To rewind or forward?

A round, silver table clock, that needed to be wound every night to function for the next 24 hours, was the only home-gadget I had seen growing up in my parents’ home in Malleshwaram. Then came the Bush Radio that never broke down. By the time I reached my college, we graduated to own a beautiful black rotary dial telephone from ITI (Indian Telephone Industries) which was allocated to my family after waiting for several months and that too because of the reason that my brother was to soon become a doctor and he would need to be reached in emergency situations.

We had three home gadgets and the only time a man walked into our home, was when a technician from ITI came to wipe the dust off this luxury piece called telephone, and apply on it a very nice perfume; the fragrance of which I still smell 50 years later! I had wondered why one would apply perfume to a telephone! Maybe it was to keep one happy during the conversation or maybe it was meant for the person at the other side of the wire!

Lately, the gadget-led luxury life has brought disruption exposing the floor plan of our home to a variety of technicians and their assistants as we move into the new decade. An average middle-income home is bound to have essential gadgets like a fridge, microwave oven, cooking range, water filter units, geysers, air conditioner, washing machine, treadmill, television, setter box, music system, laptops and maybe multiples of these depending on the household. Warranty or guarantee documents all filed in a meticulous manner are of hardly any assistance when these life-comforting objects begin not to co-operate our luxury-filled lives.

The ‘man of the house’ is expected to fix many of these break-downs in a jiffy but more often than not he is incapable as he is unable to understand the intricacies of these highly innovative machines. So cell-phone rings go to the comfort providers. Overcoming several call-forwards means pressing 1,3,7 on your phone, at least two call-drops and several patience-testing conversations later the technical experts will walk in armed with tools, at the most inconvenient time, to repair and put us back into our luxurious routines. The most perplexed might be our pets who have no idea whether to be quiet or bark or just tuck in their tails and go to sleep unyielding to what may happen to their masters!

Moving into 2020, my vision is to either go back to my silver-coloured clock, fragrant telephone and my bush radio or dwell into engaging with new-age technology so that upon arriving home all is in luxurious order. Should I press rewind or forward?