72 hrs without Net, life was good

Harinder Singh Bedi

THANKS to the ‘agitation’ over the baba verdict and the response of the administration, we in Punjab (and Haryana, UT) were left with the unthinkable — no internet for 72 hours!

So it happened that we found ourselves unable to find our life’s answers from Google. At home, we,  including the maid, stared blankly at our phones. For some time, we were unable to comprehend that we could not reach our virtual friends. Every five minutes, we would swipe our screens to check for the hundreds of WhatsApp or Facebook posts which would have flooded our phones. 

Finally, we got talking to one another. We realised that this had happened after a long time. We shared the happiness of not having to answer all the inane good mornings/evenings/nights and the mandatory string of happy birthdays which got triggered by just one such greeting. (I remember that after about 50 such greetings, the ‘birthday’ boy sheepishly wrote it wasn’t his birthday at all.) 

I had more time. I could actually meet and talk to people and ‘see’ them. My thumb felt relaxed, not having to constantly punch texts. My neck felt supple and lost its crick. I got time to finish two medical manuscripts that I had been working on for the past six months. Two half-finished novels were devoured with relish. I listened to music. I ‘discovered’ an excellent park just next door. Suddenly, there was one less distraction to worry about. The constant need to look at the phone vanished and the  chit chat of virtual friends on a common group was removed. The battery lasted two days. Best of all, there were no more ‘Candy Crush’ requests! 

My mother was pleased that I was not on the phone; she herself was freer now without her own group interactions. She got time to look up and examine me with her gimlet eyes:  ‘You are greying’. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had started ‘maturing’ two years back. The family chatted, sitting together at the dining table. I excitedly rang up my daughter-in-law, seven seas away. ‘You know, there’s life without the Internet!’ Equally excited, she responded: ‘Oh really, dad, send me the link.’ 

I slept well. I had a dream. I was sitting with the Buddha. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know child, the Internet is down.’

What I did miss was the tele-medicine which I had been doing to help my colleagues in rural areas and smaller cities. They would post pictures of ECG/CT scans and get opinion from me or my associates. 

My darling wife got to spend time with me. ‘You know, dear… you’re not a bad sort at all,’ she cooed at the end of it.