The more it snows
The more it goes
The more it goes
On snowing

And nobody knows
How cold my toes
How cold my toes
Are growing

- AaMilne

It's an old poem from Winnie the Pooh I most think of on days like this. I am in Islamabad on assignment, flying in to cover the Foreign Minister's talks. And what's most on my mind is not the composite dialogue process, Siachen, Sir Creek or Wullar, but whether I've got enough batteries.

Let me explain - items on my person at present moment requiring some sort of power input:

1. Video Camera - 1

2. Lights - 1

3. Computer - 1

4. Mobile Phones - 3 (yes, 3)

5. Microphones - 4 (2 with radio transmitters)

And apart from all the voltage, Li-Ion, AA, AAA etc that they need - I feel like I need some sort of power input as well, given the tripod, cables, clothes, notebooks and pens I need to carry too. Snowed under as it were, like Pooh in the poem.

This new age of journalism has turned many of us into walking talking human Swiss-army penknives, a mortal version of the many armed Durga or Vishnu. When I joined the profession more than a decade ago, 5 was the size of the average TV crew that accompanied a reporter - one producer, one cameraperson, one sound-recordist, one lights man and one person to carry the tripod. Often the video-editor would double as a sound-person, but that was about the only corner we cut.

Multi-tasking on the Beijing-Lhasa railway

It may seem ridiculous now - but even the one man to carry the tripod was essential with the old equipment. This because unlike today's super-light tripods you sling over one shoulder, those tripods had to be assembled on the spot. The tripod would come out of its box in three parts, and the assistant would put it painstakingly together before the camera would be fixed on it. I remember once wanting to get shots of the board outside a super-secret government installation - and realized my mistake when the tripod assistant began his perilous task - long before he had got the second part of pyramid screwed on - security guards caught onto us and shooed us away.

Today's sting-operation specialists would have had the pictures in a jiffy.

Which brings me to how much has changed since - technology has made everything lighter, quicker, and multi-functioned. Sound recordists disappeared as the audio was incorporated inside the camera, tripods are operated with one hand, laptops are used not only to edit the story, but to send them back to headquarters via FTP as well. When we travel, for example, we have gone from about 20 hard-case boxes to about 4.

And as technology makes the task at hand easier, TV companies are expecting their people to do more. And more. In the old days, multi-skilling for a journalist meant learning a new language. Today it means learning how to shoot, edit, and feed as well. Multi-tasking for a correspondent used to be organizing the logistics (cars, phones etc) while also setting up the story- today multi-tasking means taking on the functions of the producer, the cameraman and the editor.

The Swiss-army penknife goes to Moscow - my toes are cold!

Years ago print journalists used to watch us in the field and laugh - we would go to cover a story, and while every newspaper journalist filed his copy and brought out the drinks by sundown, television journalists kept going till midnight, editing their stories and falling into bed straight after. Internet was our revenge over print - the necessity of updating web copy means print journalists are now staying up odd hours as well. At the media centre in Islamabad this time - I walk in at 3am and find half a dozen newspaper correspondents hacking away.

Ergo, The more it goes, Tiddly Pom, the more it grows, Tiddly Pom.

But this isn't just for journalists, you know - it leads to some existential questions for us all. People around the world are asking - If the new age is about communication made quicker, then why are mobile phones and blackberries taking up all of our time?

If we're able to speak to anyone anytime anywhere else in the world, why do we have such little occasion to speak to people right next to us? And if technology is about 'right-sizing'; making gadgets lighter and more compact, why is my back hurting so much...and my toes growing cold?

I know what Pooh would say...but it isn't polite for grown-up journalists to say Tiddly Pom.