By Prof. Sudhakar Panda in Bhubaneswar, September 14, 2026: It is time for the young generation. The old generation that used slates and chalks, blackboard and dusters, handmade pens, fountain pens like Plato, Pilot, Swan and Parker and many other varieties of fountain pensand used Sulekha, Quink and Camel bottle inks is vanishing fast. The young generations whose fingers move fast, with dexterity and with coded language make the old generation appear antique and living in old times and existing in the periphery.

The young generation appears very fast in expressing themselves and sometimes in coded languages. The new young generation with their laptops is empowered and the youth express themselves very fast. They have a different style of expressing their love and expressions without ever using a fountain pen to write a letter that carries messages of love from a son to his mother, sympathy and kindness for friends and relations in distress. The laptop embodying the latest technology helps them in navigating through many technologies based devices that it amazes the on lookers.

One such instance of a radical shift in vision and goals was my encounter with the realities of having to manoeuvre through cravings for possessing one of the latest models of laptops. As it is I was in possession of a series of desktops, and it was through diligence and perseverance and sheer determination that I was able to produce 15 books with remarkable ease and confidence, tapping on letters on the motherboard.

These books were circulated in many libraries and institutions of repute, inaugurated in seminars and discussed and criticized amid cups of coffee, delectable samosas, spring rolls and pastries. There were elite crowds, media people, academicians and politicians at those meetings struggling to make sense of the written words and to show off their knowledge in speeches dripping with sarcasm and hesitant admiration.

A labor of pain; a blank computer screen; the long wait for inspiration; the rush of adrenaline as ideas unfold with alacrity, the tapping on keys to catch the furtive ideas onto the screen before they slip away again…. all these and much more are a part of creative work.

As age catches up there is this numbness creeping up the right arm like a thief, the arm which had to bear the strain of an angiogram, recommended by a zealous doctor to ward off the suspicion of a heart condition. Or the splintered bones of the left shoulder acquired by a fall from my chair which could not be set right by the orthopedist, the tiring hours of physiotherapy that followed and all this contributed to a slowing down of the process of pushing keys on the motherboard one by one with my index finger. The nimbleness wasn’t there.

I felt like a farmer drudging through recalcitrant terrain with a blunt plough. What made it all the more an excruciating experience was the back pain which crept in silently as I typed through long hours, day and night. When the pain becomes very hurting I retire only to come back to the Desktop to finish the story I started.

This was the time when I began to notice students, office goers, my nephews and nieces, all those who sit comfortably on couches and sofas or recline in beds with what they called laptops. At first I was a little taken aback at the new term. Mothers sat their babies on their laps. I had also heard about lap dogs who sit comfortably on the laps of fashionable ladies.

Now here was something so fascinating, so enchanting, more like a pretty damsel lapping up words and phrases as she sat on laps. Everything about laptops intrigued me. I felt I was being left out, underprivileged and old school. It was torturous to realize how I had been negligent about my own needs.

As a writer I needed to be in possession of the latest devices that ran so smoothly, which hardly needed to be pressed hard, thus eliminating discomfort to finger tips and release of strain. I needed to be thought as being modern and capable of being counted among the front runners of youthful writers. In this context what I badly wanted was a laptop with keys that responded to touch like feathers. Then there was the romantic notion of slinging it on shoulder straps, and walking youthfully along academic alleys.

When I was on an important academic tour of Bangalore and invited to speak on certain economic issues I stayed at my student’s residence. I took the liberty of using his laptop for preparing notes. I was thrilled to see his laptop. It was smooth to the touch, the keys responded obediently, almost like a child willing to be caressed. I laughed inwardly.

The experience was totally different from the grimness of my desktop or computer which required a certain amount of physical effort to type and save the written words. I typed through long hours of the night, transported to a realm akin to Paradise. Yes, this was it. I thanked my student for his magnanimity in entrusting me with his laptop. I almost felt it could have been mine to possess.

Next morning, with some hesitation, I asked him.

“Where can I buy this laptop?”

He said, “Sir, this model in India is difficult to buy. Its price is a staggering one lakh and a little more.”
I gasped in disbelief, “One lakh and a little more!”

“Yes”, he said. “Then there are taxes and accessories which could amount to thousands of rupees”.

“Well, you have been able to get one for yourself, how did you get it?”

“Sir, you know my son Arun is a computer engineer in Boston. He bought it for me when he came home on vacation. He reset it for me, and taught me how to use it following basic rules.”

I said to myself, to reach our full potential, fathers may rely on sons and daughters to come to terms with a fast changing world that seems flabbergasting and beyond reach. Blessed are those whose children understand and know how to indulge their parents’ whims and help them to continue dreaming and aspiring.

After long thinking and discussion with my student, I finally decided to buy one for myself. Laptops came in cheap from USA where taxes were low. So they did not cost as much as they did in India. My student promised to get me one through another source. For that there would have to be a long wait. And I was ready to do that. Back in Bhubaneswar I looked at my old computer with a smirk believing that at last I would be able to replace it with a sleek laptop from the Dream land called America.

That was a year ago. Nothing happened. No one arrived at my door step with a foreign returned laptop. No letter from my student. I went back to my old Desktop computer for E-mails, some videos and some political speeches on Indian political issues.

The Bangalore experience was tucked away under the pillows of my memory. Perhaps someday, while the clock of my life was still ticking, there would be a knock on the door, and my great American dream would walk through the door, straight on to my lap.