All good things must come to an end, even if this is a companion watch. , Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
IIt came to me as a gift from my son who is working abroad. This was somewhat of a novelty in India in those days. Sometimes while standing in line or shopping, the person next to me would recognize it and ask if it was the same watch. Most likely he saw one or had one but didn’t want to say so in so many words.
It took me some time to get used to and adjust to it. Slowly it became a part of my life. It became a part of my regular morning routine to look at my synchronized mobile to check the watch data. Even a glance at him in the middle of the day was inevitable.
After completing only 31,500 steps against a goal of 50,000 steps (weekly), messages like “just 2513 steps more” (daily) and “you’re almost there” motivated me with words of encouragement. When I hit 10,000 steps a day, it felt amazing on my wrist. Sometimes, I admit with some shame, when feeling a little lazy, I cheat the clock by vigorously shaking the “watched” wrist for a minute or two to make sure the daily goal is met. Kind of was achieved.
Slowly, with nothing much to do, especially during SARS-COV-2, I started logging 80,000 to 90,000 steps per week against a goal of 50,000. Sometimes I touched 100,000 steps, unaware that one day, unconsciously, I would do so in a day. In due course, logging 10,000 or more steps a day, I won several distance badges along the way, including Italy (736 miles), New Zealand (900 miles), and the Nile (4132 miles). The last badge I earned was Russian Railways (5772 miles).
As we all know, everything has an average age, you can call it by any name. Dogs (15–16), cats (25), horses (60), cockatoos (80–100) and whales (200+) all have a reasonable number of years to live. On the other hand, the life cycle of a mayfly is only 24 hours. The shelf life of even inanimate objects like bulbs, switches, mobiles and laptops is defined in terms of usage or advent of new models. SARS-COV-2 also dies in about 14 days, if not earlier. In the case of my beloved watch, it was probably the number of inaudible ticks.
After about three years, it started showing obvious signs of deteriorating health. At first it came with the difficulty of charging: it required a lot of coaxing and persuasion to get it online. My son offered to replace it, but I declined. It went on like this for more than a year. Then it sometimes failed to read sleep data accurately.
Over time, the number of hours after which it had to be recharged began to decrease: from three to four days to 24 hours. Looking back, the turning point came when one day it showed that I had walked 536,884,083 steps. I knew something was seriously wrong, however, quite ironically, it resulted in me getting two daily step badges, namely the Bob badge (32,100 steps) and the Olympian Sandal (100,000 steps), the most difficult daily badges, at the same time . My accidental spurious achievement of over 500 million steps was certainly beyond comprehension and perhaps therefore beyond recognition. But the watch started behaving as normally as it could, after that, and I thought it was just a blip.
My watch died, ever so slowly, but the end came suddenly one day in the late afternoon. When I put it in charging mode; It refused to charge, and instead lost a little of the balance of the charged battery. Then suddenly there was a flash of lightning and he became cold.
I have since acquired a new, a younger and smarter group; But the comfort and adaptability of the old one is missing. May be, I have to start all over again with renewed vigor and extended life span.
vkagnihotri25@gmail.com