The lockdown initiated us to many new and innovative ways of teaching and lecturing and making ourselves visible. When we decided to go with the online mode of teaching, it was a bit unnerving at first. I just couldn’t imagine talking in front of a computer screen, sans a classroom and a crowd of energetic and boisterous students, explaining to them definitions, concepts, and methods of a particular topic. If you let your imagination run wild, just think how it looks- sitting on a chair, facing a lighted screen (where students are just pop-up display of initials), with a headphone and talking endlessly!!! Had my grandfather been alive, he would have certainly thought, I have gone off my rocker.
My grandfather (maternal, to be precise) was a renowned Professor in Odia Literature at the university, a staunch academic at heart and a no-nonsense man. It was his string conviction that man can achieve everything. He used to often tell us, “If man can go to the moon, just imagine what capabilities lie within you!” He always said that technology should be sparingly used- “it serves only a small purpose, don’t make it your life. It was man who went to the moon on a rocket and not the other way round”, he would say. I remember vividly how distraught he became if he found us talking beyond five minutes over the telephone (those were the days of clunky hand-sets). I wonder what he would say now when technology has become the purpose in our lives. Anyways, I am pandering.
To come to the point, I managed the online classes, without any glitches. I also managed to lecture in a webinar too! I was invited by one my juniors from my Alma Mater who was organizing it.
When she invited me with this proposal I immediately said yes. I was excited at the prospect of presenting at a webinar (sounds so cool, no?). But then as days passed by, it struck me how to talk, let alone sound credible and justify something as evolved and elemental as interpersonal skills, and that too, to a faceless audience? And then came the next, worst thought- only I will be visible to everyone. So I am literally under the radar. All eyes (uncountable pairs of eyes) will be on me- judging me, critiquing me, watching me closely. What if my facial expressions betray me? There is no way to hide those subtle changes on the contours of my face, is there? What if I end up with technical goof-up or a language gaffe? Jittery thoughts indeed. But then I reminded myself that it’s just a lecture and it’s a virtual classroom, and I am sitting at my desk in the comforts of my home, on a virtual medium, instead of a lecturing podium; so it can be managed. And then I remembered what my mother says often, “teachers are born speakers, just give them a topic and they will start, no matter where, no matter the medium”.
So there I was talking away endlessly, to a faceless audience scattered throughout the country, about the art of mastering interpersonal skills through the most impersonal of mediums. I became a ‘webster’- weaving words, stories, imagining people, and webbing ideas. How ironical, yet eye-opening! I gave a talk on ‘Mastering the Art of Interpersonal Skills’ for a Faculty Development Program at an institute in Hyderabad.
It was a very interesting experience for me, imagining an audience in my mind and talking and discussing with them as if they are right there sitting across me. Usually when I take a class on debating skills or speaking skills, I often tell those who suffer from stage fright, “imagine an empty hall with only you as the speaker”. And here I was trying to conjure up an imaginary audience just to get a feel of giving a lecture. That was the most hilarious part of the experience.
Yesterday’s experience made me realize the beauty of this so called ‘impersonal’ medium. It is actually anything but impersonal. It is indeed a very personalized and powerful way of getting your message across. And I think this is how we are going to remain connected in the coming days, months and years may be, with the rest of our family, friends, colleagues, students, and acquaintances. We will become human web-worms, in the web space, creating webs of connections through websites, weblogs, webinars and webcasts. We will forge a new form of organic bond in a virtual world which is going to redefine the very idea of presence, visibility and connectivity. I think it will be quite like the bond forged between Eddie Brock and Venom, two disparate entities coming together to become a potent being.
For those who are not very familiar with the analogy, let me elaborate. The 2018 sci-fi movie ‘Venom’, from the MCU franchise, is about the integration between a human being and an alien symbiote. When Venom- the alien symbiotic life form takes possession of Eddie’s body as his host, both Eddie and Venom realize how potent their combined strength can be (without any side-effects). So what I am trying to say here is, if we take the webbed world as our symbiote and use it to express and broadcast our accounts, our stories, our narratives, our aesthetic sensibilities, our views, just how much more impactful our lives can be! Both the physical self and the virtual self, the actual self and its digital avatar, the creative self and its virtual alter-ego, unencumbered by the shackles of a limited, physical world, can explore unhindered this wide web world.
I do not discount the fact the World Wide Web has its dark side and that there are dangers lurking in the form of dark web matter. But I feel that it will free many from the constraints, rigidities and extremities of a corporeal world to a more liberated web-space, which will give them a platform to forge a new identity for themselves. So I feel that now is the time when we can really make a palpable presence in everyone’s life- a presence though virtual, can be tangible too. So time to leave a promising digital footprint in the virtual sands of cyberspace. And I will sign out with these words of Carlton Drake- “Out Of Great Calamity Comes Great Opportunity”.
Amrita Satapathy is a PhD and Assistant Professor, School of Humanities, Social Sciences & Management, IIT Bhubaneswar.
