The first time I ever touched a mobile phone was my friend's at my college hostel. Those were times when incoming calls were being charged; I paid him every time my mother called me on his phone. The phone was big, in fact huge it almost resembled a telephone, I don’t remember the model or the 'make' though.
I almost bought a phone when I was leaving college, a Panasonic, I don’t remember the model, and it had a -then happening- metal finish. It wasn't huge, but was still big. I was convinced I needed a phone, my mom wasn't.
It was one and half years after I had left college when I had my first mobile phone. After months of pestering, my brother brought me a used Ericsson c45, with a bright yellow display. Though basic, the phone had a hands-free kit, so it didn't heat my ears because the phone almost always started burning after only a few minutes of talking.
I used it until my girlfriend wanted a phone; I gifted the used, used phone to her and survived on fixed lines for a few months. I parted ways with her in less than 6 months.
I bought my first phone in May 2005, it was a Nokia 2600 my first color display phone, it lasted a good month because my brother wanted it. I exchanged it for his 2 year old -I don’t know what model- Nokia phone. It only had a B/w display with the keys already worn out. It worked fine but only till I dropped the phone in the Bay of Bengal. While playing with my friends on the East coast road at a Beach, my phone fell in to the salty sea waters. The next two months I could only call numbers that were already stored on the phone and pick calls. Soon the phone went dead.
In the mean while, I also bought a Sony Ericsson j200i for my recently graduated sister, she was going to her first job.
I bought my second phone, a Nokia 2300, I bought it because I had long hours of travel and it had a FM receiver in built. For almost 6 months it served me and served me good. I absent mindedly left the phone on the road after a small accident , while on my way to a marriage. I never saw the phone again.
My sister started to have problems with her Sony Ericsson; the battery was draining way too soon.
I used my friend's old, old phone for a few months before it went dead as well. I got a new Motorola W220, a simple flip phone with only a FM receiver being its big feature.
In six months I met with an accident, my vehicle tripped over a boulder, I saw in vain as my phone slowly flew out of my shirt pocket. The rain didn’t deter me from searching for the parts and when I reassembled them, the back cover of the phone was missing.
My sister's phone went dead.
I bought a phone last week a Motorola with almost all features, it was for my brother.
He called me up yesterday; the phone had gone dead. Shit.
Hail Mary
Maha was seven, when her mom had left her dad and their children, unhappy with her husband. She was 16 when her dad married again, this time someone young enough to be her sister. She was 17 when she was pulled out of school and was married off to her step mother's brother, fifteen years her senior. She was 27 when she saw her mother again. She is now a mother of 2 children, the daughter has just started college and the son is in a middle school.
Today the doctors had told her only physiotherapy would help her husband anymore, she was crying.
When she had started to talk I tried searching for words, with not much getting my way, all I did was to look at her, until she finished and leaned on to a cot sobbing.
I must have spoken to her twice before when I had seen her with my mom, probably thrice but not more than that, I was surprised she was crying to me today, this was different, very different from any other pair of eyes that ever cried with me; for one thing she is 35 years old.
I met Maha at a hospital; her husband was in the intensive care after an accident at his workplace, a gas station. I had seen her husband in his bed before, old, tired and gaunt he is everything he should not be. The accident had ruptured his spine and left his legs and hands immobile for now although the doctors have assured better days.
In the one month I saw her at the hospital, her mom was her only constant visitor; her husband's four brothers were at the hospital for a whole five minutes once and her family never came not even her father.
Maha works as an accountant in some small company that pays her Rs.5000 pm, that’s of course as much your high school education can give you in a bustling metro. For now she travels 45 kms every day from the hospital to her workplace and back while her mother takes care of her husband during the day. Her mother also takes care of her children during the nights but she is keen on leaving home.
Though sober most of the time, I have also seen Maha laugh, she is always happy with her children around. The two children visit during the weekends, the younger one is too small to understand much, he spends most of his time playing on his mother’s mobile phone and the daughter is older but can only helplessly sit beside her mother holding her hands.
Today the doctors had told her only physiotherapy would help her husband anymore, she was crying and not just for her husband. Now that he would be discharged, Maha is scared to leave the hospital because when she does, she would have two children to feed, an immobile husband to take care of, a day job that doesn’t pay much, an almost empty bank account and no one to cry to.
She leaned on to a cot sobbing.
It was abrupt when she left as the physiotherapist was attending to her husband, I was relieved, not because she left but because the physiotherapist is actually funny to be with.
That night when I left the hospital at around 10.00 pm, I saw her kneeling in front of a wooden bench with her eyes closed. She was clutching firmly to a copy of the Bible in front of the bench on which a figurine of Virgin Mary holding infant Jesus stood still.
Today the doctors had told her only physiotherapy would help her husband anymore, she was crying.
When she had started to talk I tried searching for words, with not much getting my way, all I did was to look at her, until she finished and leaned on to a cot sobbing.
I must have spoken to her twice before when I had seen her with my mom, probably thrice but not more than that, I was surprised she was crying to me today, this was different, very different from any other pair of eyes that ever cried with me; for one thing she is 35 years old.
I met Maha at a hospital; her husband was in the intensive care after an accident at his workplace, a gas station. I had seen her husband in his bed before, old, tired and gaunt he is everything he should not be. The accident had ruptured his spine and left his legs and hands immobile for now although the doctors have assured better days.
In the one month I saw her at the hospital, her mom was her only constant visitor; her husband's four brothers were at the hospital for a whole five minutes once and her family never came not even her father.
Maha works as an accountant in some small company that pays her Rs.5000 pm, that’s of course as much your high school education can give you in a bustling metro. For now she travels 45 kms every day from the hospital to her workplace and back while her mother takes care of her husband during the day. Her mother also takes care of her children during the nights but she is keen on leaving home.
Though sober most of the time, I have also seen Maha laugh, she is always happy with her children around. The two children visit during the weekends, the younger one is too small to understand much, he spends most of his time playing on his mother’s mobile phone and the daughter is older but can only helplessly sit beside her mother holding her hands.
Today the doctors had told her only physiotherapy would help her husband anymore, she was crying and not just for her husband. Now that he would be discharged, Maha is scared to leave the hospital because when she does, she would have two children to feed, an immobile husband to take care of, a day job that doesn’t pay much, an almost empty bank account and no one to cry to.
She leaned on to a cot sobbing.
It was abrupt when she left as the physiotherapist was attending to her husband, I was relieved, not because she left but because the physiotherapist is actually funny to be with.
That night when I left the hospital at around 10.00 pm, I saw her kneeling in front of a wooden bench with her eyes closed. She was clutching firmly to a copy of the Bible in front of the bench on which a figurine of Virgin Mary holding infant Jesus stood still.
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