Tags:
Journalism of Courage
I have occasionally come across warnings in crowded market places, enjoining us to beware of 8220;mobile thieves8221;. They made me wonder philosophically if thieves could ever afford to be stationary. But the warning actually refers to pickpockets who could potentially steal my mobile phone.
Vibhishan, the enemy, is proverbially nurtured inside our very homes. Likewise, thieving is ingrained within the mobile phone8217;s very system. I fell prey to a gambit by a glitzy, fluorescent advertisement that inspired me to buy a thousand-rupee pre-paid mobile card.
It was many hours before the junior-most person in the phone company condescended to speak to me. My rising frustration and anger made her relish wielding power over me. Her computerised record said that I had spoken to an astrologer at one of the ten important numbers stored in the phone for over nine hours that day! The pulse rates of those numbers are also commensurately higher, although they are no more earth-shatteringly important than dial-a-pizza or taxi service.
Swallowing all the choicest expletives I felt like unleashing on her, I protested I had a fixed salary and sceptical views, and was unlikely to seek astrological advice at astronomical rates! Unflustered, she replied that people of all classes and creeds swear by astrology. Not even scanning the astrologer8217;s record to see if he had simultaneously attended a marathon call from me could prove my innocence.
To this day, their main office continues to send me a standardised e-mail reply, 8220;thanking8221; me for writing to them and promising they would 8220;urgently8221; look into the matter. In the bargain, however, I have acquired an expertise, for I have detected the real mobile thief.
