Mobile menagerie

-
My mobile stories do not end. I am forever in search of a new mobile phone. The reason is not that I am excited about new technology but because I am forever unhappy with my phone. The past two times I have had an iPhone 5 and 6. Lost the first one in the desert sands of Dubai. With the iPhone 6, I have lived in the fear of  loosing it. I have been so alert that I was stressed. I got used to its newness but was always scared that I will drop it. I bought the golden iPhone but put a cover on it so as no harm comes to it. I think I took care of this one more than I took care of my children and it is perfectly okay to exaggerate things. I was just glad that I had an original iPhone cover and not the multi coloured covers everyone around me, has been using. After taking care of the phone so much, I had to keep deleting pics all the time even on a holiday. I hardly downloaded any apps except Whatsapp for friends and school Mom groups and Camscanner for clicking homework and sending to a Mom of a child who missed school. I never downloaded a game or a song as I could never figure iTunes. Later, I could barely hear on the phone. The picture quality was good but since I did not buy the 64GB, my pics would not fit. The battery kept getting drained and I was on 'low battery' so often.

Then I got another phone. It has limitless memory for pictures. It is all wow according to all the reviews. The camera is great. And I am still unhappy. This time because my phone is silver and not golden . It is heavier than my earlier phone. And it is not as simple as the iPhone. Now I remember the husband saying that you won't like another phone after an Apple. I was desperate to get out of Apple. Now I cannot FaceTime. There is no iMessage service to the child's iPad when I am out of the house. Cannot expect people to download Duo in their already bursting to the seams mobile phones. iPhone truly is a dumb man's phone, I am not saying it, a friend told me this. It is extremely simple to use and very less keys to be pressed for any action. I realise the difference only now when I have switched away from it. I have a 'state of art' phone and I am still cribbing and comparing. I was clear I wanted to move out of Apple but now I am not sure of the wiseness of my choice. In fact, friends were thinking I was weird as I was unhappy with the old and new phone. 

This episode has made one thing very clear, in life, things do not make us happy. They have a purpose in our life and we should restrict it to that. Happiness is really within and I have got it flat, now. When our basic relationship with a certain thing is not good, how much ever we keep changing it, it will continue bothering us. For me, things take a human form and I start having attachment or dislike towards it. That is such a waste of emotion and cause of stress. Why can't a phone be just that? Why does it have to overtake my life? Why does the landline keep getting spoilt? We were so happy with just one phone for a family of eleven members and there was so much love. What is there to check ongoinly on Facebook, whatsapp, Instagram and Twitter? What will happen to the world, if I do not get some news or information? Why have I become so dependant on the mobile phone? Why do I feel the need to react to people's pictures, jokes or forwards? Can I change the world with my phone? I do not know if I am capable of that. But I can surely use it as a gadget and nothing more. Like I use the Mixer Grinder only if I need to grind a paste or juice in the kitchen, why can't I have the same with my phone? Use it only when needed then put it away in its place. Use it only for a little while. I do not keep staring at my microwave oven or my mixer grinder then why is this urge to keep looking at the phone screen every few minutes? I am not someone who ever watches Television, then why do I need the mobile phone constantly? Is it because I am looking for some friends or some friendship? Why is it that people who do not take my calls, reply to my messages real fast? What kind of relationships I am having with the people in my life? Points to ponder upon before I sleep. Have we become a menagerie for the mobile phones? 

Comments

  1. BhartiMay 16, 2017 at 11:23 AM

    Nice write-up...very relevent to emotion of ppl in present....the answer is addiction,we r addicted to our mobile phones...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Parul KanseMay 17, 2017 at 4:56 AM

    Thank you, Bharti. Mea culpa.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BhartiMay 17, 2017 at 11:27 AM

    These days i am trying to follow the steps ur granny and ur father followed of being positive...thanks for sharing the golden steps with us..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nange Paon in Navratri

-
When I was working and staying in the hostel, I kind of stopped believing in most festivals and rituals. I thought all this was some weird things which people did, it had no scientific base and why should I follow anyone. In the college hostel, vacations were time to go home and not connected with any festival except Diwali. Sophia College hostel was a cocoon in the heart of South Mumbai. The campus with an old palace building was a quiet oasis with trees and birds, in the mayhem of Mumbai. No festival touched it unless the college celebrated it. The Polytechnic had rock shows and one Dandiya night every year, which it soon stopped having by 1988. Only celebration was the Vegetable Biryani in lunch on Sundays. The Polytechnic hostel did not even believe in pampering the children with food. Memories of bread being there round the clock for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. For them, while the non vegetarians ate eggs for breakfast, the vegetarian had bread. And then when non vegetaria
Read more

Antakshari

-
Today we were playing antakshari at the Holi get together. We did not know any new songs so naturally only the golden melodies were being sung. The whole generation playing antakshari was singing the similar era songs on the alphabets they got. I realised a couple of things. In English language there is no game like Antakshari. How many sentences end with I or The? How can you sing when most songs start with I, The, Once, When and How?I cannot resist explaining the game, we all grow up with, in India. Antakshari means Ant : end , Akshar: alphabet ie last letter of the word. Akshar also means God. It also means God has the last word. Its a game with two teams and we call the teams as  'party'.  We say "Baithey baithey kya karein, karna hai kuchh kaam, shuru karo antakshari , le ka Hari ka naam." Translated from Hindi, We are sitting idle, lets do some work, lets start antakshari, starting with God's name. In Indian games, there is a lot of religion or belief in Go
Read more

Shraddh period in Hinduism

-
According to the Hindu calendar, this is the shraddh period going on.  For fifteen days in a year, the ancestors are remembered and prayed to. No auspicious events / ceremonies take place in this time. People use the tithi/date of death to invite a Pandit and feed the departed soul. It means you remember the person passed away, give food to the Pandit and the crows. People keep a cooked meal on the terrace. They try to make the favourite food of the departed person. My memories are of my Grandma mixing and crushing all the savouries with her hands and when it was in form of  a paste, my Uncle would go to the terrace and throw the food for the crows. Crows in Hinduism are considered messengers of the departed souls. A lot of people feed Gathiyas to the crows for the full year. If your ancestors are happy, then your life goes well ,is the general belief amongst Hindus. The shraddh period falls exactly between Ganpati and Navratri. One does not buy a house or have a wedding in this time.
Read more