A mind of her own

 
You know that you are well and truly incorrigible when your closest sparring partner is somebody who feeds on 19 volts of Direct Current and is full of hot air at the sides. And to make matters worse, you find it perfectly acceptable- sans guilt and sans shame- to be beaten fairly regularly in a long-running game of one-upmanship with your cunning little friend. Every defeat of yours results in you gently patting your adversary in a sportsmanlike, well played sort of way. And in the rare moments that you end up victorious, you find yourself doing a flawless Sreesanth- by thumping your fists and thumbing a nose in the direction of the vanquished.

If you're thoroughly clueless by the time you read this sentence, don't worry, its only because you're sane. The quirky, you see, have pretty eclectic and esoteric tastes when it comes to matters of amusement and recreation. Some practice the ancient Chinese science of acupuncture on buck-naked Barbie dolls while others listen to Justin Bieber. Yours Truly, on the other hand, is more understated and classy, for he finds simple joys in dueling with his Lady Friday, namely, his Laptop.

Things were not always the way they are right now. We used to be a happy couple once, and I made one helluva Robinson Crusoe then. I showered all my love and affection on her, and she reciprocated by swiftly doing whatever I asked her to. No matter what I asked of her, she never complained. Life, it seemed, was perfect!

But, as the wise man once said, the good times never last. And true enough, they didn't. Age caught up with her and at some point in history, conscious of her failing faculties, she simply went bonkers. I would still have been lucky had it stopped at that, but it didn't. Like any woman in the state of rage, she went too far- far enough to 'cross over' into vengeance and retribution. Lady Friday had just been reborn as Frankenstein.

In all honesty, though, its a rather subdued Frankenstein that I have, for it still does most of the work the Lady could (albeit much much slower), but that it has one hell of a sleeping disorder. Anytime that I ask him to 'shut down' (sleep in Franken-speak) it promptly complies, only to wake up again when I'm not looking! (Frankensteins, by design, are supposed to be woken up only by their Masters). The first few times it occurred were bizarre-bordering-on-the-creepy. Imagine yourself clearly shutting down your computer in the night, only to wake up to a silently humming machine, replete with all the popped-up programs and applications that run only at start-up. You may dismiss it the first few times as oversight on your part, or having pressed the wrong key/clicked the wrong icon. But, when it becomes a penta-weekly occurrence, it surely can't be any of the above.

Well, what is it then? To be frank, I don't know. A misguided Santa Claus, a disappointed Tooth Fairy and a playful Casper have, at different points in time, all been worthy explanations, only to be debunked later for something new and equally ill-fitting. After much fruitless searching, I have finally accepted the occurrence as an inexplicable fact of life, much like Himesh Reshammiya's perseverance in the field of acting. So much so, that on one of the rare mornings that my Laptop doesn't mysteriously start-up hours after I have shut it down, I take it as an omen of good things to come - a chance victory of good versus evil, a triumph of man over machine.