DSC_0002

( RIP: 2004- 2009)

Good Bye my love

You have been with me right from my college days, to my first job (then second,then third…),right upto my present stage of unemployment.We changed companies,homes,cities and men.

As a friend once said “It’s not a phone-it’s a bundle of emotions”

I have to admit that it was not love at first sight.You see, I lost my first phone at a pub in Delhi (which was a gift from Deuta),and with my meagre pocket money, I could just afford you – the cheapest one available.You were supposed to be a temporary arrangement, till I got some money and buy a shiny sleeker model.Aah, the follies of youth.You fought your way into my life,till there came a day when even with my first paycheck,it never occured to me that I must get you exchanged.

How could I?

You coolly bore the brunt of my anger, my carelessness . The number of times I must have flung you across the room and you came apart  -only to be back in action within minutes.An ex remarked that with all that practice, he can now  assemble a nokia phone in 10 seconds-blindfolded.Or when I held you in the nook of my shoulder,riding my scooty, making the nth plan for the saturday evening, and out you popped when I sped over a speed breaker.At one particular rush of anger I threw you out of the window.The screen broke,of course.But guess what.We still could hear your ring from the ledge.

And of course the ever changing contact list.Between then and now,the contact list has almost gone a total over haul.Only family and a handful of others are the constant in the list.(Is that good or bad?) Numbers which were once on the speed dial,now donot even occur on the list.Speed Dial No.3 in the last city was not even a guy I dated- it belonged to a friend much more precious to me.The kind of friend who finishes your sentence for you, the kind who knows exactly when you will get drunk, and when you can’t, puts his finger in your mouth so that you can throw up and stop feeling sick.(Was too much info than required?) And now we are not in touch.Me and that friend.Funny,eh?

People laughed at you.Outdated ,old model and cheap- that’s how they smirked at you.Ha.Little did they know.With their fancy gizmos, I can bet they didn’t get as many dates as we both did.Oh the joy of typing in a new number,of not quite getting his name ,thanks to the loud music and my inebriated state, and then storing it as ‘zero g’, ‘f’pani’ ,’taika’   ,depending on the place..  .And days later trying to figure out who on earth is  ‘P Haze’. The stupidity of going through the whole social ritual of storing numbers of people you just met (‘Oh we MUST catch up someday for drinks’)  as ‘x’,'y’,'z’ and deleting it after a week.Of saving frequently dialled names with an A so that it comes first in the list and you dont have to keep fiddling with the buttons.And then changing the name that succeeded that A.

Now I don’t take numbers.and no one asks for mine either.I have trimmed the contact list to the bare minimum.

There was no fear of losing you- even auto drivers carried better models

My sweet loving phone cum torch cum alarm clock cum calculator cum…well thats all about it.You were definitely not a James Bong gizmo – you didn’t come loaded with music,games or camera (ha).But then you had the ever handy torch on you.Helped in in tough spots like getting stuck in a lift.

DSC_0004 The screen saver which was quite a conversation starter.

Got that screen saver from a hot Palestinian guy in campus.Took it only because he was hot.of course. And in case you are wondering what’s written in Arabic, it is Bin Laden.I swapped this with a friend for his rather funny one of a deflated penis. Well it seemed funny then. Yes, we were a pretty cultural and intellectual  lot that way.

I shall miss you.But getting the damn batteries changed is going to cost as much as a new replacement.You have done your job mate. You have done it real well.

psst . It helped that I am pretty cheap to splurge on better phones.