George Ninan was in a state of near panic. The 27-year-old programmer had prepared himself for a 14-hour train journey but not for the two-hour delay that was now facing him. He was tired, stuck with snoring co-passengers and worried about just one thing — how in the world would he fight the boredom?
But deep inside his ‘digital medicine bag’ was the solution to all his troubles — a tablet PC — an 11-inch, high-definition window to almost any sight in the world. Much better than what the witch doctor prescribed.
All that was now separating him from a world of entertainment was a little power switch.
Ninan is one of hundreds in India who’re now owners of tablet PCs — little multi-tasking mules carrying your favourite music, movies, photographs, books and thousands of applications and access to the World Wide Web, wherever you go.
“I’ve been doing this journey since 2001, and I remember browsing newsstands to pick up something for the trip. Now, I just call books out from thin air,” says Ninan, showing off a Kindle subscription and over 500 songs.
Impressive. And what was that about boredom and smallpox?
You might think comparing ‘dullness’ to a disease that has killed over 300 – 500 million people in the 20th century is a bit far-fetched. But then there’s this 2009 report from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College, Lon-don, about a direct link between boredom and heart disease.
You see, what the boffins with the British accents are saying is that heart trouble, of which boredom is a factor, has been the leading cause of death in England, Canada, Wales and particularly the US, a country where heart disease accounts for 25.4 per cent of deaths.
Shaken yet? Ninan is. As he says, “Boredom is just waiting for us around the corner and it’s up to us to keep it at bay.” And his tablet PC will be his best friend in that fight.
There are over 20 million users of tablet computers worldwide — each of them, a downloading fiend and each driven by one need — to be entertained, at all times.
And it’s been a ball for these nerds. For the first time in the history of publishing, we’re actually ‘calling out books from thin air’. You don’t have to lug around CDs and hang USB sticks around your neck. It’s all inside that little tab-let you’re holding, and it’s even lighter than a Harry Potter book!
But there’s also the argument over price. A tablet computer will cost us Indians anywhere between `30,000 to half a lakh — big cash indeed!
However, in a few months, a host of ‘former mobile phone makers’ will launch themselves into the tablet PC market, bringing in a plethora of options for the world. Inevitably, there’ll be a dip in prices.
All summed up, that shiny tablet PC is, bravely, the first definitive cure for boredom because yes, gadgets have tried before but have we, truly, ever had a product lighter than a boy wizard? It’s even rightly named — a tablet!
The point is — most importantly — it’s not about making space in your bags for books and movies anymore. It’s about reading up on cholera in Haiti, watching Aishwarya Rai smoke and even telling your friend on Facebook that it’s been a while since you’ve met each other. Ninan had on that day, 18 puzzles, two e-books, four movies, games, 245 Facebook friends to connect with and yes, Google. His train was delayed for two more hours but he, and the battery, survived.
Survived a
disease.