How the technological revolution has transformed the Indian way of living

By Pulak Satish Kumar 

You wake up, groggily pick up your phone and swipe through countless emails, calls and app notifications. You get out of bed, get ready for work and with a few quick swipes on your screen, a cab arrives at your doorstep. While you are at work, a few more screen swipes and a vacuum cleaner cleans your home before you get back. Get home, and there’s no need to cook because your trusty smartphone can also have food delivered right to your doorstep.

As little as a decade ago, the above scenario would sound just as realistic as pigs flying, but today, this is our reality. Whether we realize it or not, technology has seeped deep into our lives and pervaded through most of our daily tasks. Everything from how we eat to how we travel is laced with technology and this is quickly making the world an easier place to live in.

In India, the technological revolution is well underway as well. From simple apps where we played games on our phone, we’ve reached the stage where Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows us to step into the game and live it. While vacuum cleaning has been here for a while, we now have Wi-Fi and AI through which we can order vacuum cleaners to work with no human intervention.

Food Ordering & Delivery

A major transformation in the Indian food delivery industry came about when restaurants began taking orders online. The process further evolved as companies such as Swiggy and Zomato rolled out technology through which users could track their orders through an app. Partnering up with digital payment methods, food delivery apps have now completely digitized the food ordering and payment process so much so that we hardly ever need to ever make a call to the restaurant. We could be sitting in a meeting and ordering our mom’s favourite pizza for her back at home or making dinner reservations while on our way back from work, all with a few clicks and swipes.

Home Entertainment

As smart television merged television channels with online content, home entertainment took a huge stride ahead. Instead of watching a small set of television channels, Indian viewers upgraded to on-demand viewing. Gaming on bulky consoles transformed into sleek Virtual Reality gaming platforms. Everything from books to music is now available on streamlined apps that are accessible and easy to use from the comfort of one’s home. Want to watch a chick flick? Just browse through Netflix on your large LED screen and you’ll get tonnes of recommendations. Feel like reading a mystery thriller in the middle of the night but don’t really have one on your bookshelf? Your e-reader will sort you out in minutes.

Home Cleaning

AI has ushered in an era where machines are able to handle a huge number of human tasks, with home cleaning being one of them. Home cleaning robots are equipped with dirt sensing technology and can vacuum or mop floors independently. These Wi-Fi enabled robots can be accessed remotely using mobile phone apps. Consider a robot cleaning your house even when you’re not home and it sounds just like a futuristic novella. But it’s happening already with companies like iRobot that are changing the way we perform everyday tasks with their state-of-the-art products which are efficient as well as cost-effective in the long term.

Communication

While evaluating technological revolutions, it appears that technology has had the most impact on the way we communicate. The ubiquity of texting, video calling and social networking is such, that it has made the humble landline phone obsolete. With their high-speed data connections and unlimited mobile apps for communication, mobile phones have become an indispensable part of our lives.

Further, social media has ensured that we stay in touch with people across the globe allowing you to speak to your sister who lives in Canada whenever you want or want to keep in touch with your spouse each day while they’re away for work in another city.

Travelling

From booking your vacation to sending holiday pictures to friends and family, technology has taken charge all the way. While online travel booking portals help people book hotels, flights and even experiences from their homes, social networks such as Instagram ensure that travel photos last forever and are easily shared with the world. Technologies like GPS and language translators also make sure that wherever you go, you are never lost. Chatbots and instant payment methods contribute to hassle-free travelling while reviews have made it so much easier to book the holiday of your dreams. Feeling like saying a big thank you to technology? Well, so do we.

So, if you stop and introspect, you will find that technology is now in fact very deeply rooted itself in the Indian lifestyle. Technology has helped turn imagination into reality and until human imagination keeps running wild, technological innovations will continue to arise.

Pulak Satish Kumar is the Chief Operating Officer of Puresight Systems Pvt Ltd