A hilarious account by Soumya about his forgetfulness and mix-up while trying to write a blog. An exclusive for Different Truths.

I am a tech-challenged blogger.

If you have patiently pursued my adventures up to starting this blog, let me give you a close-up.

Author, head tilted on one side, tongue slightly out,  eyes squinted, typing laboriously with one finger. Suddenly, he looks up to see the screen blank. Curses a bit, goes back to the menu –– is clueless, calls someone and finds the cursor has not been clicked at the right place. Starts again.

Author, head tilted on one side, tongue slightly out,  eyes squinted, typing laboriously with one finger. Suddenly, he looks up to see the screen blank. Curses a bit, goes back to the menu — is clueless, calls someone and finds the cursor has not been clicked at the right place. Start again.

Occasionally he hits a wrong key or absent-mindedly rests his elbow on the keyboard or rests the TV remote, beer glass, ashtray or the book he is reading on the said long-suffering keyboard.

Note: Author is an incurable multitasking addict — he is writing the blog, reading Fay Weldon, watching Anger Netflix, has FB open on the laptop, reading WhatsApp messages on phone, sipping beer, eating chips, smoking and trying to keep the ash from burning holes in his Bob Marley T-shirt.

Net result, strange messages appear or writing disappears or large gaps appear in the script.

Many entities later, his scornful offspring restores the original frame as if by magic and work proceeds.

A slightly tattered looking piece results, large parts of it in capital letters, paragraphs MIA, various red and blue squiggly things underlining the words.

A slightly tattered looking piece results, large parts of it in capital letters, paragraphs MIA, various red and blue squiggly things underlining the words.

Disgruntled daughter cajoled into unscrambling the mess and the author discovers it is easy to create space, the squiggles are the red marks teacher used to put- bad spelling and grammar. But opinion on spelling and grammar seemed to differ between computer and author, till the difference between the American and English usage dawned on him.

But just before the happy ending, the screen goes dark and he discovers that the little message he was ignoring was telling him to add power source and the battery goes dead.

But just before the happy ending, the screen goes dark and he discovers that the little message he was ignoring was telling him to add power source and the battery goes dead.

On the verge of tears, the charger is connected and after an aeon of heart-stopping on the sight of a revolving wheel, the sign “restore screen” appears — then excitement as the picture is back. Thank God for autosave — it’s not only Jesus who saves — so does MS (Microsoft) Word.

Now, some editing and copy-paste. A blog is born!

Photo from the Internet