My First Love

You are in a great rush. You somehow climb in and grasp your last lost breath. You start looking around. There are people. Lots of people and in different lots. First is the lot of those who are lost in Peace. Those may be the thoughts of happiness or sadness, homes or offices, girlfriends or boyfriends, and lots many things. They care for nothing that’s going around. Second is the lot of those who are lost in Prints. Those may be newspapers, sudokus, crosswords, novels, study books (rare!) or even sewing machine & PAN card advertisements pasted around. They care for nothing that’s going around. Third is the lot of those who are lost in Pixels. Those may be of mobiles, I-pods, laptops, palmtops or Blackberry (Some people, because of its multifunctional nature, don’t consider it as a member of mobile family. So sad for the mobile clan to lose it’s most commendable member!!!). & ditto is for them also. (Never forget, there are also people begging, selling & dozing. But they are few.) And i am proud member of the third lot. I wouldn’t have called myself proud but for this new Nokia advertisement which shows how restlessness is an asset and the most important distinguishing factor of ours. Somehow, our mobiles define us.
Killing time is not as it was before. It’s now in many people’s to-do list. Its part of our 24 hours schedule & which else mode could be better than a mobile which that we have every time? Now, mobile is our part and not an accessory. SMSs & calls were, once upon a time, vital means of communication. But now we use them to kill time. Mobiles were rich affair then. But now, just like sky, mobiles are everywhere. A friend of mine tells me how his roomie has three cell phones. First one for his girlfriend to call on (Need I say that this is always engaged?????), second one for his parents to call on as their home landline has some friends’n’family plan activated for cheaper call rates (This is rarely used cause of first phone.) and third one for office work (This you have to strictly avoid on weekends & all other holidays.)
Accepting, even i am addicted to my cell phone. I just love my cell phone. I can’t live without it. Wait a minute…... if this continues, i might even stop calling it "it" and name it something just like Joe & Chan call their chair & TV by names Rosita & Steveie. Looking back in past, i know now, that it would have been horror if i didn’t have that straight black animal, taking only 90 deg turns & surviving on small pixels. That greenish yellow flickering screen was an antidote. It made me survive my PLs & my engineering books. Even now when i am stuck in between lines, i turn back to the Applications Menu of my cell. Only difference these days is that the Snake with enormous gigantic appetite has been replaced by a Sailor who is on a mission to save his fleet of ships from wrecking against the rocks. (For non-geeks, this game is made on same basis as Minesweeper & is called Seasweeper. And if you even don’t know what Minesweeper is, BBYE! Pack your bags and get back to your era. RED ALERT! Hurry! Byzantines have attacked your kingdom!!!) But the peace and leisure it brings is still the same.
Rewinding to a few years back, when something called a ringtone was heard, we looked here & there to see what that sound came from and how an owner of mobile phone looks. (No! I didn’t think that sound came from a spaceship. We aren’t going that back and that West.) But now when you hear a ringtone, you give a damn to it unless it’s something funky that you don’t have yourself. Actually, my fantasies for them have taken a low level. With my first mobile, i was crazy about these ringtones. I used to write down all 8b1 8.e2 16g2 8#f2 4e2…… so that i could keep updating to newer and cooler tones every time i wanted. I also remember sending Birthday Song ringtones, instead of SMSs, to my many friends. (If anyone wants them all, i still have them. Contact animesh.kulkarni@akersolutions.com). Sometimes even seven tones weren’t enough for my greed. But now when you can have tones of songs init, you care least of what actually rings when it rings. My roomie was another of the mobile-lover species. He had his collection of best SMSs. You name the occasion and he would set out options for you. I am sure; his craze is also now dead.
Time passed. Monotonous black-n-green displays changed to wifi enabled blue-toothed PDAs. The World spinned so many times and so did my feelings. My feelings turned from passion to love to affection & then to mere liking. But if it makes you feel any better, i need to confess it to TVS Scooty that not her, but you, Nokia, are my first love…..