- god … er … google save the world –

The selfless, good natured do – gooder samaritan that I am, I did not have the heart to refuse my Professor some chore he gave me. His daughter had been given an assignment wherein she had to make a small presentation on France, listing its monuments, cuisines, festivals and stuff. I thought it would be a neat idea to come out with something imaginative for the cover slide. After a lot of thought (ensuing which I found myself incapable of thinking anything beyond the French kiss); I decided to restrain my creative outbursts and opt for something a little less … flamboyant.

So I decided finally to write “Have a look at France” in French on the cover slide – a neat little touch, little knowing how close I came to jeopardizing the poor girl’s French assignment. Here s what happened: the technocrat that I am, I googled a translation for “Have a look at France” and bumped into this fantastic site (so it seemed then) where there was an actual sentence translator! So apparently all I had to do was to type the sentence in the first box and lo – presto! the translation would magically appear in the lower box. Elated at my evident genius (and luck) to bump into this piece of fascinating software, I grinned to myself and tested out a few sample words. Satisfied that it did work, without any further ado I typed “Have a look at France” – waiting with bated breath for the translation. It came without any fuss and I nearly jumped with joy.

And here is where my good providence saved me. Curious as I am, I reversed the process and copied the french translation into the first box. And … hold your breath … the translation was ‘Have a trash at France’. I was flabbergasted and recoiled at the shock. I tried out a few more sentences both the ways (English – French & French – English) and I was horrified at the results. They were all askew. And wonder of wonders … all the translations had the same theme but had a crooked twist to it. It was so striking that I could not help but think of some practical half – ass buffoon doing this on purpose. Thanking my gods I settled for a simple “Have a look at France” for the cover slide. (in English)

——————–

My near – death faux pas aside, I cursed all these idiotic applications on the Internet whose sole purpose seems to be to have fun at other’s expense. Look at Wikipedia, for example. It is insane as to how much harsh criticism it receives due to its lack of reliability. I am not very sure if the complaints are warranted. Wikipedia is not purporting to be a stinking –clean repository of information – I, for one am not exactly altogether concerned about the quality of information – it is good enough for me. I remember a critic once said that the site is like a public toilet seat – and you don’t know who last used it (apparently referring to the ability of random anonymous users to modify articles).

Anyhow, I do not intend to debate Wikipedia’s moral issues (after all half my batch in M.B.A. used to shamelessly rip off assignments off Wikipedia – and to them it is nothing short of a demi – god). What I was more interested to do was to – just for arguments sake – think how life would be without google and without the internet. It is just that my era seems to have taken things for granted and I can feel the embarrassment inside me when due to er … paucity of time I had to rip things off the Internet. I knew that is not how things are meant to be. After all the whole purpose of doing your M.B.A. is defeated if one avoids readings books like they are taboo or something.

It would be dumb to even think about questioning the benefits of the Internet and of having information at our easy disposal. I have absolutely nothing against that. And to make things clear – I was not exactly into academic book reading either. It is just that the Internet has naturally evolved with us and seems to be pandering to public wants – that is what – I don’t know – irritates me?

As a fresh neonate M.B.A., I just feel hollow at times. I really do not know what the reason is. It is not that I advocate the 80s and the 90s education and ban the Internet or something. It’s just that I call for a little discretion on the users end as to how they use it. Trust me; I know my way around the Internet – I mean I really know my way around it – and I could tell you for a fact how easy it is to deceit others and shamelessly rip off stuff and get good grades and all. But I have always staunchly refrained from doing this and it hurts me to see students and faculties too take shortcuts unabashedly and act very proud about it. I just hope that in academics and stuff – a little personal monitoring is exacted.

And god save you from the ominous translators. Amen!!