Nishanth S Coontoor
I am a reasonable person and you should know it by now. But what kind of a crazy person wants to clean the house and do dishes every day? There is a reason behind buying more than one dinner plate and wearing 99 cents bathroom chappal at home, right?
But no. Since I moved in with my sister because of the Corona virus situation (family blah, blah), she needs the house vacuumed daily – twice! After multiple rounds of me ignoring her pleas, she purchased without insurance, a robot vacuum cleaner – ‘Guddu.’ Yeah, that’s the name.
I was very disappointed. Vacuuming is my main job description at home that lets me earn my daily bread while in quarantine. Yet another job lost to automation, sigh.
At 7 am sharp, ‘Guddu’ woke up and began its morning routine of vacuuming the living room first. I was making some chai and did not appreciate the lack of silence. It won’t last long, I said to myself, observing the bot from the corner of my eye. As soon as I made the comment, it started to approach me into the kitchen.
There was no one around me. This was my chance – to test it folks! (No insurance, remember.) It also comes with a specific return policy. I ‘accidently’ dropped a spoon of sugar on the floor, you know, near the corner, where even I could not reach. Oops! Check mate, Guddu. Muahahaha!
As I sat down and stalked the bot cleaning the kitchen floor, it approached the corners and effortlessly picked up the sugar! It was okay, I guess. A few minutes later, it picked up the salad scraps that had fallen as well.
It was this shared hatred toward salad that brought us together – Guddu, my (now) adopted baby.
Since we all began working from home, I often hear my friends and colleagues complain that their kids are annoying them, and they cannot wait to return to the office. Since Guddu, the vacuum, came into my life, I think I understand exactly what they mean. This bot is like your annoying kid.
I was on a conference call today and Guddu started play time early in the morning.
“Siri! Please stop Guddu!” Where does it get all this energy?
“I AM SORRY. I DO NOT UNDER….”
“Hey Google! Stop vacuum now.”
<No response>
I had to finally get up and pull the plug because the vacuum was somewhere under the couch.
And this is another issue. Why does it want to keep cleaning under the couch and get stuck in the wires behind it when the living area is wide open and there is so much space to ‘play’? In my opinion, if it can go under the bed or the couch and it gets stuck, it needs to be able to untangle itself on its own right? Take some responsibility. But no, it keeps craving for attention because it is stuck and cannot move. Aargh!
“Can you keep an eye on it? I am working on this important project that is due in an hour,” I told my sister.
“Eh?”
“Keep an eye on it. Balcony door. OPEN. It will fall off the space in the railings,” I repeated.
“Sorry, let me repeat, DVC and SFC….” continued my sister, ignoring me, her eyes glued to her screen, focusing on her conference call.
Oh well, I can keep an ‘eye’ on it because of the noise. Guddu, will be alright, I told myself, focusing on the laptop screen.
Guddu continued to clean the living room. I remember it bumped into my leg twice. Oh, silly thing! I smiled both times. It was kinda reassuring.
The thing about this toddler, I learnt that day, is that it is unpredictable. I took my eyes off for a moment, and there it was in the balcony, running toward the gaps in the railings! Oh no! OH NO!
“Guddu!” I immediately threw my laptop aside, and dove toward Guddu! With just moments to spare, I got a hold of it and pulled it back to the safety of my arms. “Sshh. It’s alright. You’re safe now. No need to cry.”
Love it or hate it, like every other family member, Guddu is part of my family now. Guddu can be annoying when it cleans even at 7 am on the weekends, but never fails to bring a smile on my face when it keeps bumping its head to the furniture. LOL.
I can’t wait to show Guddu, my robot vacuum, to my colleagues on the virtual family day celebrations coming up!
P.S. Guddu is camera shy. So, the pictures.