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Journalism of Courage
It was not perhaps quite the right sort of present to receive on one8217;s seventy-fifth birthday. Being the seventy-fifth, they wanted to give him something very special. And so it arrived on the birthday morning, two big crates and a man to install it.
It8217;s easy to operate, it8217;s not difficult to learn, it will keep you in touch with people, and you can no longer be illiterate, said the children who had gifted it.
The computer, new and shiny, was installed and both of us were determined to master at least the basics since the gift was a costly one.
Learning computer vocabulary was easy, unlike medical terms, which are latinised. 8220;Icon8221;, 8220;menu8221;, 8220;windows8221;, 8220;mouse8221; and 8220;cursor8221;, the vocabulary posed no problems. But we always seemed to open the wrong windows, the cursor did not move up and down, left and right when we wanted it to. The mouse, what an appropriate word, scampered all over the screen, and at times disappeared from it altogether.
And so we decided to join a computer class. But when we found that a bunch of kids looking at our grey heads with amusement, we came back without submitting our application forms. We then thought up a strategy. There were many helpful young people in the building in which we stayed. We chose seven youngsters and allotted one day to each of them. Each of them thought that he was the only one to teach us, until one day the truth was discovered and they had the last laugh.
We were on our own now. We bravely decided to forge our way ahead. After all, all that we wanted to do was to type out letters for e-mail and to surf the web which, we were told, was fascinating.
We clicked windows and buttons, most of them the wrong ones, went into the wrong programmes, did not know how to get out of them and pathetically asked our little granddaughter to bail us out. Once on e-mail the computer told us, in not too friendly print, that the address had transient non-fatal errors. We wondered what would have happened if the errors had been fatal. The mail delivery system told us that our message to a friend was still undelivered after four hours and that the computer would try 8220;till five days old8221;. We tried a tutorial book, which promised to teach us, step-by-step, in a fun and easy way. But it was neither easy nor fun.
But we did have some fun. When the spelling check suggested Dominoes for our grand daughter named Damini, the nickname 8220;Dominoes8221; stuck. Vinaya became vineyard and Udita became Data.
But the children had the last laugh. I could hear Kamala and Leela chuckling whenever I opened the computer and came to grief. No longer were we the icons of learning that we were before the computer arrived. They did not need us. The windows of the computer gave them all the information they needed to know. We were reduced to the status of mice. We were called the PITS. And if you want to know what PITS is, it is Permanently Intimidated by Technology Syndrome.
Never give a 75-year-old a computer!
