My life changing device(s)

Or what I probably couldn’t/wouldn’t live without.

This post is for the “Your Life changing device”  contest over at BlogAdda.

I have more than one life changing device in my life. I really tried zero-ing down to just one, but found that there had to be at least a top three. It is a fact that technology makes life a lot easier. Why, come to think of it, even my doctor’s scalpel was a life-changing device when I underwent the Cesarian section, when Vidur was born 😀

So here goes!

My spectacles

My spectacles, without which I really could not survive. My spectacles have changed my life. I was born with a vision defect and a slight squint (acute astigmatism and short sight). The squint seemed to correct itself with medication and therapy. The fact that I needed spectacles was only discovered when I was around ten years old and couldn’t see the blackboard in school. Why? I also happened to be quite short and was always placed in the first bench, so I never had a problem. Later, when I got moved to a back bench I discovered that the contents of the blackboard were just that much blurred text. I did catch up on my reading and had a James Hadley Chase confiscated by the Principal who was on her rounds and stood by the window over a very engrossed and unsuspecting me – but that’s another story. Phew!

I’d die without reading and my glasses give me the pleasure of that experience. I love the speed of a bike, and my glasses ensure that I get clear visibility of the road, what with progressive lens and all.  

These days I work from home as a freelance writer, and the perfect pair of lenses ensures that I earn that bread, butter and jam via my eyes that can see clearly, thanks to those lens.

I’ve been through a variety of frames and lens and I couldn’t imagine living in a world where I could not see – I enjoy photography, observing people – all of which are made possible, through better vision. Most of all, through my eyes, I get to see and appreciate the world I live in. Thank you, Zeiss!

My pressure cooker

The real queen of my kitchen 😀

My pressure cooker, without which I would go nuts in the kitchen, and am not talking of  the edible variety. My life depends on it, sometimes. I have three of them in different sizes. I use two regularly, with the third as a back up.  Being a south Indian family, we want our dal and rice almost every day. But me, I also make the sambar/rasam/pongal/veg rice/chana/avial/bisibele bath/pao bhaji/vetha kozhambu/idli/parupu-usali/carrot halwa – you name it – inside the cooker. I cook all my veg in the pressure cooker. Fill it, shut it and three whistles later, everything’s almost ready.

I’ve become an expert, over the years, of stacking utensils in the pressure cooker in the most space-saving manner. Once its done, all I have to do is wait for the pressure to calm down, take the weight off the cooker (and myself :-D) and add the finishing touches. With my pressure cooker, cooking is a breeze without losing any nutrients; it helps me save fuel tremendously and keeps my family healthy.

My phone

My phone, which makes my world a far smaller place than it would have been otherwise. The sheer portability of this device makes life that much easier because it eliminates the need to physically GO somewhere! While these might be just the regular things everyone does with their phone, for me it was life-changing as I was looking after my mom who went through hospitalizations and frequent hospital visits for over four years.

Just some of the things I enjoy on my phone:

• Talk to my friends all over the world – now this is really important, you know. Some of these friends are classmates who have become very close friends through the years, and stay that way. Blessed, is one word to describe the feeling. I know there are webcams and chat – but while walking on the terrace on a pleasant evening, there’s nothing like the voice of someone you’re crazy about in your ear.
• Talk to my son when I am out of town – bliss, priceless.
• Save time – shopping by phoning in my list to the supermarket and getting the stuff home delivered or calling the medical store for a prescription to be home delivered. There’s some great Just In Time management.
• Research – when I need something, I always do a little research just so I can ask the final supplier a few intelligent questions and my phone lets me reach a lot of people without the actual commute. Saves time and money.
• Memories – my phone takes pictures, records videos that create memories. I recorded my son’s music performance which lasted around 35 minutes – and am ever grateful to my phone for this, because my digicam’s batteries decided to go sleep at the exact moment. I just love the power of capturing pictures forever!
• Emergencies – perhaps one of the biggest benefits of my phone is letting me reach people,  and letting people reach me in an emergency quickly
• Entertainment – can listen to music and watch movies in a pinch – this is not life-changing, but certainly relieves the boredom when you are waiting somewhere
• During a trip when there is often no internet, I am able to check email and take urgent action when it is needed, and that is definitely life-changing, especially if it is a project I am eager to take up.
• Thanks to this phone, my newly-married nephew recovered his new i PoD from a railway station waiting room. Here’s the story. My phone certainly changed his life. The i Pod was a wedding gift from his wife and he left it to charge in the waiting room of the Bangalore railway station – forgot all about it and remembered only two hours after he was on his way to Pune!

I could list my bike, my laptop, my vacuum cleaner, my mixer grinder and all my other appliances that change my life from laborious to easy….but then, we all know technology makes life easier. But to summarize, if there was an earthquake and I had to grab three things, in addition to Vidur and Sury, I’d go for my glasses, my pressure cooker and my phone. 

And here’s the qualifying code 😀
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