Thought Garden

New for Old!

Outcast, a creation of a friend and a digital artist I admire tremendously Rudy. You can visit his gallery here or his site!

Somewhere, within a flurry of friends dropping in, some business appointments and sundry other engagements...a friend of mine was carried away from my office and I never had a chance to say goodbye!

Like the trader of lamps in Aladdin's story, old for new is the basis of our consumer culture. In the realm of computers, this policy of old for new is called “upgrade”. And this is what had taken place...I had upgraded my computer.

There used to be a time when I needed to have the latest! Irrespective of whether or not the latest was a real requirement or not! Surfing the edge of technology was a high in itself. A reaffirmation of the techie status symbol...where the cutting edge machine seem to denote cutting edge capability. Thus upgrade was a recurrent phenomenon in an area where the frequency of perceived obsolescence is very high! 

After due appraisal of available solutions I had got myself a Celeron 333, as the most optimum price performance CPU based machine towards the fag end of '98. Of course with an idea to upgrade it in the very near future.

Possibly because I got access to better performing machines at my work place...possibly due to my decision to not indulge and to test limits of how much I could extract from my resources...possibly due to a down turn of economy and tightening of cash flow...or possible pure laziness...this machine stayed with me. Through four tumultuous years, 3 cities, ups and downs, deadlines and creative blocks, bouts of creative frenzy and inane play of solitaire, transient digital relationship and burgeoning friendship with distant thought process...et al, it remained my companion!

Confined within a cream oblong box of some cubic centimeters, it contained a portion of my life, my thoughts and thought processes, my interactions, my creations. For it was at once the proof of the confinement of my ivory tower as well as the gateway to the complete world! It bore for me missives, thoughts, information, knowledge, learning, creation, time...so much!

It kept my company with the greatest fortitude...through vagaries of weather, errant voltage, fluctuating fortunes and at times negligent treatment. When irregular maintenance, the challenges of heat and dust and sheer usage would tire it beyond its limit and it sputtered, desperately entreating for a respite, a few coaxing words from me would see it perform long enough to take me past a deadline! This had to be witnessed to be believed.

While people talk about Singularity and as Terminator lands on our shore in a new avatar, predicting doom for human race...brought about by ever increasing intelligence of machine...my faithful friend was packed into a cardboard box and taken away. In lieu of the spanking new tower cabinet with a many fold increased processing power.

Perhaps it had wanted it this way. Perhaps it hated long drawn out farewells. Perhaps for it, my needs had just been a job...perhaps it might have not wanted me to feel its ache in the termination of a long and faithful relationship!

I don’t know. But while I was engaged in other activities it silently vacated its usual abode.

I didn’t notice its absence until the next day. May be it was the sheer power of the new computer, which converted processing to eye blinks, which underlined the absence of my faithful friend. I had grown used to its idiosyncrasies, its aging operating system...its reliable presence.

I guess I’ll build a new relationship with my new machine...thanks to data transfer my memories have made a safe and secure transfer to it. But I hope that my old friend, whom I couldn’t even bid adieu, is still whirring its small noisy fan, pushing electrons, and doing all that it does best...and making a new friend!

Thank you and fare well...my dear friend!  

6.8.03 08:28