FIL-MIL Mehfil (Bengali alert)
Getting my mother in law introduced to touchscreen is an awesome experience. A few days back, one of our friends had downloaded the YuppTV app on an iPad at our home and shown them how to watch streaming Bengali channels on it.
The whole concept of touching a sophisticated machinery like iPad is proving to be very scary to my MIL. This evening I came home and was a little surprised that she was not watching TV shows on iPad (she does that for endless hours).
“ki holo? Aaj TV dekchhen na?” (What happened? Not watching tv tonight?).
She was really scared and upset when she said “ami bodh hoy ota noshto korey felechhi” (I thinking I messed up the iPad)
“Maaney?”, I asked. (What is that supposed to mean?)
“Amar hath thekey ektu sorey gechhilo. Screen to puro bhenge bnekey gelo”. She thought when the iPad screen turned around (I assume she had tilted it), the physical screen came unhinged and got twisted!!!! 🙂
Half an hour later, I was again in the living room. This time saw her poring into the iPad but I could see that she was on the main screen. I asked her what happened. Why was she not watching something?
“Norchhe”, she said. (Things are moving)
I was like what do you mean “Norchhe”? Upon investigation found out that all the app icons were jiggling!! I assume she kept her finger on the YuppTV app for too long.
Anyways, I laughed out and told her next time to ask anyone of us to help her.
And I noticed that she had a lot of apps open. Obviously, she had tried a few more things before she got them to jiggle 🙂 I asked her to hang on and started to kill the apps one after the other. She watched me as I flicked the apps off the screen and then got her show started.
She helplessly looked at me and said “Thheley diley sorey jachhe e abar ki re baba” 🙂 (It moves when you push it, what kind of a thing is this?)
I am having second thoughts of gifting them an iPad before they leave for India!!
Me and my samsung s5 is like your MIL on ipad..at least from my kids’ perspective…ironically they know that their dad knows much about the homebutton than anyone else in the world..even then I come out to be a fool ..go figure..
Lol my mum had a similar reaction when she started learning the iPad – now she is hooked on to it seeing all the shows – it was a gift to dad & now he can seldom use it
There are so many of us out here who can compete with yout MIL regarding computer unsavvyness! Probably it is ingrained in our genetic make-up where parents used to shield their children from handling expensive gadgets lest they destroy them?
Uff, hashte hashte pet batha hoye gelo amar ar g
amar ar Gigu-r. Gigu jiggesh korche, why all gradmas sound the same?
Your future includes providing Tech Support from US to a couple of dear people in India 🙂
It seems like you’re telling the tales of our house! My mom and grandma experienced this on the daily. Finally my mom couldn’t take it anymore and “delegated” the role of tech support to my brother and I. I wonder how much longer we’ll last…
You are such a patient man.
Rajib Roy.look for a net gear device that connects to your TV. Yupp TV works on Netgear (not Roku). That makes it easier for them. Just a tv remote and they can flip through the Bong channels. I set it up a few weeks back for my folks as well and since then I’ve not seen them
.they r glued to the TV !
That was great!
I can relate to my mom. She refused to have any computer purchased for her. I had offered to buy one in Kolkata and have internet connection set up so that we could Skype. However it seemed that even turning the device on/off would elevate her blood pressure. To her it seems like a nuisance 🙂