Trapped by 10 digits...

Ever wondered how much we rely on our mobile phones ? this is February 2008, and i got my first mobile phone in August 2004. Thats way way after about 90 % of the people in my class had got theirs. Not that i didnt want one before, but Dad kept putting me off with the reason, that i stayed at home and had access to a landline. My classmates were from outside Pune, and none of them had landlines, so a mobile was a necessity for them.

I remember arguing with my father that a mobile phone is a necessity for EVERYONE. I also remember when the day I bought my phone, I told my friend John that I will never ever be found saying " Oh.. I wish I could just switch my phone off and throw it away.. Its such a pain in the As*.. People can find you wherever you are... etc etc ". But now i realize how stupid I was.

Having a mobile phone makes you liable to answer it. Were we born with a 10 digit number for people to reach us wherever we are ? Nope. In the good old times when there were no mobile phones, a girl and a boy, very much in love used to die for that daily secretive 20 min conversation on a landline when the parents are either out of the house or busy.. If you had a cordless phone, you were lucky , You could out onto the balcony or into the confines of your room...That anticipation of the dreaded click when your parents would pick up the parallel line... where is all that these days ? Now i see couples msging each other 50-75 times a day, and yet constantly fighting, bickering, always dissatisfied.

I remember studying on my table and then suddenly hearing my name being called out from the road below, peeping out, seeing a friends face.. going down to have chat.. The unexpectedness of it all... Now you make a plan, and en route you will receive an sms either modifying it or canceling it. I remember going for DDLJ in 1995 with 15 of my friends and almost all of us reached the theater separately and on time. No confusion.

Am i too much of a cynic? Maybe. Yes the mobile phone does have its advantages, the most important being , being of use in an emergency.But i haven't heard of anyone suffering massive loss of life and/or property in the old days, just because they couldnt make a phone call.

As my Dad says... on a landline, you will never be low on battery, you will never have a Busy Network and u can stop worrying about scratching or losing your phone !!!
I guess Dads know best.