watch paint slowly dry off any wall than watch these kids arguing and screaming all the time.

Anyway, as I was fiddling with my phone trying to waste time while the women were enchanted by the charm an magnetism of Star Academy, something popped up in my head! The whole situation was eerily similar to something I read in Ray Bradbury’s excellent classic Fahrenheit 451.

In the book, the main character’s wife, Mildred, is obsessed with what she calls “the parlour”, which is basically a room of big screens as walls, where she watches people and people’s lives, there is nothing more than their living rooms and daily life on screen. Mildred reaches the point where she calls them “her family”.

Now, at that moment where I was surrounded by my family, with them not talking to each other, but instead staring at a tv screen to watch people sitting down in their own living room and talking about absolutely nothing important!

Its funny how a book written more than half a century ago can be so accurate about our social life now.

P.S. - Its an excellent book for many reasons, its one of those all-time classics, but is also a short and powerful read. Anyone could go on for hours talking about similarities of the book with modern day world.