Apna Time Aayega

good afternoon uh

girls and boys ladies and gentlemen one

thing i was sure about when i accepted

this request to

speak at this edition of tedx was that

it will be punctual after all

the theme itself is integrating time

but then my talk was scheduled just

before lunch i was the last speaker

before lunch time and i thought to

myself and you would agree it was

a legitimate apprehension whether there

would any be any people actually here be

here

to listen to me or would everyone rush

off to the lunch counter

so in order to send the organizers a

subtle message

i titled my talk as apna tai mayaka

but i’m glad to see so many of you here

also maintaining social distancing which

is very important

i call it integrating time by

maintaining dog

and that’s what even prime minister

narendra modi says and it sounds a bit

like the kingfisher tagline

doesn’t it divided by times united by

kingfisher

in today’s context it would be divided

by kovid united by

masks and i see quite a few colorful

masks

out here i was telling a friend of

mine that tedx is organizing this

particular event where the theme is of

integrating time

and he told me haven’t we actually

wilded away a whole lot of time

during most part of 2020 as part of the

lockdown why does tedx have to spend an

entire day then

talking about time i thought really dude

because as far as i was concerned

between

mopping the floor washing the dishes

folding the clothes

disposing of the garbage buying

provisions and working from home

i thought these were very testing times

in fact i had to work overtime

in order to catch up with content on

netflix amazon and hotstar

so i thought if there was one commodity

one element

which was in short supply in most of

2020

it was time because

if you see the 366 days of the calendar

of 2020 remember we are in a leap year

it’s almost like

by a year 2020 get an extra bad day free

this these have been testing times and

it has been a trial by fire for

so many of us in fact i know of people

who are

praying and hoping that come january 1

2021 will probably be a better behaved

calendar

than 2020. it’s almost like buying a

product online

right you buy an expensive order for an

expensive iphone and i know

i think iphone unveiled some three four

versions earlier this week

so you order for an expensive iphone and

instead of that you get a cheap

chinese mall let me tell you when i say

mal

i do not mean to say so let’s that be

clarified

lest it find its way into some 9 pm

bulletin on some channel

now kobet 19 has been

in many senses a very difficult year has

made it a very difficult year for most

people

it’s made 2020 a year to forget

can you go fast so

if you look at the way it has panned out

we hear of so many tragic stories

from so many families friends relatives

acquaintances

and it almost seems like the only way to

beat the your time is up

a very traumatic and tragic warning the

whisper of death

as i call it which is ending so many

dreams and aspirations

like this is to buy is to remain

faithful to the mosque that’s the only

way to beat this kovid 19 nightmare

that the entire world is going through

it’s almost as if we are

seeing a science fiction horror film

produced from across the great wall

and dubbed into several indian languages

that’s how

scary the situation is and the kind of

stories that we hear from so many people

that’s making it so much difficult in

fact

it has kind of cut across all kinds of

barriers rich poor

hindu muslim christian parsi jew sick

educated uneducated even god has not

been spared

temples churches gurudwaras mosques have

all been shut down

for most part of 2020 your influence

does not work

either out here so what do you do really

because at this point in time kovat 19

has made it

is really the big equalizer as it were

suddenly as i said the only way to beat

it is by social distancing

wearing a mask and ensuring that use a

sanitizer

all the time that’s the only way to do

that

and you need to stay true to the such

bharat abhiyan the hand

in fact may not be the hottest political

currency at the evm at least not in the

last

six years but definitely the hand

is your passport to remaining safe and

remaining healthy

no one is safe anymore and these are the

times we live in

and no one is safe anymore not even the

king of good times

including the person living in london

right now

so what exactly is time is it an

abstract concept or is it a very

tangible concept how does one really

define time

is my bad time the same as your bad time

or does my having a bad time mean my

boss is having a good time how does one

define time

is time about being about 12 55 pm

right now i guess it would depend on who

you are asking right

if you ask me as a journalist i will say

time is deadline

that you need to deliver the story in

the next 20 minutes so that it can be

part

of the 9 pm bulletin and i mean those

channels

who actually deliver news not a raving

and ranting session not an abusing and

screaming session

if you ask me as an educator i would say

