Roomba Vs. Rambha bai! ;-)

A couple of months ago, Silvi and I ordered the Roomba Vacuum cleaner online after almost Zero research. Well, if you must know, Silvi ordered me to get it and I merely placed the order. ¿La Inspiración? - Venky and Soumya ofcourse...the two people who always somehow impossibly manage to surf on the bleeding edge between being nerdy and supercool!! But I digress :-) Anyway, the unit arrived smartly packed (it's a robot after all!) a couple of days later.

After the initial gaa gaa over it, charged the baby up and let it run....and were reasonably happy with the results. It was a bit of a chore for sure... "Roomba proofing" the house.....akin to "baby proofing" the house when you have a little one doing the honours. The first couple of times, it tried to eat cellphone chargers and the somewhat thin floormat in the kitchen. Luckily, we caught it in time to prevent it from ingesting it and getiing a belly ache, the poor thing! Actually, we were more worried about the daughter-of-a-biatch's rotors heating up and burning the carpet, the apartment and us along with it!! :-) Did you notice how smartly and seamlessly I went stereotypical on the gender? :-)

Now that we've figured out what she behaves like, we're in a decent shape to let her run without supervision....but I still have a few grouses here and there...

* IRobot corporation could have done a better job in the shape of the Roomba....kaamwali hain to yaar kuch voluptuous figure to banao instead of the flat plastic disc!! I am reminded of the "Rambha Bai" in the movie Pushpak Viman trying to entice Kamal with her you-know-what!!! Arre, it was a silent movie yaar...and my literary licence permits me to use that name!
*Even on an online sale, the Roomba cost us 140$...I'm sure Rambha bai would happily do it for much lesser. And I know for a fact that Rambha bai would not ask me for replacement filters and other maintenance parts...not to mention me cleaning her every 5 uses!! (which by the way is a whole another blog!)
* Needless to say, the Roomba only does floors..no utensils, going to the grocery store....nothing! nada....zippo!!
*Roomba makes a few weird beeping sounds and happily chews on wires and carpets...Rambha would wish a poilte namaste chewing banarasi paan!! (in my dreams!)
*Roomba has built in sensors to detect bigger chunks of dirt (but picks up smaller messes anyway) and a somewhat pre-programmed path (while it figures out the dimensions), whereas Rambha bai is very skillful in cleaning only visible areas of dirt coz she has another 5 houses to get to in the mornings!!
* one other plus point for Roomba is it doesn't need the lights on....Rambha is not designed to work that way! atleast for cleaning....here I go again!! :-)

Now that I have given you a few examples....I think Rambha bai wins this round of the contest!! Dare to prove me otherwise? :-)