Iska Mouse Chhota Hai??? So What?. Review on General Tips on Computers

"Ugh.mujhe yeh computer nahi chahiye.iska mouse chhota hai!".**.cried the girl sitting next to me in the cyber cafe in disgust and stood up in evident anger, pushing back her chair with such force that it nearly toppled over. I had just settled down at my cubicle and had barely glanced at the day's developments at Mouthshut.com on my monitor.

When this mini tempest ruffled my rather tranquil feathers, and forced me to turn my attention towards her, something I rarely do in a cyber cafe except when besotted by extraordinarily alluring company. I was tempted to ask “Kya aapko chhota mouse pasand nahi.and can’t you be happy and  content with what you have got? After marriage, would you ask for a new husband when you find out that he too ain’t got a computer with as big a mouse as you had dreamt of”,

but I preferred to remain silent as I saw the café owner fast approaching with a surprised look on his face. The girl repeated her demand, this time with a distinct sneer in her voice “Dekhiye…mujhe yeh wala nahi chahiye. Iska screen bright nahi hai aur mouse bhi bahut chhota hai. Aap mujhe koi bade mouse wala computer de rahe hain ya main jaoon?” The café owner’s pride seemed hurt. “Arre…mouse ki size se kya fark padta hai? Kaam to isse bhi badhiya hota hai.” I agreed. For a man, the mouse is a sensitive issue, and no one likes to have his mouse rejected merely because of size! Anyway, the girl had her way, and her demands were promptly fulfilled.  The sleepy cyber café soon returned to the placid silence of the humming air conditioners, and things were normal again.

I returned my attention to the webpage of Mouthshut.com. Paul had just finished uploading his 1214th photo and gonewiththewind was getting dangerously philosophical about serious issues like hugging and cops and trust and infidelity. But the turbulence in my mind was far from settled. After all, the girl(the one who-asked-for-and-got-a-big-mouse) had stirred a host of queries which needed answers. I suddenly got an idea. Where were the mouse reviews? Where was the mouse in MS?  I frantically searched the product category. Mouse….where’s the mouse? Computers…CD Roms…. Modems…. Keyboards…. Laptops…. PDAs….but where’s the mouse. Slowly, to my utter horror, I realised that MS had no mouse category at all…it was grotesquely ‘mouseless’! What a shame! This was not only a glaring slip; it was one of the most bizarre imperfections I had ever come across. How could this happen? I mean, when Jasmine was creating categories, had she carelessly overlooked this most important tool, without which all the desktop gadgets are as impotent as a drake in a flock of geese?

Now whether this was deliberate or unintentional only Vikram_Techie would be able to tell. I sincerely hope Vikram_Techie holds the mouse in high esteem(how do you really hold a mouse in high esteem…?.anyway) and rectifies this howler with immediate effect. Yes, there are a couple of entries in the name of the mouse, but they are condemned to suffer the disgrace of being relegated to being just a meagre accessory of the keyboard. But this is democracy, and I demand no less than a separate category for the computer mouse. Oh yeah.  If I had a million points to squander, I would have spent them all to redeem the image of the Mouse, which, to me, is as sacrosanct as the logo of Mouthshut.com itself. Come to think of it, had there been no mouse, would the accomplishments of Bill Gates or Faisal been half as ‘note’worthy as they are now? Paulsb02’s exploits and his vast fortune of quadrizillion points have been powered by the click of the almighty mouse, as have been the daring escapades of Aaryesdee and Derebail! Had there been no mouse, Zulu wouldn’t have danced, Ratna wouldn’t have been Bharat Ratna, Paulose would have attained eternal sainthood, Main Chup would have remained permanently silent, Veekey would have continued to shine like Alpha Centauri and Flyingelephant would have been royally grounded, even with a plane in his hanger! Sudipto33? He and his humungous pate wouldn’t have even existed at all…huh! Can Kweldebs, Nidhi1, Astrofreak1234, Swan, Cindy, Shahsilky, Kim2526, Swapnakala, Bittercharm, Afrank, Akisha, Amateurabe, The Reviewer, Chintu25, Vibes, Doveye, Ipshonlu, Coolwater(may her mouse rest in peace; she ain’t with us in Mouthshut anymore.sigh!), Magicalsummer, Pri20, Angel25 and the rest of the world’s most dazzling beauties ever imagine a day without the mouse? Imagine a lonely Amitabh writing in his blog… “Main aur mera mouse aksar yeh baatein karte hain….” Had there been no mouse, the world would have become the most vile, untrustworthy and friendless place to live in. I mean, how could someone ever trust a fellow human being on MS anymore, or gift him or her a navel ring or a coconut?  Not everyone owns a laptop! Isn’t it a mouse which symbolises the timeless friend-friend, brother-sister or child-parent bonds of mutual cyber trust and faith?

And see what MS has done. It has relegated to obsolescence the very name of the computer mouse, without the selfless clickings of which, this site wouldn’t have survived the competition from friends and foes alike. In the Mouthshut Medals tally, even an obscure Bharatdeep Emergency Light or a Plochman’s Premium Mustard basks in unabashed glory, while the mouses(it is grammatically correct, by the way!) of Logitech and the Microsoft wallow in the dungeons of destitution and misery. If I had my way, I would have had MS gift 100000 points to anyone writing a review on a computer mouse. If I had my way, no girl on this earth would ever have said “mujhe chhota mouse nahi chahiye…”*.

Okay, without digressing from the topic at hand anymore, and just for the sake of completing the review, let’s turn our collective attentions on the fêted tool itself. Though it’s quite unassuming to look at, the computer mouse is perhaps the most important piece of hardware, next only to the monitor in importance. Personally, I prefer the old fashioned ones with balls. It’s nice and heavy, and quite comfortable to work with. Moreover, the one with balls is good at pointing, and seldom wavers from the target, although it needs some spirited cleansing of the ball every now and then to ensure faithful performance with each stroke. The optical ones with fancy LEDs may be sleek and lighter, but they are fearfully notorious on slippery surfaces(like glass, granite and satin) and quite prone to drifting unpredictably with occasionally frightful consequences. And of course there are laptops, where you don’t need the mouse and the ball at all; only a few deft caresses of the nimble finger is enough to fire up the flames of digital passion.

So much for the computer mouse. And Jasmine, the least you can do to assuage the frayed pride of the computer mouse fans…include it as a gift on Mouthshut.com. Worth at least a 1000 points if not more. What say folks?