365 DAYS 365 TALES

In'the'Net

"Mom how was world without all this?." my daughter asked me one evening, pointing at the innumerable gadgets in our house. And I must tell you, the number of gadgets in our house which have a screen exceeded the number of people in the house.

And that was when my daughter's question actually struck me. How did we manage before all this time...which must admittedly have been just a few years back...something that even I should be able to remember, but really I could not...

'Uh.....' I said because honestly, that was all I could think up of.

'This is the invasion of the Internet, mom,' my daughter said in those fake loud pitched voice that most TV commentators nowadays seemed to have.

The only problem...There was absolutely nothing fake about our situation...Nothing at all.

A quick recap of how my usual daily day went and how the Evil 'net' invaded us...more importantly my life...

I woke up in the morning and after brushing my teeth and a quick bath, I stumbled into the kitchen. The bath had done nothing to wake me up, as I started with the cooking for the day. I had almost decided upon the menu when a silent alarm rang somewhere in my head.

I remembered last evening, my daughter was very annoyed and looking at me with those accusing eyes. 'Mom! The food that you give me for lunch, it is so boring! Why don't you give me something new tomorrow?'

'Boring?' I muttered. That was new. I have never had food to be boring before. It was just something to be eaten....Never mind...Back to my kitchen and the first thing my eyes fell on was my tablet lying there right next to the gas.

Why is it there? I wondered.

I searched what seemed like the entire internet on the tablet for something which may remotely satisfy the requirement of 'not boring'. I finally settled on Cheese Dosa. My daughter didn't have a thing for anything with cheese or curd in it, and it was definitely not something I had given for school lunch. However, even after I made the decision, I was not very convinced that it would please my daughter. Trust me, pleasing a seven year old when you are waking her up to send her to school is not difficult, it is impossible...

Anyway, the lunch box was packed and the breakfast was ready. (I forgot to tell you. The page which explained the making of the cheese dosa had another very interesting recipe. I felt obligated to try it on for lunch.)

Anyway back to waking up my daughter, the half an hour that she gets ready for school seemed to never end and I am sure that if we had a decibel meter in our house, it would have exploded from too much noise level. (Probably that is why, we do not have a decibel meter. Anyway as I said it is completely besides the point)

After a lot of yelling and begging to do the homework and other usual things, my daughter was off in the school van.

I breathed a sigh of relief and then remembered something feeling very disheartened – I had to go to office.

Unhappily, I packed my bag and was off to office. My office was pretty far away from the home and the bus service was excellent. I always got seat. (Well my stop is the terminus. So no surprises there!)

And what do I do the one hour that I commute to work. I read the newspaper, of course. Obviously I would look too old carrying the paper. So what do I do? Read it in the tablet, silly! Of course it gives me the added benefit of checking the email whenever I want, which is all the time...

I reached office as I stared at the mountain of paper work before me as I wished that the damn thing would disappear when I opened my eyes. (I have been wishing that for eight years now. I have never been successful till date.)