it’s all about the time that you spend

with your books

preparing notes absorbing like a sponge

up from life in general and of course

the time management during the

examination

if you ask me as a father i would say

just another eight odd months

before uma and my only daughter

completes class 12 and leaves home

in pursuit of higher education if you

ask me as a husband i would say 25

wonderful years

and many more to come if you ask virat

kohli

he will tell you time is all about

timing the ball right so that you hit

that delicious covered drive

right and he will also tell you that

it’s high time

the rcb won the ipl

and talking about the ipl ms dhoni will

wonder what happened to csk’s good times

at the ipl

if you ask a doctor he will say time is

the golden

r if you ask a stock broker he will tell

you it’s all about timing the market

to ensure that you make good money if

you ask an astrologer he will tell you

your bad time will continue till

december 2021 because till then rahu and

ketu are not on talking terms

so we are all talking about time all the

time

but our interpretation and understanding

of time

is all very difficult different

most people when they want to avoid you

would straight away bring in mr time

into the picture and say i do not have

time

i personally think i do not have time

quote unquote is the biggest lie

ever spoken almost every other minute by

someone or the other

to someone else because the sentence is

actually incomplete it should actually

be

i do not have time for you but i may

have time for someone else

put bluntly it means you are not

priority which is why when we speak of

integrating time the theme of this

edition of tedx it’s

actually about integrating relationships

because we are all in a relationship

with time all the time

and the best of relationships need time

to ensure

that they remain the best when you deny

time to

someone who seeks it from you you’re

actually putting a value

a crude price tag to that person’s worth

in your life

and you tell yourself listening to this

person

spending time with this person speaking

to this person does not

add to my life in any way so let me

blame it on time to me

integrating time is just another way of

speaking about

respecting relationships respecting

every single entity

who came into your life doing good bad

or ugly things

made you feel good made you feel

miserable went out of his hand

way to lend a helping hand or actually

created problems in your life

it could be the bad eggs who taught you

a very bitter lesson

it could be a chemistry teacher who

taught you the formulae

it could be your english literature

teacher who taught you to appreciate

william shakespeare enjoy the process of

learning

it could be your grandfather who taught

you how to hold a racket in order to

play

good badminton it could be your

grandmother who taught you how to read

the time

on the wall clock right that reminds me

in fact

my daughter went to a montessori school

till class four

i fondly recall that on the day of the

farewell of my daughter’s batch

the principal of course had invited the

parents but she had also invited the

grandparents

and on that last day the principal of

the school did something very thoughtful

she handed over to

every grandparent a laminated copy of an

essay their grandchild had written on

the grandparent when they were in class

two or three

to me that is integrating time deepening

a very special bond a moment where you

tell the grandparent that you’re

more valuable and precious than what you

think you may be 60 and your grandchild

10 years old

but this is a time that you need to

cherish

the love that you have for your

grandchild and your grandchild has for

you

is like a moment frozen in time it is

not an us versus them it can be

and it should be us and them

we speak of generation gap i mean that’s

a phrase we use quite often i think once

we try to integrate relationships

none of this so called generation gap

would really exist

but the question that arises is are we

integrating time and relationships well

in the most positive and harmonious

manner

let me talk about journalism the career

with which i have been associated with

for

close to 30 30 years it has changed a

lot from the time when i used to

actually type my articles on a remington

typewriter as a freelancer in the late

80s

to go to every newspaper office to hand

over my piece

to the editors when we entered

television in the mid-90s we used to

operate with

big high band tapes beta tapes the size

of the tapes kept shrinking

and now you have either the small tips

and of course your cell phone

now is really the game changer in the

early 90s actually as newcomers in the

media space we would wonder whether we

could actually go

live from a location a flooded area a

cyclone hit area

an area where an axle attack has taken

place an area where a major train

accident has taken place

just to be able to communicate to the

viewer

and show to the viewer what exactly is

happening today it is possible

all you need is a smartphone with a good

4g connectivity

