This title comes from the very popular song from Bharateeyudu and a very awesome composition from musical god. Just this morning, i was happy to see one GHMC sweeper lady pulling out mobile from her saree pallu and answering the call. My happiness was short lived as it was not the smile but the wrinkle on the face and worry that caught my attention when she received the call. I did not want to imagine that there is some problem with her life as too much empathy all the time can be extremely killing especially on a Sunday morning. Instead i kept thinking again about Graham bell invention and how that is next only to the breath we take in life.
Just went little down the memory lane when the mohan and ravi photo studio (prestigious) in koti , Hyderabad had the dummy telephone and it was a great kick and pleasure to hold them , pretend to talk and get the photo taken. Telephone in 70’s was like what BMW is now and probably BMW is more easily gettable for many these days. In our entire class of about 300 students ( all sections included) there was just one phone at home. One had to take a permission to call from home to school. It was mandatory for parents to come however rich or famous they may be. The people who had the key for any telephone in any office were the most powerful guys. Or else one had to go to post offices to make a call or trunk call ( do we remember this) . The postman would act like one very powerful person there and we obviously had to wait till he finished his work. Then one day, i walked up to one sweet cum chat place called Agra in Koti and took money of about 2 rupees( could watch movie easily in so much money those days in 1978) and went and called my dad to his office. His first reaction was why did i call and second reaction was.. put down the phone and don’t waste the money.
Then one or two people would have phone connections in the entire colony and the waiting for the connection of phone was like 7 years and needed central minister recommendation for emergency lines. Oops... can’t believe. Public phones came only during late 80’s and became rampant in early 90’s. It was not an in thing to share the phone numbers also. It was a huge effort to go on cycle for 2 kilometres and choose some shop which will allow making calls for huge expenditure if we had to talk to any of our girl class mates. We could not talk for more than 5 minutes as we were not allowed to and the cost also was high. I can’t forget the time in 1984 when there was some curfew and my brother was stuck in a hotel as he was working over there. We had to go to my friend’s place, explain the situation and with great difficulty, were allowed to talk to my brother. It was a huge favour of the month for us.
The coming of the public booths was a big revolution and privacy found a new meaning, communication saw a new dimension, and employment opportunities, business opportunities came about. We can keep talking so much about what that happened after the coming of public booths.. STD calls became cheaper and slowly written communication started taking a beating. Then came the pager, around 1993-95 and it died the fastest death among all technologies because of the shortest gap between pager and cellular phone launch. By then cordless phones and slick phones became the trend.
The charges for incoming discouraged people from buying cell phones and the coming of reliance revolution and free incoming just threw open the technology to the winds. And the changes kept happening every month and in every service provider. Now the changes happen by the hour and cell phone is no more a communication device but is a life style and most dependable companion for multiple and varied needs. Applications, i phones, BBM’s , Androids, 3 G’s etc etc has seeped into the cultural context and psyche’s of human beings.
For the generation born in the late 60’s and early 70’s, we will never stop wondering about this graham bell invention which is the key for so much more allied and far fetching technological revolutions in the world. IF someone does not the device, service,.affordability will be the last of the reasons for that. It will either be having a choice not to have it or too important a person that he or she can afford not to have it. For grusha’s sake, don’t want to get into gyan or sentimentality or cynicism but most often, i don’t see people enjoying talking on the phone.. There is a tension or a fight or a deal or a miss.. This can’t happen. Technology is respected when its put to positive use only. Fight in person and not on mobile. Sms positive things and settle scores when we meet. Even the bad and good news with little effort can be said in person. Let me at least have the wishful thinking.
Thanks sweeper lady for provoking me with so much of thinking. And yes, we should all laugh like the telephone dhwani mentioned in that song from bharateeyudu.. inanimate can have such dhwani and why not us??? ha ha ha
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