When I was Away from Home

Ok this post is going to put a huge question mark on your face regarding my intelligence. However I feel the world needs to know my predicament.

It was 2008, I was fresh out of school and heading for college in a distant land.Away from the cocooned shelter I had enjoyed at my home, I was unleashed on the the big bad real world without proper training. I was on the other hand   very smug that I was fully equipped to take on the challenges of living in the hostel. However I could not have been more wrong.

My antique phone <3

I have always had an aversion to mobile phones. Bloody nuisance is what they are.My mobile phone can be classified as an antique. I have been planning to get a new one for ages but then my present one never gets broken,damaged and of course no one will steal it either. I am not finicky about features of a phone either. One reason is that I am a technology illiterate and moreover I use my phone only for calling and messaging( err isn't it that was it was meant for in the first place?) When buying gadgets I just go on looks. Thats why my laptop is a pretty purple color with flowers  :P and the phone im planning to buy is a cute looking square one.

Square phone <3 which im getting soon <3

And I just drifted from the point. What I was basically trying to say was I avoided using mobile phones when I was at school. What is a landline for anyway? And when I was out I happily forgot my phone at home. Mum had to call on my friends phone. So in college when I was handed a phone by my parents I went to  The Idea shop which gave me a huge form to fill for applying for a new number and handed me some SIM cards and asked me to choose the number I wanted. All this was new for me mind you. I inky pinkyed ponkeyed and chose a number and then happily came out of the shop. After 10 mins I get a call and i stared at my phone in amazement. Who could it be I wondered? since i had not given my phone number to anyone. Turns out it was the Idea shopguy I had very conveniently forgotten to pay for my sim card. :-| I entered the shop sheepishly, apologized profusely and paid up. And thats not the last time that happened. Over the next few days I would forget to pay the photocopy guy, for my juice at the juice stall and so on and so forth. Sometimes I remembered on my own and would run back huffing and puffing to pay up. But other times the shopkeeper had to call out to my retreating back and yell O madam. Aaap paise dena bhul gayi!! Those times i wished i was an ostrich so that i could dig a hole and hide my face in it. 

I soon found out that I am utterly incapable of taking care of myself. I found going to a bank to be a very daunting  task. Everybody would look so sure of themselves there and I would look around like a lost puppy. I had once gone to get a bank statement of my account from the bank. The lady there informed me that I would be charged for it. I immediately whisked out my wallet and said how much. The lady gaped at me incredulously for 5 secs and said it will be cut from your account. Oh ya right! i said and quickly put away my wallet.

I also have an uncanny knack of falling on ridiculously flat surfaces also.Once I went to a medical shop with a friend. There were just two small steps leading down to the shop yet I managed to lose my balance and land on my bum on the second one. Obviously all the heads in the shop turned towards me. And I got up assuring my friend that I was alright and rubbing my wrist where i had got hurt.As I was coming out the shopowner i  noticed the shop owner was trying to get my attention. He was offering me pain relief ointment to put on my wrist which i was still rubbing. I politely declined it. This later on evoked fierce calls of gender biasness from guys to whom i narrated the incident. They protested they wouldnt have an offer of ointment had they had landed on their bums :P

And the one which takes the cake is when i fought with the IDEA shopkeeper. I had gone to get balance for my phone for the first time ever on my own. I asked about the plans he told me abt several such as 100 rs with 80 rs talktime and so on and so forth.However why should i get 80 rs talktime when i am paying 100 rs defied all logic for me and what did talk time mean anyway? The poor guy had trouble making me see sense and finally got exasperated and said Arey aap samjhi nai rahi hai! Rukiye main dusre customer ko dekh ke aata hu. I stood there wearing a hurt expression.  I was moping for having been chided by him. The shopkeeper saw this and came and apologized to me too. He said arey aaj dimag kharab hai mera ! aaj log aarhae hai and kuch khareede bina hi ja rahe hai. Sorry aap pe gusaa hogaya. Then he went forward and explained the concept to me. :P 

Such times I wished I was a kid again. No worries, no daunting bank tasks to do, no need to spend time comprehending technology which changes everyday, when we would be home and would just had to stretch to get our hands on eatables which would magically keep replenshing itself( unlike hostel where one is always out of food stock) :(