In Hindu Metro Plus Oct 13,2011

The Apple of my i

INDU BALACHANDRAN

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Steve Jobs: An iconic legacy
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Steve Jobs has changed lives. How else would you explain an ardent fan's puja to the iMac?

I have two machines that I absolutely adore. Both are compact and stylish and white in colour. One is my i10. The other is my iMac — the first one is what I drive, the other is what drives me.

That's why, like a good Indian, I did puja to both, this navarathri — because that's our service maintenance contract with God, renewed annually, to bless our machinery and ensure its long life.

I began with the bigger of my small wonders, Hyundai i10. I hosed her down to a whiter shade of white. A marigold garland hung happily in a curve under the bonnet, making her ‘smile' a little more. Then she got bright red kumkum tikkasadorning her like a bride. She purred when I started the ignition. Her four gleaming wheels quickly squashed the lemons placed beneath each tyre. (Why do we follow this superstition? No one really knows. But, if it's an added ‘safety feature' for my car, then I'm all for lime-juice technology…)

Then it was the turn of my iMac. My office, my boss, my secretary, all in one. My fruit offering for this important puja was, what else? An apple! As I applied a bright red tikka on the sleek white surface, I thought ‘hey does your brilliant designer know we Indians add our own embellishments to you, once a year?' Ok, I didn't actually garland my iMac, but when I switched the iMac on, my screensaver showed a riot of flowers — a picture I'd myself shot on a recent holiday.

Prayers done. After a couple of feather touches, I was zooming away, much like on my i10, but on the information superhighway. I landed on everyone's favourite destination, Facebook. And in an ironic twist of fate, I read about the demise of the man who'd invented our brave new world's most wondrous machine… on that very machine itself.

Steve Jobs, said my iMac, had logged out of our lives.

Word tributes, pictorial tributes… if what I saw here was a burst of creativity, much could be attributed to the man who set millions on that path — simply by the ease and joy that made digital expression anybody's domain. I came to conclude that while we may pray to goddess Saraswati, Mac evangelists would always worship their own God of Creativity and Learning… now in his heaven. I read many many evocative words of praise, as people hit the ‘share' button on quotes and YouTube excerpts about the genius who'd helped the world move on.

Until a wag came along… On his status update, a pal of mine had written in his usual brand of honest wit: “I don't know much about computers. I don't even know how often to change the oil. Thanks Steve, for a hassle-free machine where I can say this to the world.”

Steve Jobs is going to live forever.