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)...