ASHES

Some of you who periodically check this space to read my post would have been wondering where I have been for sometime now. Well to say it with an intended pun I was ‘offline’. Here is the story of a brief time window of my life where I was very frustrated.

2200 Hrs, 2 July 2007, My flat at Gurgaon
I came back from a normal day at the office. I had just put in a request for a 2-day leave in lieu of my GMAT exam. When I reached home I realised that our maid had not cooked any food and that we will have to contend with whatever we can make. Then I started my laptop or should I say tried to start my laptop. It wont budge. I tried different sockets to plug it in to charge the battery but there was no response. After an hour or so of toil I ceded that the computer is broken and my respect for a certain gentleman named Murphy was on a new high. I was supposed to take on simulation test before the GMAT on the laptop. However, I surprised myself by being enterprising enough to arrange to take the test at a friend’s place.

Approximately 1330 Hrs, 4 July 2007, PearsonVue Centre (GMAT Venue)
The score sheet just popped in front of my eyes. My worst fears had not come true, the result was even worse. I got 660 on the GMAT. After making it loud and clear to everybody that I am 750 material this is was a bit on the lower side. However, I collected my score report with the usual calm and composure that I show, weirdly in such turbulent circumstances. I came out feeling nothing. Well actually one thing, that I am just not good enough, full stop.

0930 Hrs, 6 July 2007, My flat in Gurgaon
It started like a pleasant morning, slightly cold. Then the power went off. My fan went off. Suddenly the power came back on. Unfortunately it lost the fan. I thought it was just a misunderstanding with the fan and that it will be in a better mood by the time I came back from office. But it wasn’t to be. So I had to arrange to sleep in the living room. But since the living room has the TV I had to wait till any of my flatmates had to watch TV. Luckily my flat mates are not too fond of watching TV late in the night.

1400 Hrs, 11 July, HP Service Centre Gurgaon
I had had a bad time arranging for my dues. My excessive credit card bills, loan instalments and ofcourse eating expense were falling out of my pocket already (read the date). I asked the service guy how much it would cost to repair the laptop. In reply he said that if it’s a battery problem it will cost around 10-15k and if there is a problem with the motherboard it will cost 20-25k. I brought the laptop back with me to get a second opinion.

I took the laptop back to the service centre and deposited it for repair.

More in the next post…