Vintage Keys

Today, we live in a world where mobile phones have become ubiquitous, so much so that the absence of a ringtone or a message tone around you is very conspicuous. Not only that, it has also become common to associate the social and economical status of an unassuming person with what kind of a phone he possesses.

I didn't have a phone till I completed my high school. It was a common belief among the circle of grey haired people that usage of mobile phones during your school life would badly affect your performance in exams, forget all the benefits it might have. And so, it was only after all my exams could I even talk about getting myself a brand new phone. The proposed budget was quite a good sum making me dream of a pretty good touch screen phone with Android OS. But, it was only later during the conversation inside the mobile phone shop I realised that my father's debating skills were much better than what I had imagined. No, it was not with the shopkeeper; it was with me.

Touch screen -Not needed.

Camera - Why would you need one when you have a good Canon camera?

Mp3 player - As if you are a music buff.

Android, at least? I had nailed it. Found the question he couldn't counter. “Why do you want an Android powered phone?”, asked Mr.Father. Now was my chance to convince him and I replied at length,“There are these Android apps in Android phones which actually make your life a lot easier to live. And, you know, I could even start developing applications for Android which could get me good placements!”. Oops. I had made the wrong reference. Anything related to academics, sealing my future or such vague and unconvincing statements would obviously result in the opponent's victory. I knew it and so did he. It was then simple for him to pull out the how-many-marks-did-you-score-in-your-board-exam argument and demolish the whole conversation.

During those few seconds when I was completely hazed by his words, I was actually hypnotised into believing that the reason I needed a phone was just to text and call people and nothing else. And when I came out of the trance, I was staring at a Nokia 1280 in my hands with careful advice as to how I should handle the newly purchased piece of stone. It was a colour phone, al right. The problem being it had just two colours – black and white. I knew then that a bleak future awaited me.

Here is what I faced : Once during a visit to Chatram, the busy market in Trichy where you get almost everything, a poor old woman asked me for alms. Instinctively, I let my hands inside one of my pockets to reach for my wallet but found my new Nokia 1280 phone instead . I took it out. Then let my hand inside the other pocket to reach for my wallet when I actually saw the old woman grinning at me in a very sarcastic manner which I personally disapproved of. She was actually fiddling with and showing off her new colour phone with more features than mine. She walked away without receiving any alms. “May God get you a better phone, son”, I almost heard that.

Well, father had a reason why he got me this phone. I needn't take care of the phone. It certainly doesn't break. It simple disintegrates into three parts every time it falls down thereby removing any fright of actually breaking the phone. I certainly needn't live under the fear of the phone getting lost because no one is going to steal a small black unattractive piece of electronic toy. Being made of concrete, the keys are pretty hard and durable Sometimes, during random spurts of anger, it also doubles up as a potential weapon. There is a section of society which still believe that David actually used this phone and not a pebble when fighting against Goliath. Yes, it is a bit archaic but it performs the two basic functions which any phone should perform - call and text, quite well. It is a mobile phone in its rawest form. But that is probably just what I need.