How Google Has Changed Our Lives: Is Life Without It Even Possible Anymore?

God...or Google. Someone actually makes that comparison in this story: 바카라�We don바카라�t know God, but Google.바카라� As you바카라�d notice in its slightly odd phrasing, it could mean either of two things, depending on whether you바카라�re using the noun or the verb. 바카라�We don바카라�t know God, but we know SOMEONE/SOMETHING like God바카라�as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent바카라�that바카라�s Google.바카라� Alter­natively, 바카라�We don바카라�t know God, but of course we could always Google for him/her.바카라� Either way, the name looms like some rival cosmic force. The kind of ambition it expresses is not new in human history바카라�to know everything that exists. They바카라�ve all partaken of that fantasy, from medieval encyclopaedias, to the part-comic Book of Lists, to the inexhaustible catalogues of the US Library of Congress. Or should that be Borges바카라�s Library of Babel, which contained: 바카라�Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future바카라�all that is given to express, in all languages.바카라�

But it바카라�s Google that has come closest to fulfilling that frightening mandate. Forget God, you can Google yourself. It knows what you did last summer, where you plan to eat tonight, where you바카라�re reading this sentence right now. You have practically outsourced your memory to the machine, also the 바카라�detailed history of your future바카라�. Imagine, then, a life without Google! Would bridges collapse and the skies come crashing down? For those who grew up in the past two decades, such a life would be well-nigh inconceivable. But for even those from the other side of the millennial wedge in time, it바카라�s becoming a little hard to remember how we got around with life those days. What did we do, for instance, when there was a fork in the road somewhere out in the country? Duh바카라�. Or needed to find the nearest Decathlon바카라�oh wait, there was no Decathlon either. No FitBit. Before Google, there was only Govinda.

Okay, back to the thought experiment바카라�you바카라�re the protagonist of your own work of fiction. It바카라�s ­titled 바카라�Ungoogled바카라�바카라� You are suddenly bereft of the whole enchilada, that alarming array of products from the Page-Brin stable. Things you take for granted. That calm, simple white screen with minimalist design where you track everything from the ­progress of the monsoon, to the cricket score, to the reverse repo rate (if you do swing that way), to your own current location! So out goes Google Search, which used to be a revolution before algo-rigging and AdSense and all that. Out goes Gmail. Phew! There goes your Android phone! And all the little apps you keep downloading on Google Play. Out goes YouTube! And no Google Maps! Going back to 1995 is ­alm­ost as radical as time-travelling to 1595.

The rest of the frills바카라�Google Duo, Google Pay, the voice search, Google Assistant바카라�are yet to become indispensable, while making serious incursions on our time and mindspace. Those who type in Indian languages, for ­instance, do not type anymore바카라�the keyboards were always a mess. Now they speak to the phone, and Google바카라�s speech recognition software does the hard yards.

So how does day one go? You wake up and glance at your mobile바카라�what, no notifications! It바카라�s a dumbphone. An hour late to office, because no Yankee girl told you via satellite that Hosur Road was chock-a-block. Your boss calls you and says something that sounds 바카라�exasperating farrago of distortions바카라�.바카라� You can바카라�t even Google that! There바카라�s a short news piece online on how Virat Kohli gestured to Steve Smith, another on Piggy Chops and Nick Jonas바카라�s beach photographs. But, alas, no video, no photo바카라�. Fingers itch for a search engine. It바카라�s 1 pm, lunch time. Zomato바카라�s delivery boy gets lost바카라�no Maps, remember?

Of course, Google Search was a godsend. Aditi Verma, a 27-year-old who works in Bank of America, says it바카라�s her first-hand info-guide and she doesn바카라�t know any other search engine. 바카라�There are many things you don바카라�t want to talk to your parents about, or family, friends or colleagues. Google fills in. Studies, jobs, relationships, ­puberty, sex바카라�Google takes you wherever you want. It doesn바카라�t ask you questions nor judges you like people.바카라� What would she do if Google vanishes one day? Aditi laughs: 바카라�Good idea, Google should experiment. One day it should switch off its products all over the world, let바카라�s see what chaos follows.바카라� She would just binge on food and TV that day. 바카라�What a relief it will be!바카라�

But the idea seems scary to Indian language journalists바카라�since most of them have abandoned typing, Indian journalism now leans heavily on Google. Its penetration in India is so high that voice searches in Hindi grew 400 per cent in 2018, while the growth overall in the world was just 270 per cent. 바카라�It was torture to type Hindi,바카라� says Arvind Singh, who works with Hindi daily Hindustan. 바카라�The font system was difficult to learn, and many symbols like aadha la, aadha pa were not available.바카라� Naturally, he has migrated to voice-typing his stories and doesn바카라�t want to migrate back. It all seems like some Ali Baba Chaalis Chor fantasy to him right now, where no hands are required to work. Life without Google? 바카라�A vacation to Switzerland would be best,바카라� he chuckles. 바카라�As of now, work and Google are synonyms.바카라�

lchiki Gboard? Yes, unbeknownst to English users, Google바카라�s Indian-language space is exploding like a supernova. Gboard, the Google keyboard, can handle 50 Indian ­languages and voice-input supports 10 of them. Map voice navigation comes in seven: Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Gujarati. That바카라�s millions and millions of people. And Google Assistant works in 10 ­languages. A majority of India바카라�s 400 million ­active internet users work in Indian languages, not English. No wonder Caesar Sen Gupta, vice president, Google바카라�s Next Billion Users ­initiative, says: 바카라�We have launched a number of India-first products. By building for India first, we build for the future바카라�creating apps that work great for everyone, everywhere. Maps Offline and Two-Wheeler Mode are great examples바카라�products built for India, but now being used elsewhere in the world.바카라�

So no getting away from Google, it seems. Except in your fiction바카라�well, not even in fiction,  come to think of it!

