My first computer was a Macintosh. I spent 14 hours glued to it the first time it arrived at home in 1996. With its easy to use interface (goodbye DOS) and a little wonder called the mouse, I remember thinking “this is magic!”
I also loved to carry around a bagful of mixed-tapes and a walkman with me. It made my bag heavy and finding specific songs was a chore. How I used to wish carrying my music around would be easier. I remember getting dressed for college and getting a surprise from my dad’s best friend Vivek Basrur (founder, DIREM). He had dropped in on his way back from the airport.
“I bought something in Paris and I think you want to see it,” he said. It was the iPod. I spent three hours glued to it. “This is magic!”
Vivek kaka lost a battle with cancer the following summer and my father lost his best friend.
For my father’s birthday that year, us sisters bought him the iPod classic, not before wondering if we should buy the special U2 edition. And my dad said, “This is magic.” He told me a few years later that it was the best gift he had ever gotten. That was my proudest moment and it was made possible by Mr Jobs.
A few years later, I hated lugging around a mobile phone, digital camera and my iPod. You launched the iPhone. I was broke, but I wanted it bad. I found a job, saved money and bought myself the iPhone 3G. It was magic — music, phone, camera, instant messenger — all rolled into one. The iPhone changed my life.
Then there was a MacBook Pro that my sister and I bought at a very crowded Apple Store in Miami. To commemorate our first purchase from an Apple Store, we clicked a picture — much like the one we clicked in Disneyland with Mickey Mouse. Why, because whenever you buy an Apple product, it is a moment of magic. It is a moment to remember because you know your life is going to change. That Apple store became my Disneyland.
Recently my sister got me the iPad2 from the Apple store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. She took the liberty of opening it to name it “Magic”. And I take the liberty here to quote a loving note she left in the box for me. “Wheee! You are now a proud owner of Magic.”
Yes, that’s what Steve Jobs did for us. He gave us the possibility of owning magic, he gave us the ability to aspire and in doing so he became an inspiration. Even today, my idea of success is to be able to own every Apple product possible.
But then there is a bigger joy that Jobs gave me as a child — Woody and Buzz. I don’t need to repeat how Jobs transformed Pixar, but when Pixar was acquired by Disney, I was thrilled. Not because Jobs was the largest shareholder in Disney but because by this merger, the two men who inspire me to dream and inspire me to smile — Steve Jobs and Walt Disney — merged together under one roof.
And somewhere up there today, these two men are watching the dreams they sowed into their organisations bear fruit. Jobs may not be alive in the physical sense but he continues to live on my desktop, in my palms and in my aspirations.
Originally posted to DNAIndia.com
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