‘Democracy is dead!! Long live Democracy!!’ said my friend as she entered the office.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘Don’t you watch the news?’ she asked.
‘Come on, I was tired after watching the MLA getting hit with the slipper for the 1045th time. I hate the guy, but there are only so many replays I can watch of that scene!! What’s up?’ I asked.
‘It is the end of the world, dammit!! Google is down!!’ she said.
‘What do you mean Google is down?’ I asked. I still didn’t see what the fuss was about.
‘Give me at least 3 other ways you can interpret my statement’ she said irritatedly. I know how irritating this series of ‘What do you mean x’ kind of statements can get. Still, I had to know.
‘The Government has decided to ban Google in India’, she said, struggling to keep herself from breaking down.
‘What do you mean..’
‘Don’t even dare to start that again’ she warned. ‘The oldest party is supposedly getting tired of the search phrases on whether Rahul’s hair is real or if Priyanka has had a nose job done. Apparently the top search phrases are if Priyanka has learnt dancing too and Rahul’s favourite state’.
‘But Priyanka did have a nose job done’ I said, completely missing the point.
‘They thought it was the other Priyanka’ she said with some exasperation.
‘So why are you so upset? What if Google is banned? We will live’ I said.
‘No we won’t!! I have to send out a presentation on trends in the energy industry. Who is going to give me the information? Your uncle in Villupuram?’ she yelled.
She had a point. But I was the epitome of patience and wisdom. I wasn’t going to lose my head over something as trivial as a website getting banned.
‘Remember the older days? What did we do then?’ I asked her in my sweetest possible voice.
Apparently that only seemed to irk her more.
‘In the older days, we thought Windows 95 was cool and did not know the difference between a search engine and a browser. Remember how you were perplexed about why you needed IE AND yahoo?? ‘ she said with a nasty smile. She was starting to enjoy this.
‘Not that, you fool!! What about yahoo, msn, that bling something and that spanish thing that sounded like abracadabra.. or even ask-somebody-dot-something? Didn’t we use one of those things before we were googled?’ I asked.
‘Well, all of them are banned. If Google is banned, why wouldn’t the others be??’ she said.
I didn’t see it. I mean, the internet was still there right? What is the big deal if the search engines were banned?
After an hour or 2 of checking emails, looking at news sites (that were still talking about the MLA getting hit with a slipper and Rakhi Sawant claiming that ‘The Avengers’ was actually her story) and talking with my manager on general office gossip and 3 presentation decks that had to go out, I suddenly realized that it was a Friday and that I was due for my weekly shampoo bath the next day. Should I get a henna hair pack or not? I got one last week, but how frequently do I do that? I did what I always do in such cases of extreme importance. I typed ‘Google.com’ on the browser and waited. The screen turned red and I turned purple with worry. I didn’t know if people usually turn that colour with worry and right then I had no way of checking, for at that moment a message appeared, ‘You are kidding, right? Don’t ask, think!!’. I had never felt so insulted in life and that’s when I realized that my life was not going to be the same ever again!!
There was some serious stuff going on in the next bay. The young developers sitting there looked ashen-faced. A few girls were crying. I couldn’t help but overhear them wondering out aloud what they were going to do. A few guys were talking about finding work in a bottling factory. A few suggested turning into data-entry operators.
‘But we only know Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V’, another guy said.
Some of the girls were worried that now they would really have to get married according to their parents’ wishes. A few bright ones suggested that by hook or crook they become project managers.
‘Think about it!!’ said a PYT excitedly. ‘All we will need to know is Excel and Powerpoint’.
‘But without Google…’, interrupted a guy.
‘They don’t have to know or learn anything else. So they are probably the only group of people who don’t use it!!’, the PYT said.
I was feeling hurt. Not because I was a PM, but because my work also involved mostly Powerpoint and Excel. But like my search earlier had proven, we were human too! We needed Google too!! No one seemed to understand our feelings!!
Things went from bad to worse after that!! My boss called to tell me that a customer had asked for a solution for smart homes.
‘Smart what?’ I caught myself saying and then realized that my boss had no clue either and that he was simply passing on the work.
