Poltergeist!
I get a frantic
call early one morning. My mother! She never calls so early I thought and quickly
sent up a prayer for all to be well. It was and it wasn’t. By God’s grace,
Daddy and she were fine but she had witnessed poltergeist in real life! “My
phone is making calls and sending voice messages on its own”, she blurts out
hysterically. “X Aunty said that some gibberish via voice mail was posted on
the society group from my number. I have also been told I’ve been calling
people whom I never called.” I had just finished my meditation but the effects
of it wore out instantly and I said, “You must have pressed something without realizing
it” to which she snapped with a “Don’t teach me! I know how to handle a phone.”
Apparently, the poltergeist had stopped fiddling with her old phone and started
attacking her new one. “We’ll come over and sort it out”, I added wondering how
it was going to turn out.
As luck would have
it, shortly after we reached their home and she repeated the whole story with
so much angst, she dialed a number inadvertently in front of us and we showed
her how it happened. She didn’t like it and was sure the voice mail wasn’t her
doing. I scared her with, “Ma the society is going to know everything about all
that you do if you aren’t careful with your phone for this time it was gibberish,
next time it could be something clear for people to make out.” These sensitive
touch screens are too much for Ma. Without switching the phone off, she’ll pick
up her phone from the “sides as you said” but instead of the palm being behind
at times it would be on the screen! Dad stays away from ghosts anyway so that
phone is barely used and his woes are less. As it is, he speaks to but a few people.
His hornet’s nest is different. He loves going to the bank and absolutely
loathes internet banking, google pay and such like. They aren’t polite. They don’t
accept his password when he types it alone but they do when we are around. No
one gives him answers to his questions. No bank manager to shake hands with or
wave at during covid times, masks in place! With a lot of coaxing and coercing
and scaring him as much as possible due to the corona virus, he is now ops on
both! Happy that he has nailed it but missing the bank like crazy. Guess what,
Mom is good to go too!!
In case you
thought I was gloating over how tech savvy I am vis-a-vis my parents, think
again. We haven’t come to the poltergeists that haunt me! Nearly four years
ago, I single-handedly set up Blogger after a few friends explained how easy it
was. My first blog talks about it! I was in a pool of tears and paid up even
though I wanted the free option and didn’t even get my domain name. Was it Blogger’s
fault? You know the answer! NO! These ghosts, I tell you! For quite a few
months I didn’t even know that you get your own domain name and can get rid of
the blogspot.com. The domain name I had made was my blogs current title twice
(unintentional- poltergeist). By the time I got to know of it, was months later,
by which time with beginners’ luck my blog was doing well. Still, it stayed
with me that I was paying, so I needed my own domain name minus the “blogspot”
attached to it. Just short of a year later, there was a snag in the computer
and I called our trusted computer technician and when he was fixing it, I told
him about my problem and he told me how to ask for help and get guided. I was
guided by the Google/Blogger team and I could visualize the helpful person
thousands of miles away from where I live, pulling his hair as he told me what to
do. I felt young again, a little too young, probably kindergarten!
And then it happened!
I got my domain name BUT I lost all my viewers for I didn’t know how to
redirect the page. For a long time, I’d type the domain name and get to the old
page stating it didn’t exist. Instead of finding out and going through all of
that again, I steeled my resolve and decided to begin again. This time there
was no beginners luck just effort which was no effort for I love writing but I’d
be lying if I told you my heart didn’t sink when the blogs which got 250 to 350
views a day started dwindling down to 20, for days, weeks and months. A couple
of dear friends have been with me during this journey, egging me on, helping
promote my blogs since along with being technologically challenged I wasn’t
socially active. During that phase, one dear friend, who had a beautiful blog
going, helped me a whole lot for which I am forever grateful. She was in the
know of things and she told me then about AdSense and how to make money on the
blog and I declined for even talking about it gave me a headache.
Reaching the end
of my fourth year on Blogger I decided to use AdSense. While it takes a few
days to a few weeks in most cases, it has been many months and nothing has
happened. In fact, in between there have been huge surges of viewership but no
news from AdSense. Poltergeist strikes again? I discovered two days ago, I had
blocked the ads and since then I have been discovering every other step that I
have botched up along the way!! My son has been helping me and every question
he asks me is met with a blank expression and nervous laughter that doesn’t help
him at all!! Let’s see when that happens!
Long and short of
the story is that, while all our life we are taught not to be in the rat race, not
to keep up with the Joneses the truth is that we do have to keep up, just
enough to stay relevant and to stay involved. Another musing while unlearning!
Keeping up, isn’t about competing but about constantly learning and evolving,
as the times change and the society changes. So next time the Poltergeist attacks,
we take a few deep breaths, drink a glass of water, calm down and call someone
clueful enough to help us by teaching us and not just solving the problem for
us.
Gosh... Let me not start with the poltergeists in my life! 😂🤣 I love the connection you’ve drawn.. A beautiful mesh of a laughs and something to reflect on at the same time! I love how your blogs have been such light, airy, breezy reads.. you get the drift I am sure 😀 So, goal accomplished!!! Keep them flowing.. I am absolutely loving the frequency and I am loving the fact that off late I invariably seem to be the first one to be commenting on your blogs 🤗
ReplyDeleteThank you confabulations_anonymous and yes! I do get the drift! :D
DeleteLove what you write... Looking forward to the next one
ReplyDeleteThank you Anvita :)
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