SATELLITE AND SUICIDE

Coming to the point, the passage I wanted to write is about the Satellites, to be exact, the artificial satellites revolving around the earth. Yes, those are man made, for the pleasure and comfort of his life.

It is a matter of wonder that the satellites are governing the human life in the modern days. During the last one decade, man has grown to the level of God or Devil, to tame the universe as a whole. Many of the inventions made by the 17 th century scientists like Edison have now been surpassed by the growth of the swift development of communication system. The telecommunication system made the continents closer, the television signals made the world a village, reduced the length and breadth of the so believed vast globe. Nations have sent one after the other newer and newer satellites to the space; the outer orbit of the earth. Even for talking to a man adjacent to us, the sound signals have to travel all the way, to and fro the satellite, that too within fraction of a second; what a wonder. We neither need go out of home nor travel to anywhere; the telephone, Internet, e- mail, e-commerce, medical transcripency, web pages and video conferencing will do our works. All what happened in all nooks and corners of the world will reach to our mini screen with in no time, with full clarity and supporting descriptions. We can have banking, purchase any thing, see any one talking to us, and what not through the modern amenities. All the frontierial separations between nations have dissolved in the deluge of the electronic revolution. The enthusiastic ones, irrespective of their age and educational status have tried to swim across this current, yet others set aside and move away from the vicinity as if they feared the trend. Slowly they also had to involve, with out which the life became miserable. Could you not see mobile phones with illiterates and age-old octogenarians!

I believe, the entire development, and the raise of standard of living there to, is due to the influx of the modern amenities provided by the electronic era, thanks to satellites. No one boggles whether he could accommodate the cost of maintenance of a new facility; he rushes to own the piece. There is no instrument in the modern day devoid of recurring expense. Would you please stand still for a moment to think about the equipments of the last century, the bicycle and the sewing machine, the type writing machine or such other costly ones? A single initial investment plus the manual propulsion would make them yield output through out the lifetime. What about your electrical consuming instruments and fuel drinking equipments? How much cost are you paying as service charges to your communication amenities? Some times more than 1000 times than the initial cost of the hard ware! I shall not go in deep in to a subject, as every one knows and likes not to remember the bitter encumbrance. The expense incurred on this kind of facilities is the sole reason for the immature homicides prevalent in our place, beware of that.

Many times an inauspicious thought flashed in my mind. Suppose the savior satellites in the space, launched and installed by all the countries-probably that might have fully exhausted the ‘space’ in the space- if collided, caught fire and gutted all together, what would be the fate of the world. If the earth has a pre determined destiny to dooms, this would be the apt cause for that; isn’t it? There arises a question. Who will be the sufferer? Certainly, we all, or who else? But the impact- intensity, extensity, direction and duration- will be different from society to society and person to person depending up on the dependence on that. Some times I can live with out any communication system, with out any electronic mass media. How many of us, the rural layman can withstand this bare situation, let alone the advanced countries and its modern societies! If such an impracticable postulation occurred, the least sufferers would be the have-nots of the present day, as they have not enjoyed the boon of the electronic era to its full swing. Slowly the rate of suicide will pass on to the high-class society as they feel the situation highly intolerable to with stand.

I fear, if this imaginary havoc has struck in the crooked minds of the enemy nations, they could very well jam the satellites at least at the war time, so that any country can be isolated with out any external and internal relations. Imagine a life with out telephone, T V, Radio, Newspaper, e-mail, Fax, Internet, ATM etc and returning to the bygone days of Post Cards and Inland letters! How do you feel? I recollect the impact of the Gulf war and the scarcity of petroleum on us. Comparing to that the present context of thought has a few more fathom of depth.