My computer →[More:]The first computer that I ever had was a Commodore 64 that my parents had purchased back in the 80’s, when having a computer at home was considered a VERY big deal. I was only a couple of years old back then, and so the most that I could do with it were the simple math and english programmes that my parents had purchased along with the computer, that came in the form of floppies. These were quite rudimentary and soon I’d mastered most of them, or at least the ones that were of my level. (I still remember the commands that I’d have to type in to load the floppies: Load “*”, 8 ,1 or something to that effect). It was a fun time. I also had plenty of games to keep me company—Pac Man, Dig Dugg, Donkey Kong etc, etc, which my sisters, mother and I would play feverishly. But I always wanted those computers with the small diskettes, the “new” ones, on which you could do something more than play games and learn english and math. However my parents didn’t see the need for it, so when my classmates would talk about the latest computer programme on the market, or what they were doing on their home pcs, I would feel left out. I didn’t care—after all, they were only “computers”.

A couple of years later, over a decade or so, when we moved from Saudi Arabia to India, and my sister (younger sister mind you) got herself a job, and saved up enough money, one of the first big purchases that she made was a home computer. She had been using email for the past year or two, in one of the many internet cafes that had sprung up near our house, and many houses all across the country, and she now wanted to have the comfort of using it at home. She could afford it, so she did. She invited one of her friends from the office to come up to the house one day (who was very good with computers), to set up the entire thing, this was the same person who was kind enough to go out shopping with her to buy the different components of the computer, which he would later assemble, because as he’d mentioned—it would be much cheaper to buy something that wasn’t a set piece, than to buy the entire thing outright—and by the end of the evening, when he’d left, I sneaked into my sister’s room and first layed eyes on the gleaming, black box in front of me.

My sister had been using the internet for the past couple of months to keep in touch with a guy from Pune, a guy who she’d eventually marry after a year or two, a guy who happened to be a doctor, a guy who my father was extremely pleased to know was inclined to marry my sister, and a guy whose family (who’d come down to visit us before the wedding was to take place) was quite similar to ours. The computer at home was therefore a means of communication between them, a means of communication that became even more invaluable when my sister’s fiancé moved to the US to study for his MLEs. That one year, they would be in constant touch with one another, via email, chat, speaker, webcam, and any other way they could.


Soon, they were married, and my sister moved out to the US to join her husband and pursue her own education (she's a Master's right now). She didn’t need the computer anymore, so she left it to my sister and I. I have two sisters (one who is two years younger to me, and the other who is eight years younger). The computer was in my elder of the younger sister’s room (one which was supposed to be shared by the both of them, but one in which only the elder one stayed; my younger sister still preferred sleeping with her mother in those days), but after my elder sister moved out, my younger sister was ready to spread her wings a bit, and so decided to have a room of her own. And the computer being in that room, of course, went to her. She did have more of a right to it than I did, since most of the things she’d gotten were probably hand-me-downs from my sister or I (not anymore though—she has proceeded to leave us both behind in that regard in the seven or eight years since), and so I begrudgingly let her have what I thought ought to have rightfully been my own.

I was a bit suspicious of the internet at first; all of these people spending time in front of their screens and talking to people who they didn’t even know. What was that all about? I had been clinically depressed for the past ten years or so, and hardly left the house in that time, and felt that getting hooked onto anything that would only ensnare me in its web would be counterproductive, so resisted the urge to log on for as long as I could, but the temptation was too great. I was a huge film buff, and one day wanted to know more about my idol Marlon Brando. So I typed in his name, and there in front of me was all this information which I never knew existed. Of course, I knew about his biography, and filmography, but there were so many other articles from people who dissected every aspect of his acting and wrote about it in such great detail, with such great skill. I was in awe. I would sit in front of the screen for the next few days and read everything I could get my hands on about good old Marlon, and was fascinated to know him so much better now.

Soon, other things began to capture my attention, and it wasn’t too late before I was looking almost everything up that I had previously known about on the internet, to find out what other people thought about it, and to my relief, there were many, many people who shared some of the same ideas that I did, and even though I wasn’t able to express them as eloquently as they could, they were, which made me even more happy.

(I guess the biggest change in my life came when I entered the name of a certain actress into the search engine [I’m not going to reveal the name of this particular actress] but she was one who I had been infatuated with since the age of fourteen. She was my age, smart, sexy, beautiful, and talented. And after a couple of clicks, I came across a fan site dedicated to her, that was particularly well looked after by its young staffers, and linked to something that I had never seen before—it was called a forum.)



This forum was bright blue in colour and had lines which were stacked one ontop of the other. It was later that I discovered that these were called threads, and the entries made in them were called posts. This forum was unique, not only because it was dedicated to the actress that I loved, but also because it was inhabited by people who I couldn’t believe that existed. These people were like me. Smart (or what little I thought of myself), talented, and creative, and who wanted to share their opinions on just about everything. And they did it with such ease. These were not just posts made with a couple of lols and eyerolls, these were people who had the aptitude to think things through, and clearly, and to then put those thoughts into words. They weren’t professors or phds, they were like me, people who were in their teens, or just out of them, who could think things clearly. Even though I could not.

It took me a year before I joined, and god knows how long before I didn’t feel the need to perspire every time I had to hit the post button, but I soon found allies, and made some great friendships, two of which I am particularly proud of. A woman named Cal who I consider my Rakhi sister, and a guy named Rick who’s become like a brother to me.

But then as time passed people started to leave, and the site didn’t interest me as much, and there were other things left to be discovered. Enter—Metafilter. Like a light through the darkness, it shone its dazzling glow on me, and guided me to a place where I knew I could learn things which I had never known before, where I knew people would share opinions which would cause me to think, and rethink what I thought about this world, and where I knew I could find—maybe if I were lucky—a few friends.

This was the place for me, to set up camp, to find solitude in when the outside world didn’t make sense anymore, to know I could come back to whenever I wanted. And so, I sit in front of my computer, this same computer that I’ve been using for the past five years or so, and type this out. The computer has become a bit old, I have to bang on it a couple of times for it to work properly (it’s infested with a lot of viruses), but it is still my link to the outside world. The world where it’s still possible to not let the burdens of reality come crushing down on you. Maybe I will get that job that I wanted, maybe I will pursue the dreams that I’ve dreamt, but until then, I know that I have this link, this small window into a world, where I can go and hide, when I’m not feeling up to the task… my computer.