Where's my phone?...

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone at home when I went to work. It was quite an interesting experience to not have constant rings and messages all through the day. In fact I quite liked not having a phone around. I was able to focus on my work and did not feel the constant urge to sms or generally talk to people.

It also reminded me of the time when cell phones were not present, but the concept of a cell phone was known. (Yes, I’m ancient. I’ve actually seen days when you had to go all the way to a phone booth [shudder] when you had to call someone.) When they first came in, cell phones were exorbitantly priced, talktime was way WAY expensive. And you had to pay for incoming calls.

I got my first cell phone in…hmm…I don’t really remember but I think it was towards the end of second year when we were organizing Technodrome in DCE. That puts it at 2000. But it wasn’t my cellphone. It was my sister’s and she lent it to me for the duration of the event when we really needed a tool for prompt communications (“Speaker has cancelled at the last minute!”, “Princi refused money for the event!”, “Bhookh lag rahi hai (I’m hungry :))”). (Also, those were the days when you could lend your phone to your kid brother for a few days without feeling lost or suffering from withdrawal symptoms - According to ABC News, "A recent study showed that 40 percent of people surveyed can't cope without a cell phone, 35 percent of people used cell phones to escape their problems and 7 percent blamed the cell phone for a lost relationship or job. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/90093/cell_phone_addiction.html ))

I finally got my own cell phone after an year or so. I’d got this pretty cool GD 40 Panasonic cellphone. It had a joystick. It was the absolute epitomy of cool at that point in time. Touch screens? Stylus? I-think-about-it-and-it-dials? Bah, nothing in comparison to a joystick feature. A speck really, really!

Anyway, after that cellphones became quite natural and lost their exclusivity. My Panasonic phone stayed with me for nearly 4 years. I got an O2 when I started earning but it never gave me the kick that my GD 40 gave me. And after a couple of unfortunate incidents which led to the said O2 disappearing from my hands (http://swappinglives.blogspot.com/2007/05/bangalore-rains.html ) I bought a safe and sleek Motorola L6i. Cheap, easy to manage, all features but not interesting enough to want to use them, most importantly slim enough to slide in your pocket (yes, try carrying a bricklike O2 in your pocket for a few months before raising a finger against me!)

And now I saw the iphone. Sigh its just so sexy.

But no, I do not want to buy another expensive phone again. Especially not a chunky one.

So there!


But I wouldn’t mind being gifted one (looking around with an expectant twinkle in my eyes.)