Desktop Replacement

The penultimate week in Dec2010 was an interesting one for Messrs Dasgupta and Dasgupta esq. of 36 Cherry Tree Lane, Singapore. Mom had to fly out to Kolkata to attend a wedding of a very close childhood friend. I was by myself, and had to be a sole parent for a week to my 16 month old. My domestic helper is a very capable lady who is adept in fixing my boy's meals, and changing his diapers and even giving him a bath. All I had to do was keep him company for a week. I worked from home as much as possible this week as I had no desire to leave the boy for long hours without his Mom(i.e Dad). I had the chance to observe the toddler from very close quarters for the entire day, something that I rarely had the option to do earlier. The first thing he did after I dropped his Ma at the airport, was call me "baba" for dad in bengali. I am not maudlin by nature, but these words uttered at me , laced with an open smile made something inside me go "yippee". I was so delighted that I let my boy tear up some magazines, drop his milk on the floor and wash his hands in it, and finally, resort to his curious habit of ripping out the keys from my desktop..and I don't mean a delicate pull, I mean a whiplash rip. The visual that comes to mind is a Frank Zappa album cover called "Weasels Ripped my Flesh"




That brings me to my desktop. This is a really obnoxious exhibit, an odious accumulation from a beastly "Best Buy" store in Central Indiana in 2005. We all have moments of bad judgement, much as we feel we are endowed with more wisdom than the next man and this was not much else. While shopping for a laptop that innocuous afternoon, I let this sales person and his rather silly retinue (The GEEK Squad!!) convince me that what I wanted to buy was not a desktop. I assured him that that was precisely what I wanted to buy. He said it wasn't. This went on for a bit and I was beginning to lose patience and my usually phlegmatic exterior was showing just the first signs of contortion, so said my wife. Sensing that he had probably run out of points for drama, he posited (Hey, I too found a use for this godforsaken word...was on my GRE exam in 1996) that what I infact needed was a dekstop replacement. I was a bit confounded, and I said I didnt. He said I did. He said that I needed a laptop, that was as good as a desktop and was also mobile. He had my attention and infact, in the end I purchased a piece of electronics, made by HP, which looked like a laptop on a diet of Big Macs and Super Size Fries. I was at the time pleased with the purchase, thinking I was going to ride this new wave of technofaddity as an early adopter...something I usually never am. Unfortunately, the years have passed and my destiny has taken me out of Indiana, and into France, and then Singapore and all this time what I have done is lugged a 25 kg animal in my carry-on luggage and my backpack and have in the process, damaged many a backpack and have often dumped the pack on the ground in disgust and managed to even break off portions of plastic from the ends of the machine. The machine has been more or less functional but what I realised is that I had not the benefits of either a laptop or a desktop, this monstrosity was NEITHER..and could replace jack squat. This has since then been formally proven by the fact that this stupid idea never caught on with the consumer and died a deservedly early death at the hands of more sensible concepts. I've hence harbored ill-will towards this wretch of machine for many years and have often wanted to just throw it away and get a new toy. My wife has always managed to keep me from doing so because it would ostensibly be a waste of money...as compared to, say, the two very large wooden vats (referred to as "lotas" disparagingly by a friend that has thence ceased to remain one) that sit in the corner of my living room for decorative purposes, or, say the innumerable snack trays she has, more infact in number than the sum total of all the possible snacks that exist,and..you get the idea.

So my boys habit is one I publicly condemn ofcourse but secretly indulge as I guess it drives me ever closer to the dream of the day of the desktop replacement eviction. However, I was in Sim Lim Square the other day to look for some electrical adapters and I noticed a computer repair shop that had a whole bunch of machines that were severly mutilated, in states of trauma far worse than mine. Upon enquiry I learnt that such physical damage is indeed easily cured by the shop's leading orthopaedic surgeon and that too for the price of an international calling card. So now, I pray for some force -majeure to render this machine irreversibly dead, and I hope that it will be my boy that will have the pleasure of orchestrating such a demise. Until that day, I continue to pretend that it is a desktop replacement. and pretend that it is indeed what I need.