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From Pandurang and Allah and Jesus to Alexa

A span of 100 years.  A century of changes.  Human beings have been through a lot of it.  Good, bad, mediocre, atrocious, hilarious, climactic, dazzling, exponential, exceptional.  Pick your adjective.

From spare change to QR codes.
From interpersonal dialog to text.
From lack of clothing to fashionably less clothes.
From starving in hunger to fashionably bulimic.
From walking miles for water to running on rubber belts and then consuming (smart) water.
From life threatening illness with no cure to overdosed deaths.
From Teddy to Trump (or bear to a duck if you prefer animated analogies).

In so doing one could easily argue we just came full circle.  And boy did we learn a thing or two? Or nothing?

Not long ago in India kids woke up to the chants of the lord's name like a Pandurang or Vishnu, alternately that of Allah, in certain households and had to use that to their advantage or so the theory went.  The lord god watched them as they grew to be useful citizens.

Enter Amazon.  And Google and 'insert name here'.

Communicating with electrically powered devices of a different species, a species that can tap into a know it all database is now purportedly the new Allah in town.  Pandurang was a creator of the universe for those that grew up in western India and is the name of a deity still worshipped in rural Maharashtra.

The large corporate brands of today are in some ways the same thing as the idol based iconic brands brandished by the then capitalist public.  A thing to behold that can bring order out of chaos or make sheep fall in line or provide a compass - literally or figuratively.

In all cases I say - Caveat Emptor!

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