Fashionably Slow

If you thought getting your first TV video game, your first TV cable connection that too only in the summer holidays was tough then you got to be kidding me. The worst battle which I fought was for getting my parents to buy a PC (personal computer). I had to complete my Std XII to get there. At least the TV video game and also the cable connection came quicker but not the PC. So after the std XII exams were done me and my dad set out to buy our first and I am sure the only PC.

The PC revolution had just begun around that time atleast in my neighbourhood :). Every nook and corner sported either an internet café (I never understood why the word café was used. I mean there were no refreshments or even coffee served there) or a computer shop where entrepreneurs were seated under creaking fans surrounded by motherboards, mice, keyboard and infinite wires. They had zeal like no other. They had a dream of making it big making a PC even more personal than even Bill Gates envisioned.

The word that the Borate’s were looking to buy a PC spread like a Trojan virus if not wild fire and within 2 days 3 budding entrepreneurs came knocking armed with catalogues of hardware.

A Typical Entrepreneur: Sir, full and final sangto. 41K madhe, Samsung cha monitor, Seagate chi hard disk (40GB), Windows 98, 256 MB DDR RAM. Internet ready keyboard ani Quick heal pan free deto. Plus ya society madhe 2-3 order dile ahet me aadhi. Service ani support madhe kahi problem nahi. Tumhi vichara na!!!!

Baba: Barr, tumhi, hey catalogue ithe theva, I will get in touch with you.

A Typical Entrepreneur: Touch kay Sir, mich chakkar marto na Monday la. Theva sanga. Toh pariant hard disk che bhav pan kami honar ahet. Tumche kaam 38K madhe karun deto. Chalo mag see you.

So we had a couple of catalogues to look at, prices to be compared and configurations to be chosen from. I had almost made up my mind when my dad brought home a new concept of “Branded v/s Assembled”. I was never a techo wiz kid, this was new. My dad explained, well he had been enlightened by the Head of the Computer Dept (HOD) of his College, so you can imagine the impact the HOD would have created.

Branded: A PC which is packed, which has only one brand on it. Eg: the PC’s of HP, Compaq, Zenith. Costly but reliable. Fewer hardware issues. But again if you get issues you will have to shell out more for maintenance.

Assembled: As the name suggests. It is assembled. Samsung ka monitor, Seagate ki hard disk. The PC’s sold by the entrepreneurs. Sold on mutual trust, cheaper, but no warranty.

And the Branded PC was a personal favorite of the HOD and it had to be same with my dad. So we visited a couple of shops selling the branded ware. HP and Compaq. The configuration was good, but we found the after sales service wanting. In the midst of all this, the HOD came to our rescue. Why not Zenith?

Zenith: The name did not register anything in me. I had heard about HP, Compaq and so naturally I was following the brand name. But Zenith!!!!??? And when I got to know the catchline I almost puked: Zenith: The Indian Multinational!!!!

Well the HOD knew a dealer personally and that also solved the after sales service. So finally we got home a branded Zenith PC; the Indian Multinational.

On Monday the Budding entrepreneur came and we informed him that a Zenith PC had been brought. Here was his reaction:

“Zenith, kay Sir. Aadhi sangayche na Branded pahiche hote te. Me HP cha dila asta. Market peksha 4K kami madhe. Full support ek varsha sati free. Tumhi rao sagle sangat nahi ani mag amhi service kashi denar. Ani Zenith peksha HP kadhi hi changla. Bagha hardware issues yenar. Teva kalel!!!!”

Its been more than 6 years now, not a single hardware has ever given way. The OS got infected a couple of times but it happens and the PC had to be formatted. Got XP installed a year back :)

The P4 processor takes ages to load a page. I can hear weird churning sounds inside the CPU cabinet whenever some processing happens. I never get worked up. I just sit back, lazily and smile!!!! This is what I call being fashionably slow!!!!

P.S: Today I installed Mozilla Firefox 3.5 on it too. :D