CELLULAR Circus!!

Excuse me for a sec; I have got to take this!” Have you heard it all too often, as if the person’s life depended on it? Cellular phones have taken over the world! In Tokyo, there are two mobile connections per person! Can you imagine that? What could be a logical explanation for this unhealthy gadget fetish? True, we live in an age of modern technology, and cell phones make work easier, communication more efficient, and distances smaller. How many people do you know, who have a cell phone, but actually, reeeeeeaaaalllly need it? Not the kind of person to NOT give credit where it’s due, I would like to congratulate the service providers and phone manufacturers for creating such ludicrous desire for this wireless piece of wonder! Everybody wants one, or should I say, everyone owns one, not many need one.
If I were to summarize the utility of a cellular phone, a few pertinent queries would arise.
I can understand that it is, to an elite few, a very helpful device as far as business is concerned. But were not businesses run before the mobile phone was created? Didn’t we have the Ambani’s and the Tata’s back then?
Also, it comes in handy at emergencies. Or does it? Take for example the Mumbai 26/7 deluge or the 11/7 train blasts. Almost all services, barring a few were defunct, chiefly due to the heavy call traffic.

It is nice to gift your mother a phone, as you may probably be the only person she will call. What will ensue? Instead of wishing her or your relative a very happy anything, you shall just send a message, and that shall be the end of it. Has the mobile been connecting people or helping in disconnecting them?

A few years back, if a person was seen with a wireless phone resembling a walkie talkie, people instantly recognized him as a very rich or well to do person. The mobile, sadly has lost its entire ‘status symbol’ quotient!

The basic function of a mobile phone is to make and receive calls. An online dictionary defines it as ‘any wireless telephone that operates over a relatively large area, as a cellular phone or PCS phone’ which is why it’s called a mobile/cellular phone. It was not an instrument to click high resolution photos with, or a radio, or even a plaything, to begin with. Thanks to all those budding geniuses and mba’s at manufacturing units, we have phones to send e-mails with, phones to keep us out of the office, and phones that double up as entertainment devices. I, for one, would not love watching football on a mobile phone, and hate it when people come to parties, but either get lost in their cellular world or start sharing data, effectively ruining any chances of human communication.

There are talks of brain damage due to excessive use of cell phones, which are not definite yet, but are a cause of concern.

Making life easier, aiding in effective and continuous dialogue, being fun, when sensibly priced are the pros of a mobile phone, one’s which I enjoy. It’s when the desire exceeds the need, do I start getting jittery. In my view, it is always better to buy a personal computer, which I feel shall be more useful than buying a 3 mega pixel, 8 gb extendable, Bluetooth enabled mobile phone, which shall be out of vogue before you can say A I K O N!

I also have a great storyline for script writers. Mobiles suddenly become intelligent and start taking over the earth, until a simple guy, who has not let mobiles rule his life, saves the world! Although, I don’t think that they have to take over the world, they already have!
Kartik ..