Spice of Life | Your search ends here, just google it

The first few cutlets were perfect, crunchy on the outside and gooey soft on the inside. Then they started breaking up in the oil, first a little and finally spattering into thousands of minuscule shreds, writes Dr Manju Gupta

The project has always been a hit or miss for me. And now just when I thought I had aced it, it was proving to be a mini disaster. I was making vegetable cutlets, taking all precautions I had picked up over the years. I was diligently regulating the oil temperature, using ample bread crumbs to bind and adding salt in batches. The first few cutlets were perfect, crunchy on the outside and gooey soft on the inside. Then they started breaking up in the oil, first a little and finally spattering into thousands of minuscule shreds.

Despite the knowledge that it imparts, wise people refrain from calling Google a guru. (Shutterstock)

Frustrated, I decided to take the help of jagat guru, the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent Google. I wasn’t sure how to phrase the question. Gingerly, I typed, “Why are my cutlets breaking up on frying?” In a fraction of a second, 17,50,000 answers appeared on my screen, graded from most relevant to most liked. It goes without saying that I found the reason for my culinary disaster and was able to rectify it.

Before I go on, a little disclaimer. Since my son works at Google, a little maternal bias may creep into my musings. With that said, let me get back to where I was. The search engine continues to surprise me. It’s not just the ease with which knowledge can be retrieved, that impresses me but its helpful attitude. Make a spelling mistake and it will ask in the most non-judgmental way, “Did you mean this?” With its ever-increasing data base, and all the ‘alleged’ spying on habits and preferences, it now knows me better, to the extent that it guesses my question even before I can finish typing.

Despite the knowledge that it imparts, wise people refrain from calling Google a guru. “It’s just a manmade reservoir of facts and figures that one can retrieve at will,” they claim. “A real guru will impart knowledge to the seeker at the right moment.” Slowly, more and more people are changing their opinion. This was evident from the thousands of memes and messages honouring Google on Guru Purnima recently. Of course, gurus have to be gyani (wise), but more importantly they have to encourage jigyasa (spirit of inquiry). The ability to nurture curiosity without the fear of being judged or belittled, Google clearly scores here. You can ask the most basic, or stupid, question, and it will not berate you with, “Itna bhi nahin aata (Don’t you know this!)”

There is a downside to this readily available information though. Remember the time when a word, a song, a name would elude us and we would keep ruminating, and then suddenly, it would pop up in our head. Those eureka moments are now a thing of the past. I suspect that without this mental exercise, we might be getting dumber. It seems that in the not-so-distant future Google-induced dementia is going to be a much-searched term.

Going tangentially, I like the way Google establishes an ancient concept, “Vasudeva kutumbakam (The world is a family)”. Irrespective of nationality, religion and race, we humans are similar in our thoughts and deeds. For I have yet to ask a question which none of the seven billion inhabitants of Earth haven’t asked before me. Once I challenged my husband to ask Google such a question. After a great deal of thought, he typed, “How to kill your wife?” Immediately, millions of results popped up on the screen. Among them a sane advice: “Don’t Google it if you plan to kill her. Your search history can be used to incriminate you.”

Which brings me to another question, “Is too much knowledge a dangerous thing?”

Let me google it.

The writer is a Gharaunda-based gynaecologist. She can be reached at dr_manjugupta@icloud.com