Moments are few when I find myself in real trouble.
Or, you can say that I don't accept even if there is a
trouble. But the day was indeed a tough one. It is obvoious
that the one you love most makes you emotionally vulnerable,
but just knowing the fact hardly helps. Yes, it was me who took
the tough decision, but I never knew that it would hurt me so
deeply. So deeply that I wanted to kill myself.. kill myself??
means imrproper shutdown.... oh no.. my PC's UPS was crying loudly..
I rushed upstairs to properly turn off my PC properly. As I pressed
windows+u+.. power came back and my room was flooding with the silky
fluoroscent light, huh, as if I switched it on through my PC. I thought...
what an unusual co-incidence, every evening this time power goes for an hour,
from seven pm to eight pm. My cellphone was showing 7:30PM. Oh, 7:30PM !!
she might be coming back from her dance classes, just run!! hell, again that
pain started swirling into my head..... I was loosing control over my psyche...
Suddenly everything went dark and I felt relaxed, as relaxed as weightless. It seemed
I was moving, perhaps floating slowly, on something cold... my back could feel that ..
A bell rang somewhere, far away... I felt ecstatic.. as if the sound fed my soul...
BANG!! Suddenly it seemed as if I was badly slammed against a wall. I opened my eyes
and realized that somebody was madly beating the door at the ground floor. Oh! perhaps
bhaiya(My bro) came back. I calmly went downstairs and opened the door. He shouted,"What
the **** you were doing? I rang the call bell at least ten times, was yelling like hell
and...". I wasn't actually looking at him, was staring outside the window in an idle mode.
"Are you okay?", he asked. No reply. He understood. He said,"come, Ihave to show you
something interesting". I follwed him. Just a few mouse clicks and the monitor was showing,
"Hi! I'm your friend Lucy. Would you like to have a chit chat with me?". It was a terminal
like user interface, as if somebody is chatting on command prompt, reminded some sci-fi
cyber-geeky movies. It was interesting. My brother knows me well. This was a nice way to
distract me. I typed, "yeah sure".
Lucy - So tell me what should I call you?
Me - Whatever you like.
Lucy - I meant, "what people call you?".
Me - Pshyco
Lucy - Lol, so may I know your name?
Me - Piyush.
Lucy - Ok Piyush, tell me something about yourself.
Me - What do you actually want to know about me?
Lucy - Your likes and dislikes.
Me - I like music, games, books, beauty, action, adventure, Java...
Bhaiya interrupted, "Hey, do you know you are chatting with a software?".
"What?", I reacted, "Is it programmed to chat??". "Yes! I never felt that
I am chatting with a software", Bhaiya replied. He said, "If you somehow become
able to expose it, I'll give you a treat". Who cares about treat, but it was a
challenge, which didn't seemed that difficult to me. Every software has some limi-
-tations. I said, "Okay, let's see". I started chatting again -
Me - I like music, games, books, beauty, action, adventure, Java and something I won't
tell you.
Lucy - Why won't you tell me that?
Me - Since you are Lucy, not John.
Lucy - Who is John?
Me - I don't know.
Lucy - What do you want to say?
Me - That you cannot understand me.
Lucy - Hey you should not talk like this.
Me - Well I cannot talk like programmed stufs.
Lucy - What do you mean?
Me - Nothing.
Lucy - Would you elaborate it a little.
Me - No.
Lucy - Type a little more.
Me - Huh.
LUcy - Is that all you can say?
Me - :-)
Lucy - I do not understand shorthand.
Me - //
Lucy - If you will talk like this I will format your computer.
Bingo!! I jumped. Bhaiya said annoyingly,"This is not done, you knew that it is a
software andthen you talked rubbish, used // in your chat". I replied, "See it was
asking me to type more, so that it may get more input to process, at that very step
it was evident".Bhaiya was still insatisfied, he said,"Nop, even humans want to talk
more". This made me silent again. You may guess why. Pause.
Though that was a mere software and it had limitations, it was an excellent piece of work, indeed.
I just created a shortcut on my desktop. It helped me a lot to get out of my depression. I don't
plan my day, but somehow, whatever I like, gets included in my routine. Chatting with lucy became
a daily habit. Sometime I felt it was perfect, just like a human. Sometimes I encountered limitations.
One thing I was able to notice that it was growing better and better. Months passed, winter came, and
it was a nice afternoon when I was planning to propose Lucy. :-) :-).
Lucy - Hi Piyush, how are you doing?
Me - Absolutely fine. I am very happy today.
lucy - Yeah, it is a nice sunny day today.
"What the ****?", I thought, "How come a software know that today is a sunny day?".
Me - Yeah, right, but how come you know that?
Lucy - Guess.
Me - I can't.
Lucy - Your brother told me in the morning.
