Chatting Up About India: Technology Not Just For a Few, But For All

Recently, I had a friend and her family visit us. The next day, she sent a thank you message to convey her enjoyment. She also messaged to say that her eight-year-old son felt our conversation reminded him of Elon Musk, as we talked in an out-of-the-box way about India and many other contemporary topics.

Just last month, the parking contractor near my office changed. When I asked for the new bank details to make an advance payment for the month, he said he didn’t remember his bank account but pulled out a laminated QR code card. He asked, “Why don’t you pay with this; Don’t you have a mobile to pay?”

Both these experiences suggest two points: An eight-year-old knows who Elon Musk is and what he does, and looks up to him, and even the parkingwala carries a laminated QR code card for bank transfers.

These are important changes: how and what children think, who they look up to, and, therefore, what they aspire for have changed. At the street level, the common man wants to receive funds digitally. This is perhaps where we are after 75 years of swaraj — looking more ambitious and more confident about the future we want to make. We are using technology that rewards the common man. I haven’t seen this at any time in my life where structural changes at the bottom of the pyramid are visible in how people like things to be