The Gadget Girl

When I was in fifth grade, my dad got me a computer set which filled up half my room.  It was ugly and dorky to say the least. Yet I knew there was a stark “coolness” to it. Behind the white metal box I knew, it was the wings via which my life would take flight.

I coaxed myself to learn bits and pieces of now archaic then in vogue languages like Cobol and Pascal from older cousins who flashed their hefty computer textbooks around, although most of it was jargon to me, I did manage to learn to write commands for petty shapes, get labels for my books printed out etc.

However that hunk of a computer did establish something that holds good even now, however much I deny it, I am a gadget girl. The code was simple: you are what your gadget is.

Three years later, the summer of 98 I got my first windows 97 home personal computer. It was vibrant compared to the first one .Sleeker, with an extra large helping of color, entertainment and fun. Since then Ricky martin was forever singing Maria to me. 

After that it was a real roller-coaster ride on the digital arena. The World Wide Web came roping in, the dial up Satyam that connected in a jiffy, sending my phone bills soaring to heaven. The color printers who printed out pages after pages off the Encarta encyclopaedia cd-rom, weaving together pages into my school projects. Video- chatting with distant relatives in Canada to defeating Garry Kasparov on online chess. Yes! It was a new life!

In 2004, when I was sixteen, I joined college I got my first cell phone a chunky Nokia, it was long before Nokia phones had number tags to them. The feel of the phone is fresh in my mind; the 2 X 3 cm fluorescent green display never seems to fade from my memory. It was those wriggly snakes that kept me awake during the drudgery biochemistry lectures of first year.

Two months later I got my first digital camera. A silver sheen Cannon 3.2 megapixel cyber shot found its way from across the Middle East into my hands. It was an era where digital cameras were rare and horridly expensive. Till then I was just another fresher, that day I got the camera I became the “college’s most wanted”. In a span of three months I had more than five thousand snaps to my credit, comprising of love birds posing coyly for a romantic snap, to cacophonous girl groups sticking out their tongue, friends making horny signs above each other’s heads, macho guys showing off their muscles, to setting suns, to half moons, to random scenery .Everything appeared cute enough to be clicked. The Cannon literally bombarded my life.

By the next spring, I sensed a vague restlessness in me. It was a new feeling, something I could not explain then. However now I am very familiar with it. Its stage one of getting bored with your gadget, you fail to take precious care of it like you used to, that means that you stop using the case, you stop keeping it safely, you start leaving it around. Then comes stage two, when you stop using it that frequently, you start eyeing other gadgets; you secretly crave for other faster sleeker models. And finally the terminal stage happens when something else catches your attention, and a new metallic baby becomes the apple of your eye.

The camera and I ended our affair once I laid my hand on my first laptop. There was this new sense of pride beaming in my chest every time I saw Compaq written in shiny silver on the black matte finish cover. I made the transition of taking lecture notes on the laptop, to throwing my OHP markers into the bin and making power-point presentations for every seminar I had to give. My laptop became my best friend, he knew my darkest secrets yet he kept them confidential. Weekends we watched movies together and I would even fall asleep beside him. Thus from miss shutterbug I became miss laptop.

Over the years I acquired newer phones from a Nokia 6600 to a Nokia N 85, from an HTC diamond to a Blackberry. I moved from Cannon to Olympus back to a Cannon. I absolutely loved them when I bought them, but with time you realize that it is not “the one” and a breakup is inevitable.

Later I diverged from standard phone, camera, and Laptop gadget-ery to watches and electronic stethoscopes. When I turned twenty-one I realized there was one thing I have been wanting for a very long time. I wanted something more powerful than a small tablet could offer me. I wanted a car. And thus I got my first set of wheels. My red Chevy and I painted the whole town green with envy. I took her everywhere I went. She was my new BFF.

However now that I am twenty-three this is my inventory A Dell Inspiron Netbook, a Blackberry phone, a Cannon SLR , a Swarovski encrusted Fossil watch, the Littman 3000 electronic stethoscope. Yes, my prefix and suffix defines me, but I am what my gadgets are. I am a gadget girl, I have always been that, and forever will be. That doesn’t mean them, my gadgets are forever, change is inevitable, because always... “yeh dil mange more!”

Epilogue: my birthday is around the corner and my dad was asking me what I would like for a gift, and I was thinking... hmmm maybe a new ride!

PS: don’t tell my chevy that... shhh!