“Let’s meet up online today”... “I’ll call you up tonight”... “Come on Skype, it’s free”. Do these statements seem familiar? Yes, I bet you yourself use these every day. Facebook, Skype, Cell phones, Emails, Sms, Conference, Fax. You hear these words and the first thing that comes to your mind is the advancement of Technology. But what does it lead to? --- A sense of belongingness. Gone are the days when u had to make trunk calls once in 4 months or write 4 letters in a year to assure your loved ones of your safety. 10 days delay and their blood pressure would reach at its peak. Some people even suffered a lifetime separation from their families. And now? Your all time companion—cell phones remove this hassle off your mind. So what if you are 100 miles away from home. You still feel oh-so-close.
Thanks to Globalization – which started as an initiative towards economic prosperity by opening up trade routes, eventually led to cross cultural mixing. We now are used to sms languages, so used to that after completing this piece, am sure to read this twice to make sure I haven’t used any. Orkut has become our lifeline. Why not? After all we miss our far-away-living friends so much. And why to increase our bills by calling up when the simplest way is to go online and chat. Or talk for hours and hours free from Skype. And don’t we all enjoy it? Certainly we do. But enough of technology talks. Think of the international exposure we get. Do all of us want to do our Masters from India? Or U.K. and U.S are more preferred? In return what do we get apart from better job and education? Let me think-----‘firang’ friends? This is where the cross cultural mixing comes into picture. We now lovingly accept the enrichment of languages. Ever noticed the newly added ‘Hinglish’ words in Oxford dictionary? Then comes the ‘Adios’…’Sionara’…’Chow’…Don’t tell me even your grandparents used these jargons. Indian music, which was only confined to India, has now spread all over the world. Same goes for western music. Ask a 17 yr old what kind of music does he listen to and the immediate reply comes “Hard rock, Power Pop” and so forth. Not to deny the fact that this taste starts simply from peer pressure. We just don’t want to be the odd one out. And these common likes and dislikes, common topics of discussions tremendously help us to connect with our peers well. Cultural difference becomes a least-bothering issue. In fact, we simply love to boast “My best friend is an Australian”. Not only music, we find this blend of cultures in cuisines too—we all know how popular kebabs have become in England don’t we?
Globalization brings about both evolution and extinction. On one hand, we have an inter-twining culture—learning new languages, connecting to people from different parts of the globe, getting a taste of varying music etc. On the other hand, there’s an increasing dilution of cultural inheritance and stressed relationships. As we leave our footprints on the rest of the globe, we hardly realize the quickly perishing cultural identity as every subsequent generation absorbs more and more global culture (predominantly western). Where are the long-bragged about respect and reverence which we were known to give our elders? Does our so-called ‘sanskaar’ ask us to promote nuclear families by dumping our parents into some old-age home? Is our responsibility limited to providing them with material benefits? We now keep a track of the latest websites in the Internet. But do we care to bother ourselves with the torture the daughter-in-law of our neighbour has to go through? While our parents are counting days for our long-awaited visit in Diwali, we are busy counting the episodes of ‘Friends’ on satellite television—another ‘bliss’ of globalization. Okay, we all cherish the use of emails and sms. But do they hold as much importance as the personalized hand-written letters which we can keep forever as memories? Does your heart take a lift as much when you get an e-card as it does when u get a card via post?
A small town girl from Karnal, marries an American and goes on to serve the most prestigious space research organization of the world—Kalpana Chawla, like many others, never belonged to a single nation. They are the citizens of the world. Having belongingness to the planet as a whole, the children of globalization have made the boundaries between the nations irrelevant.
Globalization, with its numerous pros and cons, has no doubt implanted an increasing level of tolerance and acceptance within the people. Criticize it as much as you want, you still can’t do without it. This is when the saying by
Kofi Annan proves right:-
“
Arguing against globalization is like arguing against the law of gravity.”
