Coffee with Fat Fingers

“Mobile-only makes sense for Flipkart” , says Sachin Bansal of Flipkart (Times of India 8^th December 2015).

1986 was my first tryst with computers. Since then it has been a love hate relationship with technology. I love technology, but not sure that the feeling is mutual. Or maybe technology loves me so much, that it gets tongue tied in my presence.. the way I do in the presence of the women I have a crush on. Everybody who has fallen in love in their teens and early twenties, will understand what I mean.

In the 90s when I was young, I wished damsels fell in love with me.. but computers and printers did. My mere presence was enough to hang desktops and jam printers. Once I even made a great impression on a foreign damsel. I was at my client’s office and his son had just got an inkjet printer from the US which was a novelty in India at that time. The moment I entered the room, the damsel swooned and started crooning. It spewed out junk characters.... I understood the message, but my client was at wits end. It was only when I was out of the room, that normalcy returned.

 On another occasion, I was conducting an audit in a small village town called Kudal, on the southern border of Maharashtra. The moment I entered the computer room, the line printer got tongue tied and stalled. I could only laugh at my fan following.

With age the fan following has gone down, and my charm has diminished. Last week, I was invited for a dinner in Pune with my spouse, but unfortunately she could not join me. The host mentioned that I should have got my girlfriend. I joked that at this age and with this paunch, having a girlfriend is not possible. He said, don’t give up hope, you will be surprised. His words were prophetic, only this time, I fell in love and this blog is about my newest girlfriend.

Well she is young, beautiful, slim and desired by many. In the last twelve months, she has had hundreds of marriage proposals, but she is an eternal flirt. Some people have managed to go on a date with her, while she has dumped quite a few. She is so amazing, I am head over heels in love with her. If you have not guessed by now, it is... the app on my smartphone.

Today evening, I was a bit lazy to get up and switch on the computer. I wanted to know the movie timings in the nearby cinema hall, so picked the mobile phone and accessed the movie booking app. Last week we were in Nasik for a week and had accessed the app from there, so it returned movie timings for Nasik, while I wanted them for Mumbai.

I scanned the screen for the button which would help me change the location. She was looking back at me, smiling. Her smile was sunshine and enchanting.

 I was as tongue tied as I was twenty five years ago, when I went out with my first crush for the first coffee. Both of them said the same thing. “I know what your intentions are, but I won’t help you. I will play along with you and watch the fun. Let’s see if you can make me fall in love with you.” Flirting at its best.

 I was looking at her as I would look at all my crushes, tongue tied and not knowing what to say or in this case do. But the conversation had to begin. I could not spend my entire date gazing at her with stars in my eyes. If she had to be mine, I had to say something.

 On my first date, I asked her what will you have and she had said, “Juice.” I had to ask for the menu card.  Suddenly an idea struck me and I put my finger on that part which showed me my current location – Nasik. The menu and a list of cities appeared.

Chivalry demanded that I make the choice from the menu. Also the attempt to impress her means I have the same juice that she has. Only if our tastes match, is there a chance of taking this relationship ahead. I suggested pineapple and she wanted watermelon. I clicked on Mumbai, but she returned the search result for Bengaluru. Disaster - History repeats itself after twenty five years.

I did not want watermelon, and she was insisting on the same. Three times, I put my finger on Mumbai, only to return results for Bengaluru. Clearly the conversation was not going on desired lines. I tried to remember, what I did twenty five years ago. Yes, I told her that I did not want watermelon, and asked her to pick a flavour she liked.

I looked for a search box and found one. I put my finger in the box so that the keypad would get activated. Instead of activating the key pad, it returned search results for National Capital Region. After repeated tries, I gave up, got up and switched on my faithful computer.

I have since shared many coffees, but haven’t progressed beyond that for some reason. I seem to be incapable of succeeding in the art of wooing a woman. When I shared my predicament with an agony aunt, she told me, that I have fat fingers. Well, I can use a nail file to chisel my nails, but how does one chisel fat fingers without bleeding?

Thank God for the concept of arranged marriages in India, else I would have remained a bachelor. Spouses may not be glamorous, the technology may be old, but they are willing to live with fat fingers.

I am no longer willing to spend money in this pursuit (other than a few coffees). If a woman wants to fall in love with me, it has to be on the basis of my intelligence and accept my fat fingers.

However, hope is eternal, and I will continue in my pursuit of pretty young women. Yesterdays’s newspaper carried articles of Celebrities in Hollywood getting married to younger women, with the age difference being more than fifteen years.  It is time to upgrade my smartphone and explore newer apps. After all, Men will be men!!!