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.

 

 

 

Comments

  1. 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 🤗

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    Replies
    1. Thank you confabulations_anonymous and yes! I do get the drift! :D

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  2. Love what you write... Looking forward to the next one

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