and a selfie stick and a mic and you are

good to go

which is why apna time ayga for the

common man

and the journalist has become a case of

time again technology has truly

revolutionized the media just like many

other sectors

in india and around the world each and

every person is now a journalist

you only need a social media handle to

get your voice heard and amplified

in fact you no longer need big bugs to

have your own channel so many people are

running successful channels on youtube

doing stuff that they are good at

specialist at

and becoming digital media entrepreneurs

so while all this has happened and it’s

all very fine

has a large section of the mainstream

media

forgotten its basic dharma of

integrating relationships

or has it become a divisive force now

when we

entered the field of journalism 30 years

ago at least speaking about myself

you were told that you need to ensure

that you earned the

trust of the viewer over a period of

time and that was for us

the five letter word which we needed to

remember all the time

in fact the tagline of ndtv where i

worked for over 16 years

is trust the question is whether

over a period of time in our bid to show

that we are now better thanks to

technology we have lost out on that

basic five letter word called trust

so the question is whether high

technology use in media

has necessarily led to a more

responsible more empathic media space

or is hate now gift trapped in a

high-tech rapper

because i feel it is a poisoning of

india taking place

one day at a time one bulletin at a time

so to return to the theme of this

edition of tedx

if the media generation of today is

happy with this change with time and if

society at large is

okay with hate and slander served by

both sides the right wing as well as the

so-called liberals i think we are

heading for very dangerous times

a large part of the media if you note is

no longer showing you the truth

it is the channel’s truth the website’s

true the newspapers truth it’s like a

multiple choice questions

mcqs presented to you and me choose

whatever suits

your truth now you may wonder whether i

am painting a very pessimistic picture

yes and no no because i mentioned

youtube a while earlier

and i will now take you to the other

career i am associated with right now

and that is education now for the past

one year plus i have been teaching

students absolutely free of cost

the most important resource being my

time

and this is over youtube and as the lady

said in the introduction

my students range from shillong to

ludhyana to

madurai to vadodara to small towns like

dhule

lots of towns in odisha west bengal in

fact the other day i

kind of found one student called jyotika

who hails from

my mother’s village in trishul district

of kerala and i was delighted

and so many of my students actually

scored marks in the high 90s in their

2020 final board examinations

so technology has evolved and with time

what has taken place is the integration

of content with technology

today fiki counts edtech as one of the

industries that will

really grow and flourish in the next

decade

i remember a conversation with an up top

i.t honcho

uh a chairman of a prominent i.t company

in november last year and he was telling

me sudhir in a decade from now

students will go to school only for

social interaction developing leadership

skills

the academic learning will all happen

online

well i think he kind of spoke of a

decade as a very long time because

that kobet 19 fast forwarded the 10

years that he spoke of

to just about 10 weeks yes there are

issues with online learning as all of us

know

there is problem of not everyone having

access to technology there is screen

fatigue there is boredom

uh but what it does is that if aided by

good technology

it can reach out to the most remote

corner of the country and that’s a huge

plus

the marriage of technology and education

has shrunk

the time factor and that’s the time the

integration of time that we are talking

about

so you have two career paths that i have

been part of one not

entirely covering itself with glory

despite the influx of high technology

the other using the same technology as a

way forward to have

tremendous opportunities lastly

while we talk of you know journalism and

education all that is fine

but integrating time is also not about

doing it with others

it’s also about yourself the question

that each one of us need to ask is

are we giving ourselves a decent amount

of quality time are we happy with the

company we keep on social media

are we feeding ourselves with toxicity

every minute

no wonder if you notice and that’s what

a friend of mine was also talking about

we hear about so much of depression

issues these days

despite having so much of company on

social media we are still

feeling very very lonely so integrate

your time

your idea of time not necessarily with

the world that matters

but with yourself also look inward so

that you can

find peace and that’s how you can lead a

more

harmonious life have a more harmonious

existence thank you very much for your

time