‘Also, can you do some research on this tool called totalfail?’ he said.
I now knew what he was up to. Rumours on the company’s plan to silently layoff people had been doing the rounds and this was a strategic move in that direction!!
‘Smooth!!’ I would have said, were it not for the fact that I was at the receiving end of the treatment!!
I was ruing my decision to put off my search on news on the politician’s leaked video yesterday. Now, I will never know!!
I was planning to search for stores in Chennai that sold organic cocoa butter and then look for recipes for making lip balm at home. Now I was stuck to the ones by Vaseline and Himalaya!
I wanted to know if there were more Swedish and Danish films I should be checking out and now I will never know.
I was banking on Google to help me find the meaning of this seemingly 100000 digit error message that keeps popping up on my application. And now I have to search for the manual to find out if it means anything.
I thought Google would guide me on the best diet plan, if suryanamaskars had to be done on an empty stomach, on which is better for weight loss – cardio or weight training. Now I will have to take some gym instructor’s word for it.
Life seemed not worth living. Here I was, thinking of writing to the guys at Google to expand their search engine to enable searching for my dupattas and the shirt that I always seem to be missing at any point in time (and turning up later when I am not looking for it) in my wardrobe, to look for that wire that I want to disconnect from the jungle of wires behind my PC – in short extend search to real life and what happened? I did not even have what I had before.
One tends to realize the importance of something only after one loses it and I was getting to know how much of a friend Google had been. I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart felt like it was going to explode. The world really seemed to be coming to an end. And then it started.. the ground beneath me started shaking. I thought I was going to be swallowed into the earth, when I heard a voice calling to me. It had to be the Creator. I really had died without Google, I thought.
‘Sleeping in the office is bad enough!! But that, you could do it when there is an earthquake, is beyond unbelievable’ said my angry looking friend!
Damn!! It wasn’t the creator. And sweetest thing of all, was when I looked up at my PC screen and saw Google.com smiling at me with something like love!! ‘Chennai earthquake’, I typed on the screen and hit ‘Enter’!!!
Written for a contest
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘Don’t you watch the news?’ she asked.
‘Come on, I was tired after watching the MLA getting hit with the slipper for the 1045th time. I hate the guy, but there are only so many replays I can watch of that scene!! What’s up?’ I asked.
‘It is the end of the world, dammit!! Google is down!!’ she said.
‘What do you mean Google is down?’ I asked. I still didn’t see what the fuss was about.
‘Give me at least 3 other ways you can interpret my statement’ she said irritatedly. I know how irritating this series of ‘What do you mean x’ kind of statements can get. Still, I had to know.
‘The Government has decided to ban Google in India’, she said, struggling to keep herself from breaking down.
‘What do you mean..’
‘Don’t even dare to start that again’ she warned. ‘The oldest party is supposedly getting tired of the search phrases on whether Rahul’s hair is real or if Priyanka has had a nose job done. Apparently the top search phrases are if Priyanka has learnt dancing too and Rahul’s favourite state’.
‘But Priyanka did have a nose job done’ I said, completely missing the point.
‘They thought it was the other Priyanka’ she said with some exasperation.
‘So why are you so upset? What if Google is banned? We will live’ I said.
‘No we won’t!! I have to send out a presentation on trends in the energy industry. Who is going to give me the information? Your uncle in Villupuram?’ she yelled.
She had a point. But I was the epitome of patience and wisdom. I wasn’t going to lose my head over something as trivial as a website getting banned.
‘Remember the older days? What did we do then?’ I asked her in my sweetest possible voice.
Apparently that only seemed to irk her more.
‘In the older days, we thought Windows 95 was cool and did not know the difference between a search engine and a browser. Remember how you were perplexed about why you needed IE AND yahoo?? ‘ she said with a nasty smile. She was starting to enjoy this.
‘Not that, you fool!! What about yahoo, msn, that bling something and that spanish thing that sounded like abracadabra.. or even ask-somebody-dot-something? Didn’t we use one of those things before we were googled?’ I asked.
