Life sans mobile

After a long overseas trip, the first weekend in Kolkata was a tame affair sleeping off the effects of the jet lag and getting back in the groove but did miss a couple of dinners and events in the process. First there was the dinner with Mulayam Singh Yadav hosted by Kamal Gandhi on Friday. The other was the get together on Saturday to celebrate the 50th theatrical show of Chaturanga and then there was the dinner at The Conclave hosted by MLA Dinesh Bajaj on Sunday in honour of the Rajasthan Assembly speaker. However, I did manage to dine at The Souk in Taj and was really impressed by the new menu that they have only recently introduced.

I saw the movie Kites and felt that it was not cut out for the Indian audiences with all its sub-titles and Spanish. Although the actors have acted well and director Anurag Basu did full justice to the short story, script and the locales. But one thing was evident that in order to cater to the Indian audience’s taste for long movies the director resorted to lengthy chasing sequences especially the car chase scene. We missed Arpita our regular movie partner who is holidaying abroad (file picture). We usually discuss the finer points of every film we see together.

After coming to Kolkata everyone is complaining about my cell phone and asking me how to reach me. I fail to imagine how we managed to live when there were no cell phones around. Although my voice mail and SMS are active, most people find it difficult to communicate with me since most of us seldom ask or keep landline numbers or for that matter use it.

I am convinced that we are living in an era where our own inventions and devices have enslaved us with dependency bordering on the irrational. Cell phones can actually be very irritating at times especially in public places and theatres where people do not comply with requests to switch off their phone. It is sad but true that people obey such requests only when it is legally enforced.

I personally feel very irritated when I hear the ring tones of buzzing cell phones during somebody’s mourning and during baithaks. There was this incident in our extended family when one of our elderly relatives had died and it so happened that one of our relatives was talking on his cell phone while carrying the arthi on his shoulders. On hearing this my aunt, who lives in Canada, has given standing instructions to all of us that during her funeral anyone who cannot stay away from his or her cell phone, or at least turn it in silent mode, should not be allowed.

Honestly, I personally feel that my output has halved since the time I had to keep off the cell phone as advised and prescribed by one of the leading experts on the subject Dr Richard J Pyne. I have promised him that I would heed his advice and stay away from cell phones for 3 months and would use it only in case of emergency.

It is more than two weeks now but I don’t think I have missed something really important for not using the cell phone. Honestly speaking my stress level has decreased and my concentration has increased. Of course there are so many in our circle who do not respond the unknown numbers so I send them an SMS before calling up from my landline number. Heard that a new device has come in use which is like a landline phone but uses GSM SIM card. Let me see if I could get one.

ess bee