Indian cities are like a scene out of Blade Runner which didn’t make it to the final cut because it was deemed to be too futuristic. But drive out to the rural areas, and it’s hard to imagine a more effective advertisement for last-century poverty.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic- Arthur C. Clarke

Actually, don’t drive. Because even if normally you are a good driver with precise navigational skills, once you leave the tarmac of New Delhi behind and the roads start developing really bad acne, you’ll find you have acquired the direction-finding capacity of a broken luggage trolley. And with the first plump drop of rain, the roads turn to a muddy squelch and it’s like your car is being dipped into a chocolate fountain.

Don’t even think of taking ingenious short-cuts, because one wrong turn and you’re suddenly in Nepal or Pakistan. And if you hug a tree in the wrong way you won’t grab any headlines, because what for us is a horrific newspaper-folding accident, in India, it will not even make it to village shop gossip.

Rural India breaks your heart. Every beggar you see makes you want to cry and reach for your wallet – the only problem is there are hundreds, thousands of them.

Houses – and that is a generous term, given that most of them are the size of hand luggage, and made of cardboard, mud and misery – grow in and out of each other like a crossword puzzle.

There is no electricity or drainage (actually, there is, but it flows in the middle of the street – the drainage, not the electricity) and a calculator is considered the most sophisticated computer. And if you ask a local for Wi-Fi, he’ll suggest palak paneer to go with it.

What redeems rural India is its sense of wonder at any form of technology, even the more mundane. On taking out my digital camera, children’s faces burst out in a life-affirming show of niim-whitened teeth, while the adults wanted to know how it works.

That’s how we should all view technology, with surprise, amazement and a slight bewilderment. It’s like looking at an ant – there are millions of them in your garden, but look at one and wonder at how much perfection can fit in less than one millimetre squared.

Here’s wishing you a new year of technology that will surprise you.

techeditor@timesofmalta.com