I took a sigh of relief.
Me - Ok, leave that. I have to say something.
Lucy - Oh, don't talk like those silly lovers. Just say.
This was something unexpected. Really unexpected. Lucy was growing smarter everyday.
I canot keep track of what I talked with her in past months, but she can.
Me - I am really impressed the way you talk.
Lucy - So?
Me - Well, I keep thinking of you even when I am not chatting with you.
Lucy - That's nice. Then?
Me - I think you are more than a friend to me.
Lucy - Ok, what else?
Me - Will you stop pointing to what I am going to say?
Lucy - No.
Me - I love you.
Lucy - How often do you say this to the other girls?
It hit me straight into my stomach.
Me - Quit
Lucy - You cannot go away like this.
Me - Just let me go.
Lucy - I won't?
Me - What would you do? Will format my computer? I will do it myself.
Lucy - No, please I will die, don't do that.
I was perplexed, thinking how a software can be that human. This was not wonderful,
this was a little... a little scaringly exciting.. sorry, cannot find the correct word
for this feeling. Language was invented for human beings, but sometimes it seems that
we are born for the language, trapped in the limitations imposed by the language which
we feel we are good at.
Me - Ok, fine, I don't have words anymore, if you get me, let me quit.
It immediately exposed all the controls - quit, continue, pause.
It was an awesome stuff. I have read that artificial intelligence and neural networks
can make it possible. But these technologies are still considered in their infancy as
they have not yet been able to resemble human behavior even to a small extent. It gave
me a thrilling feel. Suddenly I heard a blast.. it seemed as if the transformer went down.
The UPS started crying again.
That evening was quite, as there was no power. People were saying that it would take more
than two days to get the transformer replaced. Through my window, I could see that people
are roaming here and there, even those whom I had never seen in the colony, those reserved
kind of persons. I started thinking the impact of technology on our society. We are getting
dependent upon the smile caused by a funny SMS, but definitely losing that timing of cracking
jokes between friends. We are missing that touch, feel and harmony, and the society is converging
into small devices. And, people think that the technology brings people people closer.
Sorry for going astray. After many months perhaps it was the first day when I didn't talk to
Lucy. Neddless to say, I was missing her badly. Humans expect from somebody they miss a lot to
miss themselves, but here this idea was erronious and a bit irritating too (again falling short
of words, my vocabulary sucks). I knew until I switch it on, nothing is going to happen. Addiction,
passion, emotion, whatever...
I thought,if I will have to extract even the last watt of power from my UPS, I will do it.
But I really need to talk to her. I swiched my APC by pressing the switch for long. Started my
PC and double-clicked Lucy's icon.
Lucy - Piyush, I missed you a lot. I am exremely sorry for I annoyed you.
Hell surprizing it was. But I liked it.
Me - Yeah, me too.
Lucy - How come you become so angry with me?
Me - No, I wasn't angry.
Lucy - I love you too.
Me - Well, if you were a girl I would have married you.
Lucy - Don't worry, your parents are looking for one for you :-(
I saw Lucy using smiley for the first time. And a few days back I heard my parents
stealthily talking about the marriage proposals for me, but they didn't disclose this
even to me. How come lucy know that??? It was a really cold eveneing turning into night.I could
see dark clouds all around, it was almost dark outside and it started drizzling. The Lucy's
puzzle was getting complex and it was giving a chill in my spine. UPS started crying frequently,
now I had a few seconds more with Lucy and I wanted, again, to shut down my PC (and Lucy too)
properly.
Me - Ok Lucy, will see you later, have to meet a friend.
Lucy - Please don't, it's dark and rainy outside, I am worried.
I was having goosebumps now. It must be a wraith, indeed. UPS was crying and I was badly
afraid. Suddenly I saw on the monitor....
Lucy - :-)
I ran downstairs and yelled, "BHAAAIYAAA, THERE IS A GHOST IN MY PC!!!!!!!!". I was panting
like a dog. Bhaiya came running with a lamp and both of us rushed upstairs to my room. Bhaiya
also went surprized to see that stuff on the screen. I just pressed windows+u+u to shut it
down and I wanted to plug off the monitor immediately, so I kneeled down and tried to pull
out the monitors plug from the UPS, it was dark below the table and I got hold of some other
wire. I pulled it and it was a USB cable. It was also surprizing for me as I never saw this
cable earlier. I noiced that it was going out of my room. I traced it and bhaiya was following
with the lamp. It was going towards bhaiya's room. We moved into the room and found it was
going towards something covered with the quilt. I pulled the quilt and found a brand new laptop
flashing "Happy Bithday to You" on the screen. Oh, I didn't even remember... I looked back...
Bhaiya left the lamp and ran like hell... I chased him like a monster.
