With Or Without You (I mean the Cellphone) :-))

Unbelievable isnt it?? But I did experience it. For the first time since the year 2000 (the year I got my first mobile phone) I was "unreachable, uncontactable" (call it what you want) for one whole day. The whole day I had this thing going on in my mind that somebody or the other will call me. If anyone calls he/she will get a recorded message the service is temporarily disconnected and will probably think that I havent paid the bill or something.

But anyways, apart from a couple of close friends and folks from home, I dont think anyone else would have called me!! You know thats the thing about having a cellphone and not having one. When you have it, you get only very few calls and when you dont have it or you have lost it, then you probably end up getting a lot of calls. Its the classic Murphy's Law syndrome. For the non-technically inclined here's the explanation of it. MURPHY's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Another thing is that, the biggest impact of losing one's cell phone is not the fact that one has to pay money and get a new phone, its actually losing the phone numbers, SMSs, calendar entries, reminders, pictures, and many other stuff which affects one more. So in the whole ordeal I was set back by a cool Rs.14 grand!!

Didnt go for anything absolutely top of the line, but its more medium (or probably high-medium) range with 1.3Mp camera, 65k colours, Bluetooth and all other so-called "normal" features. Its actually Nokia 6230i. If you're interested have a look here. I thought it's pretty cool. Later-on my sister actually told me that there's another Nokia phone the 3230 with same 1.3Mp camera which costs just about 1/2 a grand more but with video editing and real-player. But the flip side is that you get only 32Mb memory stick along with that. So, frankly I think its pretty even.

You know, people have this overwhelming urge or compulsion that each time a new phone comes into the market, you try to bargain for an exchange offer and buy the latest phone. The psyche behind it is rather intriguing. Ofcourse I am no Angel and I too fall in the same category. My take on this is as follows.

You buy a new, cool, sexy, phone with "mind-blowing" features. You show it off to your friends and relatives and harp your way to glory about your "new-found" gizmo and cuddle as if it were a "new-born" pet. You take real good care of it and it's the darling of your eye. Pretty soon (read 3-4 months) it no longer remains a "new-born" baby and it is relegated from a pet-toy to "just-another" electronic gadget. You use it for all possible things, to store alarms, to set reminders, to store a list of things to do, to save net-banking passwords etc etc. In about 8-10 months, you are not very concerned if it falls down accidentally or if the colour fades. Now you actually start to abuse the phone rather than use it. :-))

In another 12-14 months you envy people who show you off their newly bought stuff. (They having gone through a similar process with someone else with another phone). And somehow it gets into your head and you start contemplating buying a new one. Further on, after about 14-16 months, you go ahead and exchange your battered, worn-out, abused phone with a brand new pristine stuff for approx the same money you paid to get our old phone.

And the cycle continues....

All this, and you cannot imagine spending a day without punching a key on the cellphone atleast once (if not many more times). Trust me it is hard!! Go ahead if you dont believe me...try it once...and then post a comment on this blog that you proved me wrong. You would've only proved that you are probably not much of a slave of this sojourn electronic gadget...called the Cell-Phone!