When the Internet becomes your BFF

Last week we had a crisis. How serious depends on whom you ask.  

Measured on my internal Richter Scale, I’d have said the magnitude was 4.5. Aaliya, Nisha and Naima pegged it at 7.5 at least.

What happened was mundane. Our Internet went on the blink.

Sometime in September, the modem light began wobbling. Overnight, the Internet turned from a fleet-footed messenger into a hunched, hobble-toed creature with a bad attitude.

We were all hassled. I had articles to write. My three daughters had online homework to complete. But Aaliya – my eldest who is on the cusp of 13 – was destroyed. “How’re we supposed to live?” she demanded, gasping as if we were depriving her of oxygen rather than just a peek into a friend’s second-cousins’ party pics. “This is just so unfair.” “Things stop working sometimes,” I replied, determined to impart a Lesson for Life. “We grew up without mobile phones and Internet. Our landlines went dead for months at a stretch. We managed.” All I got for my trouble was a disdainful look and a “Yeah, whatever.” For the next few weeks we lurched along the slow lane in cyberspace till one fateful Saturday, something worse happened. The little green light went off. Totally and completely. And no amount of button bashing and moaning made a difference. The connection was dead. Just like the dodo and dingbat.  

For the rest of the day, the girls stabbed at their devices. “When will it come back?” Nisha and Naima asked every hour. “This is like so unfair,” Aaliya wailed every three minutes. “Why don’t you like DO something?” I should have attempted another round of Lessons for Life. Instead, I called 198 a few dozen times, only to be informed repeatedly that, “Thees number is under cable fault.” Next, I called a local MTNL functionary who explained.

“We’ve cut the cable, so how can you have connection?”

“When will you put it together again?” I gasped.   “Do chaar din mein,” he said airily. That sounded ok, and I rushed to communicate the happy news to the girls. Only to be met with shock and awe. “Four days,” Aaliya squawked. “That too when we have holidays. This is so unfair.”

“You people expect everything immediately,” I snapped back. “You’re too dependent on technology. Why do you need to be on your screens all the time?”

“We need to know what’s going on,” Aaliya retorted. “We need to check Instagram and Musically and Snapchat. You won’t understand.”

“You can read. You can play,” I suggested. “We can bake if you want?” “How?” Nisha and Naima contributed to the growing hysteria. “We need the Internet for recipes.” “Let’s make your power-point for school.” “How? We need the Internet for pictures and facts.”

Things were getting ridiculous. I shrieked a bit, lunged for a pile of books and got down to business. A couple of hours later, the PPT was ready. And the lesson that there is life beyond the Internet was learnt--I hope.

For a few days we survived the old-fashioned way. What I didn’t know was that one bored evening, Aaliya rebelled against her hermit-status, turned on the data in her phone and binged on Snapchat and Instagram  – running up a biggish bill.

 My husband was livid. I was zapped. “What can possibly have been so important?” we demanded.

“I just had to see all the new photos posted on Instagram,” Aaliya replied, assuming the expression of a martyr being basted in blood before being fed to the lions. “You can cut the money from my birthday present.”
Vivek and I are still wondering whether to impart this cruel Lesson for Life.  

Meanwhile the light on the modem is back. “I almost cried for joy,” Aaliya exclaimed after a long session doing God-knows-what on her phone. “But, of course, you won’t understand.”

For once, we agreed.