JOIN USFrom desktop to laptop I think is a giant leap for womankind, I mean for women like me. It had me fumbling around the keyboard and looking down on the screen. Intel to Apple had me pulling at my hair. To start with the on-screen menu was different. I was looking for MS Windows and familiar applications. “Grandma, you have Apple works instead,” laughed my grand-daughter. With great difficulty I had learnt to browse through on-screen menus besides the tedious lunch and dinner stuff for the family and there I was sitting with a strange menu.
But when I could not see a mouse around I felt I lost my walking stick. And worse still, I got a touch screen to tread upon. Was it too slippery for my worn out finger tips? It was worse than the slippery bathtub for the toes. While I was struggling with the touch pad and a stubborn scroll bar which would not move. My five-year-old grandson sneakily slipped in and glided smoothly across the screen to play his game first and then watch dinosaurs sing and dance while my grand-daughter video-clipped my struggle on her flip.
“Just drag two fingers along and the bar will move,” said my grand-daughter nonchalantly. I did and the page moved but the cursor went berserk. I had to literally chase it around the monitor, grab it and guide it.
I suppose children these days are born with their left brains wired properly for using wireless gizmos. They take to these like fish to water! But there are these unfortunate beings like me with much unwired cerebral connections and exposed to these gadgets on the wrong side 50 or 60.
“Look at this i-Pod, it is so cute,” said another another grand-daughter downloading “Pappu can’t dance saala” on her newly-acquired i-Pod.
Her slender fingers glided and slid as she was getting ready for her next favourite song. Her two-year-old wanted to see funny faces on the same gadget and was itching to grab the cute machine. I stared open-mouthed.
As helpful and great these inventions may be, I miss the days when a TV was a novelty. I did not at least have to deal with touch screens and remotes besides website cookies and anti-virus scans.