The Phone Guy

“Yesh... this phone I got......blah blah blah”...

It is a very rare thing to find a half-decent restaurant in Tamil Nadu... or atleast in the locality in which we were staying. So, when I finally chanced upon one with my family, we immediately took a table and were looking forward to a quiet family dinner, enjoying each others company and relishing on some good food. But all this was not to be. A short while after we took a table, another group walked in and sat next to us. What I gathered was that the man of the house had decided to treat a couple of his colleagues to dinner and had decided to bring his wife and son with him. The man looked about 40...maybe 45. As they promptly made their order for what later “resembled” a chicken sizzler, the man(lets call him Arjun[for the sake of that being the name of the only Tamilian I know]) began his discussion of his new purchase- a certain Nokia N-series model.(My eyes failed to identify which one)

“Bluetooth... Waaaaifaaaai...Wieeerless... and daaaataaa transfer, this phone has it all” said proud Arjun. “Look at modern day technalaagy, eesent eet extra aardinaary.” There began his lecture, and it finally ended (much to his disappointment) when his meal had arrived. And yah, he spoke really fast (and when I say really fast Tamil, I mean... yah... you get the picture)

Friend A, having no option but to be polite asked him, “So how is camera?".

It was almost as if god himself had parted the clouds and poked his shiny little torch through and focused his beam straight on to Arjun. With a smile that can only be described as... err... eerie... he began yet another lecture, which seemed to go on and on until the end of time, or at least until we were done with dinner. I was fed up with Arjun by then. It was probably the umpteenth time that he had sat his new toy upon the table on his portable mobile stand (yes... he carried one with him) and playing his “elegant” choice of songs and demonstrated the phones video playback capabilities. Finally, when we were about to leave, a question on ringtones came up and his friend decided to call Arjun to see how his phone responded to a call (I feel his colleagues were quite fed up just as me, but showing interest in his new toy was probably the least they could have done to repay him for such an hospitable treat) Finally, Friend B took out his own phone (Not an expensive fancy like Arjuns, of course) and he made the call. Looking perplexed, he put pulled his phone from his ear and looked at Arjun with a very confused look. Arjun, (probably blushing, - I said ‘probably’ because his skin tone really did not permit me to judge) with an embarrassed look, said in a voice quite different to the one he had used when demonstrating his phone, “Akhthualee, my phone nambar haws temforaaarily beein deeskanektad”.

Note from the Editor (1): A phone which has every damn thing apart from the ability to call or receive. How so truly it defines its very basic use. So, today, do we not give more importance to the features of a phone rather than its fundamental property? Why call it a ‘phone’ at all if you can’t use it to make calls?

Note from the Editor (2): I had negative balance for almost a week. Talk about Daily Hypocrites!(Weekly, if you must)...

5/4

On finally visiting Kanya Kumari I was enthralled not by the rainfall we experienced 24X7, not by the supposed theory of seeing different colours of sand or the sea(?!?!?!) but by the shear power of cell phone games and how they can keep you addicted for hours at end. But when I finally did decide to step outside the hotel premises and climb atop the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, I was stunned. On being quite bored after the first hour of my visit to the rock memorial, I turned my sight sea-ward... rather rock-ward and noticed a simple percussion beat, a four four being played out between the sea and the rocks. As I stretched my gaze northwards, my eyes stumbled across a beautiful rock piece jutting out to sea. On it I saw a thousand years (or more) of work by mother nature herself, represented in the form of a carved out shallow basin... and as my eyes rested on this work of beauty I saw a complete 5/4 beat being played out in almost perfect periodic timing as in the form of waves crashing against the rock piece. As the turbulent sea threw herself onto the rock, some of the water was duly held in the basin and the rest flowed out in the form of a mini-waterfall. This resulted in the first half of the bar. Water from the basin leaked out and crashed against the approaching wave resembling an accented snare beat. The final bit of the bar was completed as the approaching wave crashed against the rock itself. Being a percussionist myself, I was moved by the musical piece being played out by Mother Nature. It kind of led to the formation of a distorted image of a woman covered in leaves and petals sitting behind a five-piece drum kit. Ahh... the power of imagination coupled with boredom.

Note from the Editor: I have written this article of which many terms (and possibly,the whole article as a general) may seem meaningless to you. Does this make me one of the "neo-bloggers" from my earlier post,"The Intelligentsia"? So is the editor in chief hypocrite being hypocritical in the blog primarily based on social hypocrites about hypocrisy. Get the paradox??

The Intelligentsia

Blogging these days have become the new fad. The neo-bloggers have become quite a source of entertainment (at least for me)... It’s their meaningless "meaningful poetry", their pointless "points on philosophy" and their critical assessments of blogs filled with nothing which have made them the modern day bogging hypocrites. It’s not only because they like to string long complex words together but then they go around expressing their 'profound' thoughts with them and finally sensationalizing their blogs. What's even funnier is when inspired bloggers like themselves go about deducing great meaning from their piece of literature and express their thoughts on their piece. Words like "WOOOOOW!" (Which even the neo-bloggers must agree, doesn’t exist in their famed dictionaries) and "AAAAH!" are frequently used to express their amazement at such pieces of "artistic literature"...

Soon enough the inspired bloggers become the induced bloggers producing even more artistic bullshit which more often than not is their sole way of making their so called "intellect" public. The induced bloggers now become the inducing bloggers; advertising their blogs (in other words, themselves) and making the new inspired bloggers stand shocked and in awe. (or as Hitch so rightly said - shockingly awful.) So the new inspired bloggers become the new induced bloggers and subsequently it’s the inducing bloggers who become the neo-bloggers and device new means of showcasing their “intellect”. (Confused much?) A new method of publishing bullshit becomes a competition among Le Idiots. It’s a race to more "blog visits" coupled by “original ideas". In this amazing race, neo-bloggers suffer great amounts of stress (because they feel their great potential has led to even greater expectation) and rack their brains out, cause after all, they have to contribute to society. Finally, when Le Idiots suffer 'writer’s bock' they are forced to cycle through all blogs possible in search of "original" ideas. With their new piece of work a couple of click away, Le Gods begin with a simple ctrl+A, ctrl+C and ctrl+V procedure. With Microsoft Word providing a thesaurus with a single right click, we are reminded of the Friends episode in which Joey writes a parent evaluation of Chandler and Monica. Walla - their work is complete. It’s exactly the "bullshit" they had ordered. All that’s left is to make sure everybody knows about it. Orkut with their multi-scrap option becomes so damn helpful, doesn’t it? Now to just sit back, relax and wait and watch as the world realises that Wordsworth has been reborn.