Aahhh, No internet connection in office. It’s been like this for almost 30 minutes. Everyone is going mad. Everything has stopped. No one’s working. 🙂

There were days when even a pathetically slow computer system brought joy and excitement to people’s houses. It was a grand celebration. And before turning it on, the age old custom of breaking a coconut and putting a tilak was never forgotten. I remember, when I turned my PC for the first time at home, everyone was standing right behind me. I was in 10th standard then. Well, a dangerous time though. My parents thought that it would help me in studies. Computer Science was introduced in our curriculum in 8th standard. But they were in for a bigger surprise.

The very next day, a friend of mine, who had never come to my house before, dropped in with 2 game CDs. And he kept on visiting my house very frequently. I am not complaining, I enjoyed it too. We used to sit in-front of the computer for hours, door locked from inside. Our parents had the impression that we were studying hard. This went on for quite some time. And finally we were caught. I don’t remember what happened next. But, for the first 2 years, my PC was only used for gaming. It was a 233MHz machine, with 32MB RAM and 40GB hard disk. After 2 years also, we didn’t have an internet connection. And we never got bored.

Now I have a laptop with 1.6GHz processor, 1.5GB RAM and a 120GB hard disk. But now, I use it for one more thing. To get connected to the internet. Now I cannot imagine how would I keep myself busy if there was no internet. But I also miss some of my other hobbies. I don’t play tabla anymore. Nor do I do any sketches or paintings. The time spend in-front of the TV has also reduced drastically. I don’t work out. I eat fast so that I can get back to my laptop as soon as possible. I don’t talk on the phone for hours together, well, not as much as I used to. I don’t play outdoor games.

Internet has crippled me!!!!! But I love it.