Your Password/Memory is weak

Wrong password. Try again or click ‘forgot password’ to reset it.
Five attempts later, I still wasn’t able to remember my password. My mind was blank and I was genuinely worried at this memory loss. Defeated, I clicked the ‘forgot password’ button but the hint questions made me even more suspicious about my mental health.

1. What was your most frequently visited place as a child?
Principal’s office, not by choice.

2. When is your anniversary?
I’m not married, this could be anything important ranging from first crush to first job to first time I ate pizza.
 
3. Where were you when you had your first kiss?
Principal’s office, again, not by choice.

My mind gave up and I stopped trying. I like the digital age but it is becoming too taxing to remember passwords for everything in life. Every action verb in my life (browse, eat, pay, shop, mail, play, love etc.) now requires a password and I can’t recall the last time I got a password right in the first attempt.
 
I tried to recall my associations, possessions and everything that I could base my password on. All the efforts were futile thanks to my friend Ankush who trained me to always set random passwords and gave me a clear dos and don’ts list for setting up a password. 

Dos 
1. Use words from Shakespeare’s work so that it never makes sense, even when someone tries to decode it.
2. Listen to rap songs, pick any words that you can interpret and jumble them to create a password. Over the years, you can even compose your own song using all the old passwords.
3. Use difficult words such as simultaneously, miscellaneous, hippopotamus. In today’s world of autocorrect, no one can spell them right. For a list of more difficult words, follow Shashi Tharoor on Twitter.

Don’ts    
1. Never use the name of your love interest. It’s unsafe and can cause a lot of other issues. My friends Warsi and Sukhi were discussing their passwords and it ended up being the same person. 
2. Never use passwords with more than 12 characters; it’s a password, not Ekta Kapoor’s TV show.
3. Never use references to things that you like. In fact, do the opposite and pick from your hate list. PandasAreCute is easy to guess, RatsAreEvil is not. Anyone can guess SRK143, no one can guess KRK007.

I was locked out of my account for 30 minutes for multiple unsuccessful attempts and it gave me time to retrospect. Like any matured adult, I googled to find an answer and soon discovered that I was suffering from ‘password fatigue’. Using multiple passwords for multiple purposes had taken its toll on me. I was relieved that it was science and not me. I was also worried about the future because techies were now developing password locks for house doors. I pictured myself in a situation where I would be struggling to guess my password while holding my pee.
 
I also cursed all those banking mailers for constantly reminding me to never share my password with anyone. One phone call to my mom would have solved this issue in an instant because she has an excellent memory and a thick telephone diary where she writes everything down. I also blamed all the useless utility apps on my phone. Why would someone hack my account to pay my electricity and phone bills? A 4 digit pin to use my credit card when I’m wasting the money and a 12 character password to show my statement to remind me about it, how this makes sense? 

Thirty minutes were over and I tried to answer the hint questions again. Jackpot! Shingnapur was the first place I ever travelled to as a child. I remembered this because I confused it with Singapore and carried my passport while going to this remote village of Maharashtra.
 
Past embarrassments can be present delights, I thought. I proceeded to reset my password and the app asked me to choose a strong password. Although I had a déjà vu feeling with this whole process, I recalled all the lifelong advices and decided to go with something simple. ‘Pizza_tu_ab_to_aaja’ (Pizza, please come soon) was my final choice and I entered, reentered my password. When I pressed the reset button, I physically experienced the meaning of the word fatigue. ‘New password cannot be the same as your old password’, it said.
(Sudhanshu Ramteke is a stand-up comedian)