‘Well, all of them are banned. If Google is banned, why wouldn’t the others be??’ she said.
I didn’t see it. I mean, the internet was still there right? What is the big deal if the search engines were banned?
After an hour or 2 of checking emails, looking at news sites (that were still talking about the MLA getting hit with a slipper and Rakhi Sawant claiming that ‘The Avengers’ was actually her story) and talking with my manager on general office gossip and 3 presentation decks that had to go out, I suddenly realized that it was a Friday and that I was due for my weekly shampoo bath the next day. Should I get a henna hair pack or not? I got one last week, but how frequently do I do that? I did what I always do in such cases of extreme importance. I typed ‘Google.com’ on the browser and waited. The screen turned red and I turned purple with worry. I didn’t know if people usually turn that colour with worry and right then I had no way of checking, for at that moment a message appeared, ‘You are kidding, right? Don’t ask, think!!’. I had never felt so insulted in life and that’s when I realized that my life was not going to be the same ever again!!
There was some serious stuff going on in the next bay. The young developers sitting there looked ashen-faced. A few girls were crying. I couldn’t help but overhear them wondering out aloud what they were going to do. A few guys were talking about finding work in a bottling factory. A few suggested turning into data-entry operators.
‘But we only know Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V’, another guy said.
Some of the girls were worried that now they would really have to get married according to their parents’ wishes. A few bright ones suggested that by hook or crook they become project managers.
‘Think about it!!’ said a PYT excitedly. ‘All we will need to know is Excel and Powerpoint’.
‘But without Google…’, interrupted a guy.
‘They don’t have to know or learn anything else. So they are probably the only group of people who don’t use it!!’, the PYT said.
I was feeling hurt. Not because I was a PM, but because my work also involved mostly Powerpoint and Excel. But like my search earlier had proven, we were human too! We needed Google too!! No one seemed to understand our feelings!!
Things went from bad to worse after that!! My boss called to tell me that a customer had asked for a solution for smart homes.
‘Smart what?’ I caught myself saying and then realized that my boss had no clue either and that he was simply passing on the work.
‘Also, can you do some research on this tool called totalfail?’ he said.
I now knew what he was up to. Rumours on the company’s plan to silently layoff people had been doing the rounds and this was a strategic move in that direction!!
‘Smooth!!’ I would have said, were it not for the fact that I was at the receiving end of the treatment!!
I was ruing my decision to put off my search on news on the politician’s leaked video yesterday. Now, I will never know!!
I was planning to search for stores in Chennai that sold organic cocoa butter and then look for recipes for making lip balm at home. Now I was stuck to the ones by Vaseline and Himalaya!
I wanted to know if there were more Swedish and Danish films I should be checking out and now I will never know.
I was banking on Google to help me find the meaning of this seemingly 100000 digit error message that keeps popping up on my application. And now I have to search for the manual to find out if it means anything.
I thought Google would guide me on the best diet plan, if suryanamaskars had to be done on an empty stomach, on which is better for weight loss – cardio or weight training. Now I will have to take some gym instructor’s word for it.
Life seemed not worth living. Here I was, thinking of writing to the guys at Google to expand their search engine to enable searching for my dupattas and the shirt that I always seem to be missing at any point in time (and turning up later when I am not looking for it) in my wardrobe, to look for that wire that I want to disconnect from the jungle of wires behind my PC – in short extend search to real life and what happened? I did not even have what I had before.
One tends to realize the importance of something only after one loses it and I was getting to know how much of a friend Google had been. I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart felt like it was going to explode. The world really seemed to be coming to an end. And then it started.. the ground beneath me started shaking. I thought I was going to be swallowed into the earth, when I heard a voice calling to me. It had to be the Creator. I really had died without Google, I thought.
‘Sleeping in the office is bad enough!! But that, you could do it when there is an earthquake, is beyond unbelievable’ said my angry looking friend!
Damn!! It wasn’t the creator. And sweetest thing of all, was when I looked up at my PC screen and saw Google.com smiling at me with something like love!! ‘Chennai earthquake’, I typed on the screen and hit ‘Enter’!!!
Written for a contest
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