Paperwork
My earliest memory of paperwork was the annual trip to National Book Center to buy brown paper which I would use to cover our text and note books. Then the beautiful letters that my Grandparents would write from New Delhi or the ones that my Masi would write from Boston. Also, the special note pad that my Father had printed with my name in beautiful calligraphy.
Though as I write this, my mind veers towards paperwork which involves documents. Marksheets, birth certificates, decrees, graduation certificates. As a college student in India and then the United States, the difference in approach towards paperwork was so stark. This stems perhaps largely from our population and survival of the fittest?
Lo and behold though, when the infamous Y2K came about, not only would it change the fortunes of the entire Indian IT industry, there lay a promise of doing away with paperwork all together. Sitting in the gleaming rooftop dining rooms of the then Fleet Bank (subsequently acquired by Bank of America), we had Townhalls where the IT and Compliance teams told us that from the year 2000 and afterwards, the entire world would be done with paperwork. Dystopian or utopian - difficult to say, but that's what was being planned in the boardrooms of all the banks across North America.
As Jeff Bezos famously said, in the midst of so much change that the world is experiencing, there are a number of things that will in fact not change. And what will not change? Paperwork for humankind to establish themselves as an entity that exists.
Birth certificates to Death certificates and everything in between, for every phase of life. Establishing a method for storing, both physical and digital. Most importantly, making ones peace with the fact that paperwork is here to stay.