My gadgets have declared a war on me!

And it is affecting my blog life. As soon as I flip open my mobile phone (a model that is out of production now but I will change it only when it completely conks out) and start writing a SMS to S (a vicarious blogger, wants to know of the blogland but does not blog or reads them these days) the mobile switches off and then comes on again (out of its own free will, I do nothing apart from staring hard at it) wiping out completely the juicy tidbit I was writing to her. After 19^th attempt I wonder if the story is really worth anything at all and why am I even bothered.

But I do not grudge my mobile so much; I must have dropped it hard on the ground at least 15 times because I would be holding so many things. A few books, my TT bat, a handbag and a water bottle and my mobile and my car keys (not knowing what is where) while trying to open my car door. Sometimes, I drop the books or the water bottle too but never my TT bat. It is a great wonder to me that my mobile is still working at all.

Then there is my laptop. It did the unimaginable, it wiped all my 400 plus photographs from Ladakh while we (and H has been working in the software industry for the past 9 years) did not take a backup. All I can say is that it gives us a good reason for going back to Ladakh someday. Since then, it has crashed at least three times more. But I did not loose a single photograph after that. You see, I rarely make the same mistake twice. These days, the laptop attempts to crash only when I try to view the photographs from my recent trip to Bharmour and Hadsar. Mysteriously, it flashes a message about ‘dumping memory’ (whatever that may mean) and then it shuts off after producing a lot of garbage (to me) messages. It starts later and if I do not try to watch the photographs, it is content by merely producing noises similar to some trying to kick start a scooter when the spark plug has gone bad.

When my laptop is away for repair, I am forced to use my two bratty nephew’s PC. It lets me watch the photos from any of my trips, I guess it is more tolerant because every icon button on it has a Kurt Cobain theme and it has achieved ‘Nirvana.’

Only, if I do not take my mobile out of the internet cord before switching off the PC, it goes mad. Next time when I try to switch it on, the monitor gets divided into neat squares of equal size and then my elder nephew takes over. He removes the cover off the CPU. He then takes off a small cell and fits it back again, and hey presto, the PC forgives me for not taking off the mobile first.

The problem is his CPU cover and various other parts of his computer (but not the key board and the mouse) give random electric shocks to others who trying to handle it. H has once sent the digital camera flying while trying to connect it to the PC. My elder nephew can never find a tester (or the Pizza membership card when we want to order one) and threatens to use my younger nephew as a tester. My younger nephew needs no rescuing these days (and I am so thankful for this small mercy, I never thought the day will ever come) he can tackle his elder brother quite well. All he has to do is to start reciting how many times David Beckham has sent the penalty-kick flying in various matches with all its gory details (this he remembers much better than anything he mugs up for class tests) and my elder nephew quickly establishes truce.

Meanwhile, after working at their comp I have discovered that if a mouse refuses to move where you try to hit the back button there are more chances of succes if you try to hit the address bar and retype the URL again. And the sound produced by banging the mouse on the table can bring my dad down from his room, thinking my nephews are trying some WWE moves.

And all this makes blogging a different exercise altogether.