I've had a glimpse of the Stone Ages this week. No email, no chat, no blogs (gasp!). And considering that I've strenuously held out against the insidious invasion of technology all along, I now realise I'm a regular net junkie. A net junkie with a bad case of withdrawal symptoms.
With all the 'free time' this week then, I've been ruminating about this unthinkable turn of events. Until nine months ago, I didn't even have my own computer at work. I used to share a terminal with a colleague. In my previous workplace, there were only two terminals which had the Net. This was an improvement over another agency where I worked, which had one connection. When there was information to be gathered, we went to the library. Google? Yeah, heard of it. I had a pc at home with a dial-up. Which one? Um... I didn't know. I never bothered logging on from home.
There I was, blissfully insulated from the inexorable tide of technology. Two things changed that: the hunt for a digital camera and blogging. From a bewildered, self-avowed techno-phobe, I slowly turned into a zealot. In theory, i knew all about the vastness of the medium. But for the first time, I got the feeling that I was standing at the edge of the ocean. Google and I became fast friends. My eyes almost fell off when I first discovered THREE links to my name! Mailboxes were checked throughout the day and then I'd get home and log on to check what I'd missed in the last hour. All was well; I was proceeding smoothly towards net addiction. Until Murphy struck...
First, my home pc threw a tantrum. It stopped showing the comment boxes on blogs and refused to let me access the blog home page. Also, it moodily refused to show me recent posts on some blogs. Then there was the matter of getting disconnected every few minutes. Thankfully, I had my office pc to fall back on...
Unfortunately, early last week, the management did a taliban on all mail sites. Vehement protests, wailing and sulking were as futile as our attempts to connect to hotmail, rediff and yahoo. I was especially indignant. Here I was, with bags packed, finally heading out of the Stone Ages. And now I was being forced off the bus! I ranted at every software engineer in sight, as though they were personally responsible for this development.
A minor respite. The elusive cable finally showed up at home and granted us the Internet cable. 24-HOUR ONLINE - the icon on the computer boasted when I logged on. And then this message followed:
Sorry for the inconvenience, the line is down as the underground fiber has been cut by BMC while digging the road. The line should be restored late afternoon.
And this was four days ago!
Seriously, now I know what drives people to sabotage!
Rants notwithstanding, I'm in a way grateful too. Perhaps, I've been singled out for yet another cosmic lesson in detachment. If the medium is the message, then this week's message has been loud and clear: GET A LIFE! Hmm... this has already been too much time spent on this post...
P.S. No, this isn't a goodbye-to-blogging. I'm still going to be around. Just bear with delayed comments and mails :-) Thanks!
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