Eat mobile, sleep mobile…Stay connected

‘Tring… Tring… helooo’

Have you ever though of leaving behind your cellphone for a day. If you mistakenly left it back at home for the day, you would prefer to go back and get it or would be worried about missing some important calls. We may afford to leave our lunch box behind but not the mobile phone. With the increasing number of mobile users, it is a daily pill for us to stay connected with friends, home and office. We have become addicted to it to a great extent.

Well this sweet pill seems to be very bitter for us many a times. How? Innumerable unwanted calls and the tracking feature of this gadget… especially when there are those mundane calls from your boss who wants to find the status where are you… not to forget the pesky calls for credit cards, insurance and loans.

Well according to a marketing manager in a leading media house- ‘mobile is the lifeline for him’. “I am on 24X7, 365 days,” he replies with a grin. What he actually means is his mobile is always on, not he… is that the meaning? Well, that’s with each one of us. I do not even remember the last time I switched off my phone since I bought it, leaving aside the hours in the flight and when the battery drained out.

Leaving aside your cellphone for a day would mean huge loss of business for many of us and for journalists it will be no access to news. We are a 218 million voice connected family now. One of the fastest growing telecom industry globally… isn’t it amazing? We are adding 5 to 6 million new mobile subscribers monthly.

No much to say, its not very far when we will have chips embedded in to our brain and would no longer have the pain to carry one. But we still want to stay connected…

The Freedom Bells'

‘School’, the word really hits each on of us. Everyone presumes that its one of the best days in our life, well even I do agree… we can call it a carefree cool life. There are many instances which I still recollect and well all of us really do that.

Looking back to those days I really miss them a lot. There are certain instances, which are worth remembering. When I was a kid, in my Nursery class (which no longer exist in schools) once I happen to run away from the school. Our school situated around three kilometers from my place. My brother and me usually take the school bus, but on that day my brother was unwell and I had to go to school alone. So my dad decided to drop me to school, which he hardly did, on the condition if we happen to miss the school bus. But that day as I was not very keen on going to school since my brother stayed back, my dad decided to drop me to school.

He took me to school and dropped me at the gate. As soon as I reached the gate I thought that I had no other way than to attend the classes as soon as the prison gates close. Suddenly I hit upon an idea… I bid goodbye to dad and just waited outside the gate watching other students coming with a smiling face. I was wondering how could they be so happy to attend classes. For me the junior school days were like living in the château (Like Edmund Dantes in The Count of Monte Christo). For me it was nothing less than a prison where we prisoners are being brought for punishment. Each student must have committed a crime and paying the price for it. Well many of us might be bright and sincere students, and I anyhow do not fall under that category, will refuse to agree with me.

I was just waiting for the bell to ring and students would be busy rushing to the classrooms and I would make my way out of those scary huge gates of the château. I was still standing outside the main gate and was anxiously waiting for my freedom bell to ring and I will make my way out. I had the feeling that the guy had forgot to ring the bell or may have delayed it especially today. Well finally after a long patience wait the freedom bell rang and latecomers ran to their respective classrooms to keep their bags and rush for the assembly outside. Well for me the bell was the freedom bell. I ran as fast as I could with the heavy bag like a daily wage labourer who carries it as fast as he can so that he could pick up more bags to earn more money within less time. Well for me it was not less heavy than the bag for the wage earner. I closed my eyes and ran towards the road and knocked down the watchman, who was coming from the opposite direction and made way towards the open sky and green field. Well the story does not end here. Still had the story of my three kilometers journey way back home and innumerable thoughts.

I had many doubts arising in my mind, which I now think were so silly. I was thinking what am I going to answer my parents and it would be a slur on me as my brother had never ran away from school. What would happen if they do not allow me to attend classes anymore? What if my friends make a mockery out of this whole incident? And many more…