Gboard is nothing...think Gliterature. Last year, the erudite radio presenter HrishiK was interviewing Meghna Pant, an award-­winning author who had recently published How to Get Published in India. How could a ­person like her, who had grown up in South Mumbai, write about people in villages and small-towns in her short stories? Meghna took a deep breath, paused to survey the 100-odd ­people in the ­audience, and said cryptically, 바카라�Imagination.바카라� Yes, of course, a writer needs imagination. Well, very few will admit it, but a writer could also use some help from Google.

Meghna gradually lets on: 바카라�I바카라�m not a ­navel-gazing writer, so I often write about worlds I haven바카라�t occupied, like an orgy in an ashram, a Dalit garbage collector, or an old man with a hooker. That바카라�s when Google comes to my rescue. For those brief moments, it allows me to inhabit a new world that comes alive with det­ails,바카라� says Meghna. In How to Get Published in India, she advises aspiring writers to chuck the thesaurus. 바카라�Perhaps I should바카라�ve also added how writers shamelessly use Google바카라�researching facts, detailing, adding meat to that first draft!바카라�

While a writer바카라�s mental mapping of unknown worlds proceeds with a bit of Googling, the humbler Ola driver would be totally lost in a new city. 바카라�Our company uses Google Maps for most of our 110 cities,바카라� says an Ola executive, on condition of anonymity. 바카라�No Google Maps means no company. Maps of India has no such presence.바카라� A whole economy is flourishing on Google Maps and, if it were to disappear one day, many businesses would come to standstill. 바카라�Even network hiccups cause us trouble, but imagine if the main app disappears바카라�we would have to pack our bags and go back home,바카라� he adds. Ditto for Zomato, which tracks orders on Google Maps. Again, the executive didn바카라�t wish to be ­identified. Neither company offered a formal response.

For all this, interestingly, no one remembers when they started using Google in India! Even Google is quite clueless about its usage in India바카라�although, technically, Google set up its first office here in December 2004. 바카라�Developing maps was fun in the 1980s-90s,바카라� says Swati Mitra, executive publisher of Eicher Goodearth Private Limited, who formerly also headed Eicher바카라�s map division. 바카라�We would travel ­hundreds of kilometres and study hundreds of maps to come out with city guides and maps바카라�. Now one app gives you all that.바카라� Even a decade ago, maps and travel guides were a must-have. But Swati confesses she herself has switched to Google Maps; Eicher바카라�s map division was closed around seven years ago.  

IIFE before Google? Well, it바카라�s not just those in their teens and early 바카라�20s who are hooked to Google바카라�for the older ones, it affords a kind of creative luxury, replacing what used to be donkey work back in 1970s-80s. For an IPS officer with the CBI, who aptly prefers to stay undercover, life before Google recalls the days of the fictional Byomkesh Bakshi, Karamchand et al. All that crackling genius and logical riddle-solving needed a lot of grunt work alongside바카라�바카라�dialling over 100 numbers from the printed BSNL directory, poring over paper cuttings in libraries, tracking down khabris (informers). Today, Google has become our khabri,바카라� he laughs. He doesn바카라�t remember when exactly he started using Google바카라�he recalls those old dial-up connections, where 바카라�two telephone symbols got connected through a dotted line, with a weird sound바카라�, and transiting through Hotmail, Yahoo, AoL, MSN, before settling down with Gmail. But the paper trails, the FIRs, filthy rooms filled with dust, rats바카라�how nostalgic can you be about real spider webs!

Sebi Joseph, CEO, Otis India, recalls when 바카라�newspaper ads, word of mouth and the employ­ment exchange바카라� were how you landed jobs. 바카라�I ­remember an ad appeared in The Hindu about vacancies in Otis back in 1987. I had cut that out, typed out my CV and application, and posted them.바카라� Sounds like a period movie already? Employment News was on Fridays, to-let ads helped you find a home바카라�Sebi, who loves to keep himself updated with technology, sometimes gets nostalgic and doesn바카라�t mind going back to a Google-less era. Did it have an inner coherence of some sort, a world that was the way it should be바카라�only partly known, only partly knowable, inherently mysterious? Is that why someone quipped, laconically, 바카라�We don바카라�t know God, but Google.바카라�

Except, Nietzsche isn바카라�t around to ­proclaim 바카라�Google is dead바카라� yet. Out in the greens of the JNU campus, some of the old ways of voyaging through the world survive. 바카라�When it comes to JNU, it바카라�s still the lib­rary,바카라� says head librarian Manorama Tripathi. 바카라�Be it the 1980s or now, the library is ­always full.바카라� Googling isn바카라�t any sort of replacement for serious research; it can at best be a ­facilitator. Her 50-year-old, nine-storey library works like Google, open 24x7. Free WiFi via Google across 400+ railway stations, the poor Indian getting rich on data, and being turned into data themselves, could be some kind of ­technocratic uto바카라�heck, what바카라�s that word?