The Greatest Bulb Of My Life

Chennai is scorching. Our eyes are so accustomed to the blinding brightness that the cornea has crossed the visible wavelength and is discovering new combinations of yellow, blue and green entwining particles in plain transparent air. Laptops, Mobiles, Chairs – whatever absorbs heat have all absorbed it to the maximum and are blazing. So, in order to save my laptop that is so used to the Bangalore weather and heaves to push through the weekend in Chennai, I thought I will buy a wireless router, so I can browse from the safety of my bedroom AC.

I came home on Saturday morning and decided I will buy a wireless router. And there it was glittering under my eyes – Wireless ADSL Huawei Smart AX MT841 modem. Wow! I did not know my modem already had the wireless router facility. So, all I had to do now was configure it and then escape to the cool of my bedroom. I tried googling and fiddling around with my modem for sometime, but the fear of screwing it up constantly wrangled my brain. I could hear my dad losing his cool if I spoil the internet and leave back 2 Bangalore tomorrow night. So, I decided to call professional help and tried reaching BSNL helpline.

12678 is the busiest number on planet earth. But, it is one of the most courteous and helpful helplines, if you reach through. I wasn’t able to till the evening, and then luck struck at 7 o’clock. The lady was very cool and I thought “wow, this is going to come through fine, after all, I can work at 20 degree Celsius tonight.

“Hello, yes sir, How may I help you?”

“Ma’m, I have this MT841 modem and I need to configure the wireless LAN in it. I have a laptop with a wireless adapter”

“Ok sir, Please open http://192.168.1.1 in Internet Explorer”

“Yes ma’m, I have the modem configuration page.”

“Click on the left Plus button and WLAN. Now you see there is a textbox that …..”

This went on for half hour, during which, my modem restarted twice, but as expected the WLAN light never blinked.

Okay, so this is not coming through as good as I thought. So, I decided to just get through the call and go to the local telephone exchange and ask for expert help. Suddenly came a question that kicked my balls.

“… Is the Antenna upright?”

I was startled.
“Antenna? I don’t have an antenna in the modem”

“Sir, Is there a slot in the left hand bottom of your modem?”

The damn thing was indeed there and it was hanging empty. I let out an obvious gasp, it was just beginning to dawn on me and I was reeling.
“Yea, Do I have to buy a ..”

She did not let me complete. Her tone suggested she was cherishing the moment.
“Do u have the wireless card inserted in it?”

I wanted to crawl under the table.
“Do u mean to say I have to buy a separate wireless card to enable WLAN? I thought it comes enabled by default in the modem”

My attempts to cover the ignominy didn’t pay off well and in front of my eyes scrolled all those mails from technical helpdesks, that claim how customers were so ignorant about what they wanted. So, tonight I am going to be the laughing stock over dinner.

“Yes sir, you can contact your local telephone exchange for buying the wireless card. There will be separate charges. We have just configured your modem and it should be ready to work as a wireless router if you insert that card”

My last attempt at saving some dignity was the worst and words came out without going through the mind -

“Ok, so if I do not want to buy the card, Can I go in for any wireless router in the market? It will still work right? I shall call you once I buy one soon”

“Yes sir, In that case, you might not need our assistance. You can configure the line in the router itself. But having already bought the modem, I would suggest you just buy the card. Buying a separate router again might not be a very good idea. Thanks”

The thought of having tried one whole day to configure a wireless facility without realizing I did not have the necessary hardware was worse than the heat. I hung up, ran to my bedroom to switch on the AC and searched for my pillow to hide underneath. It’s more important right now to cool myself than the laptop. This is going to haunt for sometime ..