G Sampath

Fasting being the flavour of the season, I did a random survey last week of India's favourite target audience— mall-visiting, gadget-toting, happy shining people aged 18-30 who live in a beautiful little town called SEC A. I posed them a simple question: What would they fast for? Would they fast for corruption? As in, against corruption? Would they fast for world peace? Would they fast to make boozing a fundamental right for every Indian above the age of three?

The survey results were revealing. About 66.6% (that's two out of three) said, "If I have to fast, I'd do it for an iPad." The remaining 33.3% said, "iDunno, iGuess...whatever, man," and giggled.

I admit that my sample size was a bit small, and so the survey may not be entirely representative — for many youngsters did turn up at Rajghat on Wednesday to fast with Anna Hazare. But that still doesn't dilute the fact that a large number of young Indians actually believe that their lives would be meaningless and incomplete without an iToy.

Yet considering that a Chinese boy last week sold his kidney to pay for an iPad, I feel Indian youth are at least smarter. After all, fasting for an iPad is more reversible than selling your kidney. Once you get the iPad, you can start eating, but you'll never get your kidney back — not unless the person you sold it to dies in a car crash and wants to donate your kidney back to you.

Besides, fasting has the added advantage of being repeatable each time Apple launches the next version. You have only two kidneys, but Apple can come out with iPad-2 (one kidney gone), iPad-3 (second kidney gone), and by the time it launches iPad-4, you won't have any more kidneys left to sell. In which case, you might have to sell your pancreas.

Let's assume that from the revenue generated by selling your pancreas, liver, gall bladder, one lung, one eye (I'm assuming you would need the other eye to see the iPad, but it's possible Apple has already foreseen this dilemma and come out with a Braille app, in which case you can sell off both your eyes), bone marrow, stomach (if you're into dieting, you don't really need it), larynx (if you're gonna be on the iPad, you won't need to talk), and heart (you can replace it with a pacemaker which is cheaper), you can buy everything up to iPad-27.

But what after that? What will you sell to pay for iPad-28? Or for iPhone-93? The only organ you'd have left is your brain, but you won't find too many takers for it, as by then it would have been rendered obsolete by iBrain-2.

This is where fasting scores over selling your organs: unless you die (in which case you would no longer need an iPad), you can always fast 'n' number of times — all the way down to iPad-n, where 'n' is any whole number.

When I mentioned this to a techie friend, he dismissed it with a wave of his hand, saying, "All that won't be necessary."

"Why not?"

"Because now there is iCloud."

Well, dear reader, I am not very good at explaining technology to the uninitiated, but I'll try to keep this simple. The iCloud is a cloud — which, as you'd have read in school, is essentially water that gets released as rain every time you step out without an umbrella — where you can sink all your important documents, photos, videos, and music that you normally store in a cool, dry place.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: why would I want to sink all my crucial documents and favourite music in water — that too in its vaporised format? Well, you got me there! But it's supposed to be pretty cool, so I figured there must be something to it.

And there was: iCloud is not about sinking your favourite stuff just like that. You sink them all using remote control. The best part is you don't even have to get up from bed — just point a finger vaguely in the direction of the iCloud and chant "Om Shanti Shanti" three times, and everything will sink remotely.

But iCloud being an Apple invention, it goes without saying that you can't use any of their iGadgets without buying all their other iGadgets to run the one iGadget you originally bought. So, to find a use for this uber-cool iCloud, you need to already have an iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and be an iDiot who derives erotic pleasure from incessantly touching, caressing, and poking at smooth surfaces mounted on gleaming rectangular boxes.

So, would I fast for an iPad? Well, frankly speaking, my thoughts on the subject are still a bit cloudy. But if any of you wants to buy an extra kidney, you know, for a rainy day, just get in sink.

(A version of this piece appeared in print as my 'Third Degree' column in the June 11 edition of DNA.)