and Voila! You have access to the same information sitting in your rickety chair in a small town in West Bengal, as your number crunching.gizmo-savvy investment banker in New York, sitting at his suave desk, with his Macbook. And internet, like cell phones, has broken the elite barricade and has entered the houses (and pockets!) of the masses, courtesy affordable mobile internet and pocket friendly broadband connections, with, not to mention, compromised speed. The power of the internet is now in our pockets!

Or is it? In the truest of senses? It’s undoubted that internet has been able to reach the masses, with it’s ubiquitous appeal and power to deliver information at lightning speed. But how much has it changed the outlook of the net-savvy population (no longer a status symbol), in terms of awareness about things their previous generation was unaware of? Let’s have a look.

A trip not so long ago, took me to the national capital where I happened to lose my driving license, the only identity proof I was carrying. To report the loss, I went to the nearby police station. The Office In-Charge noted down all the necessary details and as I mentioned Assam as my state, he asked “So, do you people really travel around on elephants? And I have heard that the snake is a popular delicacy there. Have you tried it?” I was dumb stuck, but deciding that it was not an opportune moment to react, I kept mum. This reminded me of a similar experience recounted by a friend of my father’s, who, on his visit to Mumbai at least a decade back, encountered almost the same questions by the locals who came to know about his native state.

This wasn’t my first experience of such ignorance. During the course of my 4 year long stay in the southern city of Bangalore, any mention of my state evoked mixed expressions from the listeners, ranging from, “Oh, Gauhati?” to questions related to food habits. People actually think that the entire North East is concentrated in Guwahati, the only city that boasts of an international cricket stadium, much like Americans who believe that 1 billion Indians lives in the IT capital Bangalore! And North East seemed to be just North East, a disintegrated, separate entity in the geopolitical map of the country, but never ‘North East India’.

This makes me question whether the power of the internet has actually changed what people devour in terms of information. Even in this world of Facebook shares and tweets, the shadowed continues to remain in shades. Especially, when it comes to North East India, it’s all about an awkward silence, be it the established media houses or the touted ‘mass media’, the internet. No wonder that Irom Sharmila’s fast does not get even a quarter of the attention that Anna Hazare’s did. Nobody bothers to report the problems faced by locals in Manipur, where even the capital city manages to get a bare 8 hours of power supply a day. Or the plight of people in Arunachal Pradesh unless there are border skirmishes with the Chinese army. And Assam becomes an exotic land of tea gardens, elephants, snake-relishers and Bangladeshi invaders! A friend of mine from school once reckoned that perhaps rock bands are the only identity unanimously identified with Northeastern India. Somewhat like the western countries who love to associate India with snake-charmers, rope magic tricks, elephants, exotic temples and recently, IT services. In a sarcastic sense of deja vu!

The internet, in that sense, becomes largely limited as media because it equips people with the power to choose what they want to view and read. It ends up as being a helpless tool driven by supply and demand, wherein reporting the on-demand information is more important than reporting the bare-minimum and the truth because it has to cater to the requirement (and entertainment) of the masses. It is undoubtedly far-flung in terms of reach, but pathetically limited when it comes to content. Anyone can reach it, but not just about anything. Owing to this bias, even Facebook or Twitter doesn’t dare to be a reveal-all. In another kind of an antithesis, a friend, who dared to publish a link related to Irom Sharmila and her fast on her Facebook wall sparked off a fiery debate, where people accused Sharmila of being pro-Chinese and anti-Indian. Ignorance at it’s best!

In this context, the best analogy applicable to the internet might be that of a web, ironically, but woven by a rather fat spider. One that is incapable of reaching all the nooks and corners in a room, but contents itself thinking that the flies and insects have rare chances of going there. LOL!