Life has fallen into a slower tune after the tiring exams which haunted me for an extra couple of days after all my papers were over. Floating in the low tide of things, or rather being jobless for sometime, made me categorize all my belongings into –Things I like and Things I really need.
My piles of handkerchiefs, books, my pair of black slippers, my water bottle all went to the second category, but to my utter amazement most of my things went to an in-between category called- Things I already have but I don’t badly need. My mobile phone, with its number keys worn out with excessive texting, and a thousand scratch marks on its screen, fell into the that lot.
So, when a couple of weeks ago, with a sarcastic snigger Buddika suggested that I buy a new phone I thought I that I didn’t even need the one I am using right now, let alone buying a new one.
I got it many moons ago as a gift from Thaththa for my A/L results and birthday. Initially I was carrying Amma’s phone around when I first started working at an ad agency as an English copywriter. It was teeny weeny thing with a blue flash light devoid of all the funky features a phone is required to have now-a-days. Thaththa, the trend-lover in the family, thought it was highly unfashionable of me to carry around a phone with a black and white display. That is how this phone found me.
But even before that, during the last few of my A/L days I was so used to hijacking my parents’ phones from time to time to text my school friends. There were funny SMSs that were doing the rounds, without stopping from there we used to share homework tips and translations.
Even after I left school, SMSs kept our friendships going. My inbox overflows with messages wishing me long life and happiness for the birthday and Avurudu. But I miss those birthday cards that used to crowd my letter-box. Short messages may be a reassuring sign that even though your friends are not there at a reachable distance, they never forget you. But I, the old-fashioned one, miss the tangibility of their wishes and curves and scratches of their handwriting on a cardboard.
At the same time, I am not the one to complain about the amounting pampering my phone does to me. I surf the net from it, change my ring tones and themes from time to time and go on shooting sprees with the VGA camera it has. Neither have I wished for these things nor do I want anything more.
But, having a mobile at hand means, it can disrupt my writing moods and sometimes drives me insane with rage or laughter in places I should be acting more professional and discreet. At least when I’m at home, I make sure that my peace is not shattered by some nonsense call, by shutting up the sound of the trouble-box.
As I was telling Di, Sum and Shabs the other day, if I ever get to go on a holiday, I want to drag my feet far and away from the maddening world of technology. I want to let myself lose in some eco-village where there are no televisions, radios, and somewhere I know my body is not being penetrated by analogue and digital signals. And most of all, its brochure should read as “Mobile phones are prohibited. If you possess any please dump it into the nearby lake before entering!”
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