How my laptop torments me like an Indian wife

They say marriage can be a real torment especially if your wife is blessed with this annoying gift to nag. And the ability to nag is something that comes so effortlessly to the women folks! Being a man I feel handicapped, at times. And since, I am a docile and peace-loving, violence-free person (they once asked me to be the poster boy for Gandhian principles), my laptop loves to exploit me.

Yes, the same laptop, over which I had blown away my entire savings 2 years back, enjoys taking advantage of my easy-going nature. It irritates me morning, noon & night and manages to come up with new opportunities to torment me, especially, when I am sunk knee-deep in work. Being a freelance writer, I have to spend the major portion of my day glued to the internet. So, it won’t be wrong to state that I am sort-of married to my laptop (we recently celebrated our 2^nd anniversary this January). And like a true, devoted Indian wife, it has taken over the holy task of nagging me with a tireless zeal & unwavering commitment.

The poor creature, being an abiotic thing, cannot yell (if you are wondering what’s ‘abiotic’, it’s time you brush up your biology) but makes up for it in the form of ‘hanging’. Daily, without fail, it hangs exactly at moments when I am running short of time or when there are a few very important tabs that are lying opened. My blood boils at such moments since I am forced to press the ‘On/Off’ button to restart the computer. Thus, I lose all my tabs, lament over the priceless lost minutes and suffer from disturbance in concentration. Having achieved its mission, my laptop, now (after ‘restart’), presents a smiling face feigning a child-like innocence.

The devastating manner in which it hangs makes it resemble an Indian wife staring unblinkingly at her husband with a sullen or furious face. Basically, all my cuss words have now been reserved by my laptop which faces my verbal wrath during its hangover time. Of course, the laptop is undaunted and undeterred by all the curses (in fact, it relishes them) and goes about its business with an increased appetite. I must confess that I am not a habitual user of those heinous cuss words (like ‘fu*k); something that used to give me immense pride in my pre-laptop days. But my lappy has successfully enlisted my name in the category of the most frequent users of these slangs (it’s a different matter that I find some of the slangs extremely de-stressing & calm-evoking in such moments of intense fury). And I am afraid that the f-word is slowly becoming my signature slang (something that threatens my Gandhian ‘posterboy’ image).

  But, on the brighter side, there are days, when my lappy spares me the agonies and lets me do my work without any glitch….. (rare moments of its friendly mood). So, that’s my story…..Me….. an earthly soul carrying the cross of the sinful technology..…

And, did I tell you that my laptop is looking for its lost sibling (the ‘Kumbh Ka Mela’ effect)? This cousin, says my lappy, is much more annoying and is, currently, unleashing itself on an unknown, helpless Indian in some remote corner of the country…….Do tell us if this ‘helpless Indian’ is you.

PS- Just like my bank balance, my blog’s popularity refuses to grow up. So, kindly be good enough to share my tragic story….And I will wish you a hanging-free life ahead. Amen!

Diary of an Alzheimer’s patient

Life is really quite unpredictable as Yuvraj Singh found out recently and as I did a few years back. So often has a person spent the happiest phase of his life only to realize that his life is shorter than he was actually banking upon. Another intriguing human tendency is that we often get into the delusion that ‘life-threatening’ diseases and accidents are things that can happen only to others and, preferably, to a high-profile celebrity or a wealthy not-so-near relative. But……

My story is not a different cry….How green was my valley till fate showed its true cards. I have been battling some severe chronic diseases for the past few years and the damage has been so severe and, unfortunately, presented itself so silently, that it’s hard to state how & where it all started. Though, there is an army of ailments t troubling my body at the moment, the most dreadful of them is Alzheimer’s disease. You may have vaguely heard of it as a silent killer that robs mind & memory but, trust me, it is the modus operandi of this lethal disease which can be really frustrating.

Firstly, Alzheimer’s loves to play hide-n-seek with you. One moment you feel quite good, cheerful & full of grey cells (your thoughts flow clearly) and within minutes, your mind just gets foggy & muddled up. Thoughts do not flow easily and words are hard to recall. I can clearly remember incidents of my childhood or the names of my old classmates & teachers. But I find it almost impossible to recall the names of some of my ‘facebook’ friends or even those of some of the newer breed of celebrities. What is most frustrating is that I’m always at a loss to recollect passwords of some of my e-accounts! Though, I have cultivated the habit of maintaining one single password for all my IDs & profiles, at times, they ask to set new passwords (for security purpose) and that’s when I cringe in fear as I struggle to think of something that would not get lost in the recesses of my fading mind. But having lost confidence in my mental abilities, I recently wrote down in a diary all my important profile usernames & passwords (just in case, things get too difficult).

Secondly, Alzheimer’s has sort of blinded me to the happenings around me. Quite often, when the mind is in a numb state, I lose all sense of time & reality. Things do not register themselves in my mind that easily. For instance, an hour back, I just trotted out of my 1^st floor flat to take a walk in the neighbourhood for 10-15 minutes. However, the brain was so unclear that it was finding it impossible to keep pace with reality. I seemed to be walking on streets without realizing what I’m doing. I could see everything clearly and I was aware of my whereabouts but mind seemed to have gone for a holiday. You can compare it to a person who is sleep-walking. He is alert & sound but unable to recall his actions later on! I’m not sure how to put this feeling through words….It’s just a feeling and one of those rare things that are, really inexplicable.

And what about my dreams, my future, my ambitions? Hmmm….it’s a sensitive issue. Things are looking bleak. Dreams are shrinking along with grey cells….Future is a far-away thing, even the present is uncertain……And then, I am the only child of my parents. But hey, even an Alzheimer’s patient is entitled to hope. Things may be slipping away, memories may let go of me, thoughts may bid me adieu….But there’s a fantastic message that I had once received in the form of a forwarded text SMS. I can’t recall the initial line but the concluding line was something like this, “To meet and part is the way of life….but to part and meet is the hope of life…..”