Nana’s tryst with smartphones
My nana or my maternal grandfather is about 92 years old. Nobody knows exactly how old, not even him. He just has a faint recollection that he was born around 1930 and that’s what was written on his birth certificate. He is a man of strict discipline. I think it comes naturally to him along with the fact that he served in the Indian police for several decades.
My nana is a very straightforward person. He likes being blunt and honest and expects the same from others. I think I have got a bit of that from him. He has never used a computer in his life. Since I am a software engineer, his questions around what exactly I do at Facebook are some of the hardest questions anyone has asked me. I just simply tell him that I am kind of a writer. I write in a language that computers understand and give them specific instructions to do things just like he used to give orders to his men when he was a policeman.
Nana has never been a fan of using cell phones. He is admittedly old fashioned in that regard. For him, meeting in-person is the ultimate thing. And I do get that. Nothing can replace face time with people you love. But this often became a problem because at the time, we both lived in different cities. If anyone needed to talk to him they had to call someone else in the house and then they would pass the phone to him. He stubbornly refused to keep a mobile phone. This changed about 12 years ago around 2010.
If I recall correctly, it was my mom who bought him his first basic non-smart mobile phone. I should perhaps emphasize something here - my nana is a strong headed man who has led his life being the head of the family and eventually also the head of his police department. He is used to giving orders. But if there is one person that he listens to, one person that can convince him to do things he otherwise doesn’t want to do, it’s my mom. And it was my mom who bought him his first non-smart mobile phone, which if I recall correctly was for ₹2500. That was a big moment!
Nana now had a mobile phone and people could reach him directly. He still wasn’t a fan of keeping a mobile phone but gave in, mostly reluctantly. He struggled to use it though. But he understood two main and important things about the phone - it had a green button to pick calls and a red button to disconnect. He would often ask his grand kids when he was stuck looking up a name in the phone book or when he didn’t understand how to increase the volume using the side buttons, etc. To be fair though, arguably, the mobile phones back in the day weren’t as intuitive. Especially for a person who started using them for the first time at age 80.
Fast forward about 10 years and his old phone got upgraded in around 2020. My elder brother somehow managed to convince him to retire his old phone for a new one since the old phone didn’t work efficiently, even for his basic needs of picking up and making phone calls. My nana has always been a minimalist. He proudly tells me that he still has his wedding clothes neatly folded in the almirah that he sometimes wears even now after 60+ years! So, it was not surprising when he resisted the phone upgrade but eventually gave in. My nana now had a smartphone that he didn’t know how to operate. He got better at looking up names in his phone book though. That was progress!
Group photo on my most recent trip to Lucknow to meet nana in January 2023
Something interesting happened during my trip to India in early January of 2023. I was visiting him in Lucknow. My nana has got weak now and also has nerve pain in his neck and back that keeps him in bed most times. He can still slowly walk with his stick and some sincere effort but he gets tired quickly, a big change to how I was used to seeing him only a few years ago. He’s making progress though and his movements are improving. What really surprised me, however, was how much he has started using his smart phone! He now knows how to use WhatsApp and send photos, videos, and voice notes. This was a fascinating thing to watch as well as a funny one given how far he has come in his relationship with his phone.
Amongst all the things that my nana liked in his new found love in his smartphone, the best part was still seeing how much he adored YouTube! He told me that he has stopped watching TV since his phone shows him everything that he wants to watch in the comfort of his bed. He also told me that YouTube is so awesome that it magically knows what he likes and keeps showing him similar videos. Plain and simple, he’s hooked to his smart phone. He is hooked like a kid who just got a brand new phone from his parents. I didn’t bother checking his screen time. Neither did I bother explaining how the YouTube’s recommendation system works using machine learning or what artificial intelligence is. Those things don’t matter. Nor do I think I’ll be able to do a good job of explaining such alien concepts to him when I couldn’t even properly explain what I do at Facebook. But seeing his excitement of watching videos on Youtube and being able to video chat with me on WhatsApp without paying for international calling is priceless!
I hope he recovers well from his current set of illnesses. According to my mom and uncles, he was a very strict father but is an overly indulgent grandfather. I have tons of memories with him as a kid as well as an adult and it is hard to pick my favourite. I am not even going to try. All I know is that amongst the few people who love me, truly unconditionally, he is definitely at the top!