Phoney Tales!!

Have you heard of anyone whose phone dies because it got dropped in a glass of milk? And then two subsequent phones got dunked in water and died a pretty much instantaneous death? Of cos a couple in between got lost too!


You haven't? Well Here I Am!! *bowing as gracefully as I can* (which isn't much, the grace that is! Come to think of it even bowing is difficult when your tummy refuses to fold under pressure! Sigh!)

I am wondering if they will give me place in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Being said in that weird baritone used for such shows;

"This woman seemed like a normal woman. But who knew she had a very special form of OCD. Her house could be filthy and her kid running around muddy. Yet, she obsessed over cleanliness of her phone. When the condition got out of control, she went and tried to wash her phone in water and making it squeaky clean, only to realise after the moment had passed that ANOTHER of her phones was gone! Just like that! Just like the previous one actually!

Keep your phones AWAY from her!"

But seriously! Its been 6 phones in past 4 years. That's the reason I refuse to buy expensive phones with camera shamera! I have decided and now M has totally agreed that I do not deserve a phone that costs more than 2500bucks.

Yet, its not just about the money(That hurts too!)! What I really HATE the most is losing all the numbers I have collected over a period of time. I can't even remember the days when we used to have phone diaries where we noted down all the numbers in alphabetical order! My parents still have one of those and they meticulously note down numbers in that apart from the phone even today. Smart move I must say.

This time was the worst. I didn't have a single number saved on my SIM card. Imagine my horror when I put the sim in my new phone, the phone book was blank! :( I wonder how long will it take me to get the numbers back. Will I this time at least take some kind of back up?

How did we survive before cell phones, I wonder sometimes.

When I was kid, even landlines weren't so common. Only a couple of houses in our building had them. Only closest people got that number, so that they could call for any emergency. If a call came, some one from that house would call us and we would go running wondering what happened. If on rare occasions we had to make calls, we would pay 1 buck for the phone call which wasn't meant to last more than a couple of mins.

I still remember the time when cell phones had just arrived in India. People paid 16bucks even for an incoming call! It was SUCH a status symbol to own one. The phones themselves were so BIG compared to ones we use today. I remember my dad had a black Motorola phone that by today's standard weighed in tons! Then his second Motorola was a flip phone. I though it was coolest thing in the world. I remember some guy was making crank calls to me on our landline. There was no caller ID on the landline and getting info from the exchange would take ages. My dad diverted the landline to cell phone. Next time the guy called the number flashed. My dad called back the number and gave him sounding of his life! :)

I gifted M a Nokia 3310 I think which was the only phone I could afford at 5000 bucks considering my salary was 4500! He was SO shocked. I was rather disappointed to not see him super happy and excited. But then those were the days of commitment phobia and all that jazz! An expensive gift like that meant serious commitment is expected! :p

A couple of years down the line he bought me my first cell phone (I used my dad's for a bit! The Motorola flip!). So instead of exchanging rings, we gifted each other cell phones! ;)

Today the mobile phone has become indispensable in our lives. We are a button away from being in touch with people who matter. We text every breaking and mundane news in our life to our friends! We send out mass wishes on festivals and make sure we get in touch with just about everyone at least couple of times a year. We exchange sweet nothings with that special one. We make up after fights on sms sometimes. We capture some precious memories with the cameras in the phone. We get nervous if we don't have our phone with us for some reason, or when we cant get in touch with someone right away.

Yes, it is a pain too. Especially when you get calls just when you are having that niiice dream during your afternoon siesta! Or when you are watching a flick thats keeping you glued to the seat. Or taking a vacation and you see office number flashing. Or when you have to tell a back Nth time, you don't need their credit card/loan/insurance etc politely because they too are doing their job.

It has also made it easier to lie through our teeth! Boss calls say I am on my way for a meeting. Client calls say I am stuck in traffic even if you are still snoozing at home. Parents call tell them I am stuck in office while you are canoodling with your sweetheart they don't know about!

It is of course a source of entertainment too! Either playing your favourite FM station or if you have a high end phone, you can play the favourites in your own song list! It's used to distract your baby while you feed him/her taking help of even ring tones to get some food down the gullet!

I think cell phones have been the biggest entrants in our homes after the idiot-box and now we can't even imagine living without it.

The status symbol bit remains even today, but now its not about owning one (considering everyone from your VP to bai owns one), its about WHICH one do you own?! People ask me why don't I at least buy a cell phone with camera and blue tooth?!

And then I remember one of our cousin's dialogue when asked the same question.

The day a phone starts washing clothes also, I will buy that. Till then a phone that lets me call and sms is more than enough!

I won't be surprised if someday even that happens!