Despite having my feet literally firmly grounded, I’ve seen more humans, their humanity & its complements – indifference, deceit & cruelty – than you ever could have.
…Wait! Don’t think it’s another philosophical drivel only ‘cuz I choose to speak through Ketan’s blog! How many weighing machines’ life-stories you’ve heard?
I used to like kids standing on my feet. Their big eyes would further widen when I’d make faces – my blinking lights & rotating disks – they’d chuckle, not bothered by their weight at all! They loved me – their entertainer. But now kids find my antics silly 😦 Why won’t they? Having seen smart cards & ATMs, the idea of feeding me a coin & see me come to life no longer excites them.
But not just kids, even grown ups have changed. In those days, they were not bothered by the printed number. Except if too big, they would call themselves “healthy”, smile & get down happy. But later on, no number could satisfy them. Most wanted it to be much smaller. They always left dejected.
Somehow I’d always wished that everyone be happy, & none be sad ‘cuz of me. So I started showing 5% less weight. Some people got happy, but not others. So I started reducing 10%. This made many happy. They started praising me, wishfully calling me truthful, but that’s not what I was! I longed to be known as nice! It was ironical that weight I showed wasn’t accurate, yet I wanted the praise to be!
Once, I overheard a doctor explain something about BMI & how overweight people suffered more from heart attack & stroke. He also said obesity was an epidemic & was killing Indians at younger age. I was shocked! I wanted to mend my ways. But having got used to people’s praise, I couldn’t regain the courage to be truthful. I still showed reduced weight.
Then one day, a mechanical mechanic failing to understand I also had feelings, reported that my spring wasn’t yielding enough ‘cuz of corrosion & I must be taken away for showing wrong weight. Like all non-humans that die at the end of autobiographical school-essays, I too wanted to. But his boss reminded him of profits, & how his promotion hinged on it. I now understood the true purpose of my life.
Partly inspired by Insignia’s post (click)
Neglected Serendipity 
Brought smile 🙂
I just wrote a sentence on the weighing machine’s feelings – “All the while, the poor weighing machine earnestly looks for some appreciation for being honest. But what it gets is a stare!!”
You have etched it out beautifully. Thanks for this post. Take care 🙂
WOWO.. thank god you understood the purpose of your life.. It would be a miracle if i understood too Why am i here..
Nice reading your articles 🙂
Brilliant! And a nice break from your heavy posts KP. Just when I thought, that this is so unlike KP, a mundane post with no purpose, you spring the punchline at the end. Just brilliant.
“Like all non-humans that die at the end of autobiographical school-essays, I too wanted to.”
Haha..very clever post, Ketan! I was kinda hoping to see a post here that I cud comment on without having to read heavy stuff (I have enuff of that what with Harrison around) and I am so glad that I found it. 🙂 I wish they’d been more creative in school and given us a weighing machine to write an autobiographical essay about instead of the trees and bicycles they kept giving us 😉
Sweet!! Very much like an essay a child wished he/she wrote in exam.. they would get full marks 😛