Story of my life - Bad connections

Internet! The most widely used technological development today has permeated through to all nooks and crannies of our lives. It has become the source of knowledge (quite in competition with printed books which it gobbles by the million daily). Be it on the personal computer, the cellphone or the tablet we've come to consider it an integral part of our lives and an important part it is too.

But, what happens when the bond you cherish is weak i.e. when your internet connection needs a CPR every now and then?

Well, that is the story of my life! After the tall promises that stretched the truth to the breaking point, I decided to go for a Govt. internet provider and had the BSNL 256Kbps connection installed.  Little did I know that it would bring as much joy as sorrow - not just to me but to a lot of people , especially N. This is how a lot of our Skype conversations have commenced :

A: Hello

N: Hello?

A: Helloooooooooo Can you hear me?

N: Can you hear me? 

A: Hellooooo

N: Hello Hello Hello?

(%$^&$*%&^*$^$% ) Disturbance in the signal

Skype : Internet Connection problem. (or) You are offline 

and then we return to Google Talk, where to our luck the following message is displayed - "Not connected."

Then comes the mechanical part of the conversation : Switching the modem on/off,restarting the system, hitting yourself!

A little while later N . calls 

N: Internet not working?

A: Nope. Sorry

N and A: (Curse the BSNL people)

It is worse when this happens in the middle of a conversation:

N: You know an awesome thing happened today?
A: What?
N: .............................
A: N.? What happened?
N: ..............................
A: N.? Are you there?
Skype: Internet connection problem (or) You are offline.

Arrrrgh!!

Too much of a trust on Govt. services can prove hazardous as, the people BSNL employs for troubleshooting take their own sweet time coming to rectify your problems. (It maybe that the number of complaints is large ). 

Much to my surprise/anger the same problem persists in the esteemed Govt. Uni. that I attend.While the wi fi connection was feeble in the first year , now, the hostel network has taken to switching off between 10pm to After - I - sleep pm/am. This leaves us with the customary phone call where the curses and insults are directed towards the college now instead of BSNL (I suspect BSNL is the network provider here too!) And so I wait out the time for a lucky connection or sulk and go to bed.

This is my life - hanging by the thread of a bad internet connection.

'Cuz my Education (At School) was Incomplete!

After a hectic week of mid semester exams (Ooooh Yes the BAD Electrical Engineering ones!), this Sunday was earmarked as the 'cool - off' day after the customary 'party night' on Saturday. I sauntered through the day without any serious activity and it was only later in the night that N. involved me in one.
Apparently, according to the serious observations of the oh-so-many people that N. informed, there happened to be a serious flaw in my education. While kids all over India had spent hours at the game of Name- Place- Animal - Thing, we had been missing this all along during our school years. This had come as a shock to the masses (N. couldn't believe her ears!) and many even expressed utter disappointment at the statement of this fact( N.'s face-palm). But, we were up in arms to defend the memories we so cherish and the three musketeers - M. , S. and me took on N. on the matter. A debate ensued and while there wasn't a clear winner, I decided to go through the rites of passage of the game and it turned out to be fun even now. Half and hour of fun as kids in the primary (Well you got me this time N. , we really missed 'something ' during our school years).

Name - Place - Animal - Thing

Rules of the game are simple (Primary - school - simple) :
1. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into four columns - label them points , name, place, animal, thing.
2. One person starts reciting the alphabet inaudibly in his/her mind when the other person says START.
3. The other person says STOP and the reciter has to say the letter that he/she was on when STOP was  called .
4. Begin writing a name, place, animal and thing using the letter that was called.
5. The first one to finish writing all calls STOP and then all must stop.
6. Points are awarded.  (We gave 10 for correct, 0 for incorrect or blank and 5 for correct and same by both)

In the end after 10 rounds taking up the good part of half an hour I ended up losing by 70 points! (I hope my Guru sees this, I lived up to his 'gyan' . )

 So, it was at the age of 21, that I first learnt the game of Name - Place - Animal - Thing.