Welcome to the Machine

For the last fortnight I have been raging at my Machiavellian machine — complete with space-age technology — to prevent it from either burning my toast or popping it completely undone. I have tried to time it,rotate the slice of bread and even change my brand but slice after slice I get this strange combination of charred wheat and soggy bread. It seems I am not alone. I was at a dinner party last weekend when the conversation turned to appliances and we all realised that we were toast.

Every single person in that room was suffering from the same problem and we had all recently upgraded to fancy international brand toasters that had promised us morning glory.

That’s when I realised that my average day begins with defeat. All night my hip,strangely silent split-unit air-conditioner rains on me. Since the day I bought the machine,it leaks on my head. Drop by drop. Like the Ayurvedic Shirodhara hot oil treatment. The maintenance agency now has a permanent unit of engineers who scratch their heads in despair as they try everything to stem the downpour. They are now considering removing the unit and spending their lives cooling my room with old-fashioned handheld punkahs.

So here is the truth: All those Orwellian theories about machines taking over are coming true. Case in point: when was the last time your computer really listened to you? How many times have you saved a file and then found it had not tracked any of your changes? How often have you lost a file and blamed it on human error? I suspect that term is one that has been generated by a PC. The technology that we created to make our lives simpler is now revolting. They disapprove of being misused to the extent that we no longer want to get up to switch off a light. Or change a television channel.

But all is not lost. I see our saviours in the form of the forward-thinking Delhi High Court. Today’s news carries the ruling of Chief Justice A P Shah [the man behind the annulment of Section 377 IPC – decriminalising homosexuality and Justice Manmohan who have stayed the TV show Sach Ka Saamna. They say,“Switch off your TV,Mister,if you don’t like it,or change the channel.”

The courts have declared in an avant-garde step that we have the freedom to get up and make a change. We can even switch off our machines. And the tyranny will end.

(The columnist is Editor-in-chief,Elle)