Our First Computer

Getting a computer was a big deal. In fact, ours was the first house in the mohalla to get a computer- not the sleek ones you see now a days, but the bulky set. Word spread like wildfire and people came from the neighbourhood to congratulate my proud father and have a look at it.
And that is not even the strangest part.
The fact that I remember distinctly is that they opened their shoes and sandals right outside the room, as if it was a sacred relic. No, they didnt believe it was another God. Anyways, people will believe that too. I read somewhere that indigenous people of a certain place who saw the aeroplane for the first time began worshipping it. So was true of fire, and rain and earth much before religion took mythological forms.
The reason they did that at the threshold of the room was that we believed the dust on the soles carried computer virus. At least that is what we were told and we told to those who questioned the veracity of the premise. Belief is such a fragile thing, yet, entire kingdoms rest on belief. Today, when I think about it, it seems so silly, so incredulous. But I am sure that when I muttered,’Open your shoe outside otherwise virus will come into the computer.’, there was something unmistaken about what I thought to be correct. I was told. And without doubting, I took it to be true. Strange, almost all indoctrinations start like that. A child is given tidbits of information that ought to be self sufficient and is expected to take it in, unflinching.
Having a computer was a privilege then although it was nothing more than a box with some games in it. I almost always used it to make paint files and word documents that had no purpose.
Father had a cabin built for keeping the computer to give it the altar it deserved. And believe it, it was kept locked inside it.
We sold it later: when it stopped being a privilege and became the new standard by which people measured their status in society. There was nothing great about a computer anymore.
We sold it to someone who was one of the have nots and I think, people from his neighbourhood must have visited him that day. Although, it was almost like telling him to eat cake. What use could it possibly be to that man? What knowledge can the little girl gain from it from drawing paint files and trying different wallpapers? Yet he wanted to buy it because he too, was drunk on the future. The victim of entire debate of generic statements that range from ‘time is changing’ to ‘technology will take over’.
Technologies hinder the development of the human potential that has reached its peak today and is set to stagnate. We were evolving before we started inventing. I remember the meme about the evolution of man where the modern prototype turns back and asks the others to go back because ‘we fucked up.’
The computer, lies forgotten even though the very first memories of our childhood includes it, like the video game or the walkie talkie.
I look at it today, with a disdain because I dont wish to acknowledge the revolution of sorts it was when it first arrived, stacked at the back of a carrier auto and when we were dying over concerns that the bumpy ride must have cracked the glass.