Stop! Thief! : Celestial Conversations - XXII
on
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Posted by
Rajesh J Advani
First: Celestial Conversation
Previous: Belief: Celestial Conversations - XXI
Next: One of Us: Celestial Conversations - XXIII
Previous: Belief: Celestial Conversations - XXI
God: Hello!
Me: Hi! You've been missing a long time now.
God: Someone's reported Me missing?
Me: No, no! I meant that I haven't seen You in a long time.
God: You haven't actually seen me, ever. This is the internet.
Me: Right, but You know what I mean.
God: And that is?
Me: Nothing!
God: You can't mean nothing. Or why would you bother to speak at all?
Me: Oh God!
God: What?
Me: I wasn't talking to You!
God: How many Gods do you believe in anyway?
Me: Hundreds I guess. I'm a Hindu.
God: Ah.
Me: Anyway. Where have You been?
God: Everywhere, of course. There's a reason they call Me Omnipresent.
Me: I mean, I haven't seen You online in a long time.
God: Yes. And?
Me: Why haven't I seen You online in a long time?
God: Oh, someone stole My laptop.
Me: Oh! So where are You chatting from now?
God: A computer in the school library.
Me: Ah.
God: Yes. It's quite hard.
Me: What, the computer?
God: No. Losing it.
Me: You've lost it?
God: I just told you, it got stolen!
Me: No, I meant that as a joke.
God: Joke? What joke?
Me: I... Never mind.
God: Whatever you say.
Me: So, did the cops say they could get it back?
God: No. They told me it was probably God's will.
Me: Strange cops. But why would You want Your laptop stolen?
God: That's exactly what I said!
Me: And?
God: They gave me funny looks.
Me: Of course they did. What else would You expect people to do if You go around saying You're God?
God: But I am God!
Me: So?
God: *sigh* So what was I saying?
Me: You were talking about Your laptop.
God: Ah, yes. I lost a lot of data.
Me: Like what?
God: Like telephone numbers, my address book, 50 recipes on how to make a meal out of bread and peanut butter, and the list of people who are allowed to be in Heaven.
Me: You need a list?
God: Of course!
Me: Why would You need a list?
God: To be able to tell if someone was living in Heaven illegally.
Me: Oh.
God: Yes. I had to start the list, after we realized that there was a pizza guy who had come to make a delivery and never bothered to leave.
Me: Ah. But aren't You supposed to use St Peter's Big Book for that?
God: Yes. We got an electronic copy after the Pope fiasco.
Me: Oh yes. So did The Pope get in, finally?
God: Oh, he got tired of waiting and went back to inhabit the new guy.
Me: Okay.
God: Yes.
Me: So You were saying You got an electronic copy of the Big Book.
God: Yes.
Me: And the original?
God: We had to destroy that. There can only be one Big Book.
Me: Really?
God: Yes. It's got something to do with copying from the right, or something.
Me: You mean copyrights?
God: That's what I said.
Me: Um...
God: Anyway. So we're in a bit of a soup now.
Me: Oh?
God: Yes. Everyone's arguing about how they think some of the others aren't really supposed to be in Heaven.
Me: Oh. And you didn't get any backup?
God: What didn't I get back?
Me: No, I meant, didn't you backup your data?
God: Backup?
Me: Yes?
God: What's Backup?
Me: It's copying your information somewhere else, for safety.
God: Like into a book?
Me: No, like on a CD.
God: Aren't CDs too small?
Me: Of course not. You could fit an encyclopedia onto a CD.
God: By writing very small?
Me: Hunh?
God: Aren't CDs these shiny pieces of plastic, a little bigger than the palm of your hand?
Me: Yes?
God: Well, if I wrote on one of them, I'd barely be able to fit the Ten Commandments on them.
Me: What?
God: And I'd have to use one of those felt-pen things. Pencils don't write very well on CDs.
Me: Eh?
God: And they're so shiny, I'm sure it'd be quite difficult to read from them. I think I'll just use a notebook.
Me: Um.
God: Call Me old-fashioned. I never really got the hang of technology, I guess.
Me: I'd have to agree.
God: It's a little hard to keep in touch with all the new things people keep inventing. Like the stuff they can do with a ringtone, for example. Makes My head spin sometimes.
Me: Right.
God: Anyway. I'll be off then. Must buy that notebook.
Me: Bye then.
God: Bye.
Next: One of Us: Celestial Conversations - XXIII
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11 comments:
Ah, a CC after a long time and a cool one at that.
So God had lost his laptop because of his own wish!!
But why is God been portrayed so dumb? Er, ignorant of technology. :)
Continuing my comment: I agree that God has always been shown in CC as naif. But this conversation in particular shows God as dumb.
interesting... i can imagine God baffled by human inventions
Nice to see the dialogues return after a long time. Interestingly a friend of mine in college had this idea for a book which contained conversations with God...God is about to destroy earth and the author is trying to justify that earth is actually a good place to live in. A kind of feel good book but it didn't go past a few pages I guess. This was way back in 2001, don't know whether he managed to complete it.
loverBoy: Now you know why God was missing for so long :)
Coming to your other question, I definitely haven't been trying to portray God as dumb!
As I tried to explain in the first couple of episodes in the series, God is supposed to know everything. Everything. As in, everything from before time started, to everything that will happen in the future, everything that could have happened, to everything that did not. His knowledge is infinite. Can you imagine the kind of time it would take to sift through information that was infinite, just to answer the question - "What is your name?"
So, God chooses to remember only a few things at a time. So that there's less information to search through. The concept - in computing terms - is analogous to the use of cache for quick access to frequently used data from the RAM, and the use of RAM to quickly access information frequently needed from the hard-disk.
Of course, if I'm speaking to God about something that he currently doesn't remember, He thinks it would be impolite to make me wait fifteen minutes for a response. So he just asks. Sometimes he doesn't wait for the answer, and yes, He assumes a lot, but I think that's quite adorable. Don't you? :)
I mean why should God remember that the word 'writing' means something else when you use it with respect to a CD? It's our fault for inventing a language where a single word can mean so many different things :)
Thanks for asking the question, though :)
Swathi: Thanks! I think we humans too get baffled by our own inventions and discoveries. No? :)
pagala'k': Thank you! I remember reading an article/story on Sulekha a few days before I wrote the first "Celestial Conversation". The story was about God talking to a man, and explaining to him how disappointed he was with people. I found the whole thing a little too preachy, and decided to write my own version of a conversation with the Almighty :)
The idea for the book your friend was writing sounds quite interesting. :) Reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where a bunch of aliens appear and tell a people in the United Nations that they created Earth millions of years ago and were going to destroy it in 30 minutes because they were tired of the mess people had made of the planet and that humans were a failed race. I loved the ending of that one :)
I am so glad i found GOD finally. Was missing him and yes, He is adorable :)
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"It's our fault for inventing a language where a single word can mean so many different things".
Now, thats a cool thought. Like both 'hot' and 'cool' mean the same thing.
About God be adorable, he definitely is. He had been in all the CCs.
Thanks for the reply :)
fun stuff... :-)
Seeing that he(or she, for the politically correct among us) is not the best when it comes to technology, you should prolly do a lil hand-holding when he goes to best buy. Just to make sure he gets the biggest bang (pun not intended) for his buck :)
Kumari: Thank you! Me was missing him too!
Saba: Thanks! Will check it out when I get a chance.
loverBoy: That's true :) Hot and Cool do mean the same thing! And you're welcome :)
Leon: Thanks!
Devdutt: Well, actually he got his first big bang for free :)
I guess it helps to do something so large scale at a time when money hasn't been invented yet :)
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