By Dr. K. Javed Nayeem, MD

Very recently, Stephen Shore, the celebrated American photographer, who through his photography, depicted life in American cities, especially during the sixties and seventies, is said to have abruptly stopped his lecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and walked out of the hall. He did this because he felt appalled and deeply disgusted by the number of people in the audience, who were constantly peering into their mobile phones even as he was speaking.

And, Stephen Shore is no ordinary man. Born in 1947, Shore travelled the length and breadth of the United States from 1973 to 1979 in a series of road trips during which he made hundreds of images with his unique theme called the ‘American Main Street.’ He made it his mission to capture even the ordinary moments in American life, rather than only the dramatic events, which are captured and depicted by most other photographers.

And, his photographs of ordinary American life have won him much acclaim across the world and they have been much sought after as documentary evidence of the way America was then. Most prints of his work still continue to sell for anything between 5,000 and 10,000 US dollars each.

More than anything else, he has the unique distinction of being awarded a solo exhibition at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1971 and he is the first living photographer who has the privilege of being given this opportunity, while still alive. All the others until then, had been bestowed by this honour only posthumously.

Just before walking out, Shore is said to have questioned the logic of an audience that voluntarily chose to come to a lecture, only to focus their entire attention on their mobile phones. He very calmly said to the audience, “Since we are talking about attention, I think we understand each other. But I saw dozens of you who spent the entire lecture looking at your phones. You’ve come here to hear a talk and you can’t even pay attention to whom you’ve come to listen to. How can you then pay attention to what you are eating or feel and relish the warmth of the sunlight on your skin?”

After a short stretch of silence, his sheepish audience erupted into an applause. In response, Shore said, “Now that you have even applauded, I think this is a good place to stop,” and he walked off the stage. No amount of pleading with him, by offering very lame excuses that they were only making notes of his lecture on their phones, could make the man relent.

Now, what I have narrated here is not just a stray incident we should be ashamed of, but something that we invariably see today, at every event, personal or public, that we happen to attend and this scenario is prevalent across the world. We are so fixated to the deeply absorbing and addicting content in our hand-held devices, that they have become as essential to our existence, as our breathing in and breathing out is! And, when we are not peering into our phones at least every few minutes, if not constantly, we are busy taking selfies or pictures of others with them. That we are disturbing the tranquillity of others and distracting their attention from the event, is something that we are just not bothered about.

I think the time has certainly come when we have to make it mandatory to keep all electronic devices switched off at all public events like lectures, conferences and concerts. Since most of these events do not last for more than two or three hours at the most, I’m sure we can learn to do without them, at least for short periods, like how it was, all the time, in the pre-mobile phone era. It will only be a very minor inconvenience and a very small price to pay, for a very big amount of peace and tranquillity during any event, that needs these two qualities!

Another modern-day menace that is not only annoying but outright disgusting, is the habit many people have cultivated these days of always munching on a wad of chewing gum, irrespective of where they are. And many of them do it, not only noisily and visibly but also with a daring display of their bubble-blowing prowess!

To get a not-so-personal and therefore a pain-free idea of what I am talking about, you only have to see the shots of the so-called elite audiences in the many shows that come on the TV.

 While this was the preserve of only the youngsters until some time ago, the older ones amongst us too have now adopted it, perhaps to have a fake sense of feeling young and youthful. I have been seeing students chewing the cud so often at the many lectures which I am invited to deliver at schools and colleges that now, before starting my talk, I request the indulgers in the audience to go out and spit out what they are chewing, before returning to the hall, if they so desire. I am not perturbed one bit, by whether they chose to come back or not, because the choice is entirely theirs.

Interestingly, chewing gum has been banned in Singapore since 1992 for a number of reasons, the primary among them being that it becomes very difficult to clean litter. But the most precipitating reason for this was perhaps because on more than one occasion, it hampered the smooth functioning of their mass rail transport system, when chewing gum stuck on the train doors caused them to malfunction.

But this pernicious gum-chewing habit deserves to be banned by law in our country, at least in campuses and all public events because it has become so commonplace that we see it even during condolence meetings and most sadly, even while our national anthem is being sung or played!

Nothing can be more disrespectful than this to the greatness and glory of our nation and our sense of nationhood. Do think about it!

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