A G8T (great) way to SIT (stay in touch)

The 24X7 Public Megaphone: This species is a bit like the first, but with an important difference. We all know what they are talking about, in fact the WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD knows what they are talking about since they use their cellphones like megaphones. Every moment of their lives is meticulously documented in the LOUDEST possible tones. It is precisely in situations where silence is enjoined — a cinema hall, or railway compartment, for instance — that their vocal excitement hits new highs: ‘‘Haan, ji. We are 100 kilometers from the station. Now we are 95 km away, 92…91….We have reached the big hill just outside the city, haan, haan. We should now be 90 kilometers away. They have just announced that we will be reaching at 10.15, so that means we must be 85 km away. Haan, haan, 82 now…’’ All this delivered, football commentator style, at 150 words a minute.

The Dexterous Texter: Some time in those ten years of mobile telephony, short mail messaging caught on like wildfire. We began to acquire an extended thumb pad to match our expanded ear lobe. Texting is relatively benign activity — unless of course you choose to punch in the scintillating message, ‘Happy New Year’, to a hundred friends just when 10 million others have the same uniquely brilliant idea. This surge of goodwill could drive a good-sized cellular service into breakdown mode. There is also reason for some anxiety on the impact that texting messages (to fit the 160-character ceiling of most cellphones) has on basic grammar and comprehension. If something as simple as the word ‘great’ comes across as ‘GR8’, if vowels are to be banished from human expression, we are in great trouble. It’s indication that we may all reside in a Babelian dystopia some day soon. GI? G’tt’t?

The Ringtone Maniac: Tell me what your ringtone is, and I’ll tell you who you are. The really patriotic, for instance, go for ‘Jana Gana Mana’ or ‘Sare Jahan se Achcha’; the classical types opt for Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ or Ravi Shankar’s Raag Todi. The experimental lot choose hard rock, while technologically-challenged folk like me stick to the standard tunes that come with the cellphone. The peskiest, certainly, are those who insist on having Bollywood pour out of their handsets: The ‘What is your mobile number, what is your smile number..?’ type. They are also the same ones who appear to switch on their mobiles the moment they are told to switch them off at a public meeting. So while we are in the midst of a dissertation on the Tenth Plan, a cellphone in one corner splutters, ‘Pyar hua, ikrar hua,/ pyar se phir kyon darta hain dil?’

The Mobile Salesman: This tribe we are, of course, familiar with. By the dint of trawling through discrete personal data, they have managed to locate your phone number and now entreat you (at periodic intervals of four days or so) to consider a bank loan, housing loan, car loan, personal loan, employment loan. Not interested? How about credit cards, debit cards? Not interested? How about bank loans with a Singapore holiday thrown in? Not interested? How about a debit card with a free Alto? Not interested? Okay, then how about a debit card, without the Alto? No?

There is a whole universe of cellular creatures out there, and it’s scary. Call it the Revenge of the Ring, if you want, but these creatures did not exist even eleven years ago. Cataloging them would require an entire platoon of trained anthropologists. As for me, I’ve run out of space. So SIT (stay in touch). I will BBLR (be back later).