Time is precious. Ergo, I must be wildly rich. Or - this is more likely - I must be exceedingly delusional. In a vigorous nod to the super-abundance of time that I possess to use as I please, I have launched into the long-pending task of converting my music CDs to the digital form. No, not to MP3 but but to lossless FLAC format. Even at 10 CDs a day, this should keep me pleasantly occupied for the next few months.

…hit me yesterday. I bumped into an elderly known as I was heading out of a hospital. He was naturally curious about my reason for being there and so I told him I was in there for therapy. Eyes brimming over with concern, he helpfully told me that he knew a doctor in the department…of Psychiatry. Ah, therapy = matters of the mind. Naturally.

FYI, I go to the department of Sports Medicine

Facebook can be vastly entertaining. I love it. I mean, take the things people push the ‘Like’ button on. ‘My life sucks’—-<Like>. If you’re lucky, the blighter will also comment ‘Mine too’ (with or without a smiley) or you’ll have to ask a leading question such as ‘Does yours too?’ to which said blighter hopefully will respond ‘Yup’. Sets it up for you to press that ‘Like’ button - right back at ya, mate! Ah, joy! Did I say I love Facebook? Hell, yes I did. My life does suck!

Gender equality and sexual liberation? Of a sort, I suppose…men, women, all have a hand-held device these days (used to be a phone, though).

I admit there are times when I feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy in the midst of people conversing about the latest apps that they’ve installed on their phones. I look like a fish out of water, all gasping mouth and goggle-eyed when I’m landed in an environment charged with sparks flying on the Android v/s iOS debate. Just when I think I’m dying, I brighten up a bit when I hear ‘Gingerbread’ and ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ but that turns out to be just a flash in the pan. Names for phone operating system versions apparently - WTF????

But some days back, sitting in the silent darkness of a theater, it seemed there was redemption even for a technology misfit like me. Members of the audience that had stepped out during the play’s break were stumbling back in. It took a a few low-blows from flailing rock-bejewelled heavy hands for me to remember that my phone has a Flashlight widget/app/thingummy. I took the phone out to shine a light, only to find that I had switched it off. Nevermind - I fiddled with it and about an hour later (or so it seemed to me then) a ‘Quietly Brilliant’ scrawl lit up the screen, by which time various body parts of mine had been squashed to pulp and the ‘Switch Off Your Cell Phones’ entreaty had rung in. So I sent the phone back to slurping on whatever dessert it was on - Froyo I think it was. 

…and it’s not gravity that did it. The apple suffers a crisis of confidence. I’m not surprised - it is, after all, a fruit. In a bid to boost its sense of self-worth, it now calls itself the iApple.

How often have you felt that there’s that tad something that’s missing from an event, a speech, an article…? That something which leaves you waiting for closure without which you have a sense of unarticulated dissatisfaction?

The tagline of the latest Levi ad (in India - not sure if this is running elsewhere) is one that does that to me. ‘Go Forth’ it says. Something unsaid there. Then the missing piece, rather what it could be to my twisted mind, hit me yesterday…’Multiply’. If there’s more of you out there who were struck by that same blinding flash, I think this is one brilliantly subversive ad. Otherwise it sucks. Talking of which, here’s this really cheap one (given Rahul Dravid’s current run) from Nike - ‘Don’t hit The Wall, Hit the Road’. Aaaahgaaaahhh!

Me: I’d like to order for a pizza, please

Pizza Delivery: Ummm…sorry sir, our server’s down.

Me: Should be coming back soon I suppose?

Pizza Delivery, confused: No, no, server’s down

Me, full of concern for the server’s emotional well-being: Needs counseling. Believe me, I know. I’ve read The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy and could totally empathize with that miserable robot Marvin.

Pizza Delivery, bewildered and probably a mite scared, hangs up.

Much of this happened only in my head. But why are we so reliant on technology? In this case, the pizza delivery could’ve just taken down my address and the coupon code and updated it after the server came back bright and shining after a boost to its limp psyche. But no, you need the server for normal service to resume. No surprise then that the server goes ‘down’ in the midst of such lameness.

In India we treat men walking hand in hand in public as a normal event in spite of the ‘corrupting’, ‘mind-corroding’ influence of the West as a segment of our populace would put it. Even so, it gave me pause to gaze fixed in freeze frame, and once the thaw acted, to think about two men at a public event expressing to each other many times, in multiple and very eloquent ways, their knowledge of the existence of such a thing as a spine in their respective bodies. All very innocent and in rapt wonder. “Look at this…can you feel it? Yes? Yes?” “Oooh! You got one too?”

Man, I tell you…THEY are here amongst us and THEY look just like us.

I was struck by a curious thought at a charity event hosted by a cancer care hospital when we were asked (very politely) for our business cards. Now the prominent use for such a collection exercise being marketing, I was naturally petrified at the thought of a call center employee calling me up. “Sir, do you have a cancer, any sort?” “No? Would you like one? You can choose from a wide variety.” “Why not? We can give you a free trial. You can pay for it later (you WILL pay for it)” “Please sir, this is a once-in-a-lifetime offer. We’ll give you a 20% discount on the subsequent treatment”.

Fortunately, not too many people read this - actually other than me no one does. I’d get slammed otherwise. This is definitely not meant to trivialize cancer. Perhaps a dig at call center and marketing operations. But certainly this is the rambling of a sick mind.

I need my tablet. Somebody beam me up an iPad2.