The Obituary of a Laptop

My laptop (of merely 7 days of age) died last evening. It came as real shock to both me and Abhi, primarily because of the mysterious nature of its death. I had been working on it all day, running multiple (and huge) graphic programs simultaneously, that too, with such remarkable ease ! It gave absolutely no inkling of any impending mishap. Rather its performance had been superfluous in the past 7 days since it came to be mine (well, other than the exasperating keyboard it had and the fact that its battery was non-existent, meaning it worked only when plugged in directly to the socket). Nevertheless, it was a GOOD laptop. Its sleek, black and grey body with sinuous curves strewn across the front were subtly attractive, despite the fact that it was slightly over-weight and that it ran on an early version of Vista..Nonetheless, it was mine and very newly mine. In its previous life of almost 2 years it had belonged to Abhi. I agree that this recent transition from being a straight-thinking , number-crunching nerdy laptop to a more creative, inspired and graphicy one had been quite hard on the poor (now departed) soul. Yet, it held up quite alright until yesterday’s fateful Sunday evening.

I remember it all so vividly –last night around 7.00 Abhi closed its lid, with a bit of a slam actually, and I shot him this reproachful glance, before we headed out to ‘Indian Dhaba’ for dinner. Bac k at 8.00, delighted that I had another 2 hours ahead to indulge in my illustrator dabbling, I opened the lid back up, noticing almost immediately that something was amiss..none of the usual lovely, flickering blue lights came on..except a stray wireless light that came on a couple of times, before extinguishing forever…almost as if the poor machine was breathing its last..:(

Well, this had to happen one day or another, except, I wish it hadn’t come as such a shock, it hadn’t come when the laptop had become MINE, and it hadn’t come at a time when for the first time in the past two years I happen to really have some use for a laptop except the usual email-internet-time-pass. Nonetheless, we are still deciding over the appropriate funeral course and will keep the blog updated, unless of course a new power cord overturns the pronouncement and brings the laptop magically back from the dead!