Break down

On By MeghaIn Seasons of life

I am quite aware that many of you are quite disappointed by my sudden disappearance from the blog world despite a post promising to be back to business. The past few days have been spent trying hard to talk and seek help regarding the home appliance apocalypse in my home.

It started on a happy Friday with me sulking in my mind about my inability to see ‘Talaash’ on a big screen due to a bucket full of reasons. So I decided to see an Amir Khan movie on my laptop. My first choice was Fanaa but since I couldn’t find it on YouTube, I decided to settle for Dil Chahta Hai. I am refraining from indulging in my reasons of choosing this movie over countless other masterpieces by Amir to stay put on the topic at hand. OK, so I started seeing the movie after putting Pari to bed and finishing all chores for the day. Around halfway in the movie, suddenly the speakers of my laptop stopped working.

The movie was playing fine. No other windows were in use. Nothing else happened to indicate attack by an alien or virus but my speakers refused to be resuscitated. I tried re-starting the system thrice, checked the sound settings and everything I could think of but to no avail. I decided to go off to sleep and look for a solution the following day. The following morning, I woke upto many bigger shocks than the sole problem of dead speakers I had slept with.

The induction cooker in the kitchen had died and my laptop’s anti-virus was refusing to work normally. Yes, paid version of McAfee is the first anti-virus that refuses to scan at times of real need of a system scan. I’d highly recommend you to invest in any other anti-virus/ Internet security software but never on McAfee. I was pretty certain that my laptop was infected and needed to be dealt by a professional. The right key of the mouse pad too had suddenly started giving trouble, but that wasn’t a major issue for I have an external wireless mouse to help me continue using the laptop without major issues.

In the meantime, during the day our washing machine and Tata Sky set-top box too started playing up. Then started the series of me calling up the service centres of each dying/ dead gadget to seek help and guidance regarding what needs to be done next. Having lived abroad for sometime, I have developed this habit of taking a ‘we’ll visit soon to check on the ailing gadget’ from the service center people way too seriously, for things aren’t the same in India.

I sometimes find myself confused about the culture and practices for my experiences of living abroad seem to have corrupted my thought process way too much to my liking. Despite having lived in India for most of my life, I many times take people’s word way too seriously than I should in India. Anyhow, life throws me occasions to learn by making mistakes. The following days saw me making endless calls to the service centers, visiting the people, threatening some, calling the customer care, trying my hand at engineering in various fields to racing from one service centre to another for all our diseased gadgets are of different brands. I guess life would have been so much easier if our induction cooker, washing machine, DTH connection, laptop were all of one brand. I would just have to make one call and visit one service centre to get them all sorted.

Anyhow, after a stressful, over-worked week and with lots of money draining out in the name of repair and  formatting things are slowly, at snail pace getting back to normal. The laptop has been formatted, a new anti-virus purchased and installed and hopes of salvaging the washing machine in the freezing winters to give me a break from washing clothes are still high. All this and much more has been constantly preventing me from blogging regularly.

I am back with a formatted, almost new laptop after suffering many mild heart-attacks when I was told that I might have blown my laptop’s speakers (even when they are usually used at very low volume levels) and a replacement of the same would call for 2000 rupees. Just a look in the hardware issues of the mouse and speakers which actually turned out to be dust inside the laptop, costed me 1500 rupees. All this and many similar incidents together over a short span made me realise, how much more we actually pay in the name of being hooked with the latest technology, way after the actual MRP has been paid.

The icing on the cake was when my sandal broke just 100 metres away from my home, making me realise how things could actually be worser than they already were.

Dear life,

When I said “can my day get any worse” it was a rhetorical question not a challenge.

Era

The song on my mind: Ye kya hua ~ Amar Prem

51 thoughts on “Break down”

  3. Gosh! thats horrid yaar….was there an electromagnetic field passing through your area??? that resulted in all appliances being affected like this..including your sandals 🙂

    I loved the phrase ‘appliance apocalypse’

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  4. Ouch! When it rains, it really pours, huh? I hate it when all gadgets decide to go bust at the same time. Totally sucks! And had to smile at your final quote…nice to see a sense of humour even when things seem shitty.

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  5. My laptop ate 10,000 Rs on various occasions to get rectified before it died eventually. I would have bought another one which would have been a better investment. It is really expnsive to maintain these white elephants.

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    1. Seriously I too thought of it being an alien invasion but am glad that humans could finally fix it 😀
      Aiyyo now that’s some seriously dangerous kind of help 😉

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  8. Ouch!! Hugsssss!! Looks like you need a hug badly…. whatever that can go wrong, is going wrong.

    I have often found that it does not make sense to even ask, what could be worse? You will discover to your horror, what else can still go wrong in spite of everything 😛

    You seem to be having a lot of laptop and anti virus issues… I remember reading earlier also. Whats happening?

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    1. This time it was a suspected case of virus attack because the Viao service centre couldn’t actually pinpoint the issue. But overall yes, 2 major breakdowns in 6 months alone is too high a failure rate 😦

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  10. Some days are just like these arent they ME?! I feel a lot worried up and tensed, when something fails to work.. and thats a difficult thing to manage in a country like India.. 😐

    Hope everything is back in form now 🙂 Come back to normal blogging soon!! 🙂

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    1. Am back but replying after almost a month 😦
      I ma so with you on panicking when things don’t work normally, though am getting my lessons on patience from Pari so I am much better these day than what I was earlier 🙂
      Thank you GB 🙂

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  15. Bikramjit Singh Mann

    ooops … they do say when things go wrong a lot go wrong ..

    and 1500 to clean the mouse.. you shud have sent it to me i would have cleaned it for you.. its easy ..

    but alls well that ends well.. so now that you are back and almost everything working fine .. all the best 🙂

    take care

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    1. next time I am seriously contacting you first to fix my laptop’s issues, for I seriously felt I was cheated by being charged 1.5k for cleaning a mouse 😦
      Thank you Bikram 🙂

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  17. privytrifles

    Hey ME . can you believe just today I was thinking about you, wondering where you vanished and was about yo drop a mail to you asking if everything is ok…and here you are… filling up with your funny anecdotes 😀

    BTW love the look of your blog…you see to be a pro at that!!!

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    1. You are a sweetheart PT for worrying when I was gone 🙂
      Am back and determined to paint this year with my words.
      Thank you PT, I enjoy experimenting with my blog appearance. I am glad you liked it 🙂

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    1. Haan ji Bhagyashree ji 😉
      Yes, finally things & hopefully my mind is back on track. I have read half of your awesome letters and be prepared for my raiding your blog with comments soon 🙂

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  23. //Dear life,
    When I said “can my day get any worse” it was a rhetorical question not a challenge.
    Era

    Among all this confusion, this particular line was quite funny 😀

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