The Internet Gives New Birth to a New Word — Content

chillibreeze writer — Sorab Ghaswalla

The Internet gave the world a new word—Content. So also the cliché—Content is King. History may have not recorded the very first person who used the ‘C’ word but years after the advent of the ‘Net in India , old school writers like me found the word an anathema. We were oblivious of the affliction when it first struck. Diagnosed with the big C, we were shocked--this could not be happening to us, we thought. Explanations were demanded but none were forthcoming, not many were aware of the turn the malady would take. We ignored it, hoping it would go away. Instead, it continued to multiply, rapidly at that, turning even ordinary people into new age writers. We smirked at the transmutation, thinking, in fact, secretly hoping, that the freaks would only earn the ire of readers. Unbeknownst to us, there was an irreversible process happening. The cauldron, filled with journalists, story tellers, internet writers and others of their ilk, boiled and bubbled (It was an explosive mixture) till the residual concoction labelled Content Providers was left behind.

It is a different world today. The Brahminisation of Content is now a thing of the past. There is no class or creed in the new community of CPs. Gone are the days of storytellers or mere reporters of facts. Content is no longer limited to the literal word. For some time, Content was Information. Today, it is everything, as necessary as the air you breathe and the water you drink. Content is no longer what you write, read or speak. Content is Print, Radio, Television, Internet. It is News, Fiction, Telecommunication, History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, Strategies, Engineering, Medicine, Wars, bedtime stories, Software, Gaming Solutions, SMS, e-mail, snail mail, Sports, Sex, Medicine, Anatomy, Business, Time Tables, Transport Schedules, the label on your can of baked beans, BPOs--the works. The Content Highway just went ballistic and India , which has finally shed its isolationist image, is cruising along this information highway. The nation and its people are no longer wary of western powers and have embraced globalisation with open arms. The enjoinment became that much easier because of English, a language that opened up a window to the world, a language that is taken as a sign of quality education in India .

Fluency in what can easily be classified as the first language of the world, and an abundance of talent is simply too attractive a package to resist for global customers. Outsourcing in India is no longer relegated to the IT industry, the world is sitting up and taking note of the country’s other strengths, be it biotechnology, banking, pharmaceuticals, textiles or the media.

The only parameters that guide the society of CPs today are Time and Talent, and the Indian community of CPs have carved a niche out for themselves, keeping these factors uppermost in mind. Content is about communication and in turn, communication is about expressing one’s self in the shortest possible time.

Information and Knowledge are not new to India , the seat of some of the world’s oldest civilisations. The ancient texts, sciences and rituals are testimony to that. For us in India , reared on the belief of re-birth, the advent of Content has been like the donning of a new avtaar. Like wailing new-borns, we protested, only to open our eyes to find that the world was a beautiful place. From the land of maharajas, there, today hails a new global conqueror and his name is Content Provider.

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—About our writer:

Sorab Ghaswalla says,
“I am a wordsmith—been one for the last two decades, spending most of those years as a hardcore journalist. Sometimes, to get out of the straitjacket of recording events, I flee to the world of creative writing. I have authored essays, short stories and biographies, besides filing innumerable news reports, fleeting moments of history glimpsed in a hurry. I also teach journalism to mass media and communication students.”

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